Homeschool 4th Grade Curriculum Questions...

[mrs.b]

I'm not mad at the comment! I came here to ask because I respect your opinions; many of you have already done what we're just starting. The thing is, he needs structure - he thrives with it, and flounders without it - so until my husband and I know what we're doing and have a comfort level ourselves, I do not want to try piecing something together ourselves. We've seen what came home from school, but are not privy to what was actually done there to try to replicate something on our own. He needs a structured delivery method because that's one of his "deals," and while we hope to be able to go a bit more freeform in future years, for this first one as we transition him out of the traditional school setting, we do not want our uncertainty to put him in a little tailspin. Change must be very deliberate, planned, and intentional with him; it is a characteristic of many Autistic kids, and definitely a huge consideration with him. It's one of the things that he has a hard time with in the traditional school setting - as structured as their delivery supposedly is, minor "things" such as the teacher being sick and having a substitute would put him in pause for the whole day as he worried if his teacher was okay and floundered with how the one-day teacher handles things slightly different.

I said all that to say...I do sincerely hope his learning style changes as time goes on, because we have seen quite a few different suggestions and options we would love to explore in time, that we think would be very good for him. For now, though, we must walk him through the change from traditional classroom to homeschool in small, incremental steps, and we do not want our own uncertainty and lack of familiarity (or general time constraints) to create chaos and distraction for him. Our best bet, we think, is a structured, detailed, planned out curriculum. We'll branch out from there as his (and our) comfort levels increase.

collegebyclep - I'll take a look at Tapestry of Grace - thank you for the suggestion! A Beka at these lower grades looked perfect at first glance - I love how the flow from vocabulary to spelling to grammar to reading is fairly seamless - but many of the reading and text selections were so... I don't know. Flipping through the books and subject materials, the way they drop scripture in without transition or warning was just overwhelming and a bit strange. It triggered our mental brakes, so I know he'd get distracted by it and miss the purpose of the grammatical message. We knew we were buying a Christian curriculum and were okay with that, but goodness!

Looking for more ideas, too, if anyone has additional suggestions. Until we get our feet wet, and get him transitioned and a bit more open to flipping the script from formal and traditional learning, something LIKE A Beka but with less brain-screeching scripture tossing is ideal (with curriculum lesson plans available for Mama and Papa until we get more cozy with putting together our own).