How we use ABEKA Homeschool Curriculum//Adjustments to make it work for us

a becca is a lot i think that's something that is very commonly heard i think when you hear about the a becca curriculum a lot of people kind of shy away from it or think like oh it's too much it's too book heavy too many worksheets too much seat work too much busy work um but a becca is something that we have used in our family since our feed at the beginning of our homeschool journey we are in our third year of homeschooling and we have found a way to make a becca work for us so in this video i want to share our history with rebecca and how we tweak it to make it work for our family so our history with rebecca goes way back it goes back to when i was actually in school in elementary school i went to a school that used to becca and i used it from my kindergarten year all the way to my eighth grade year so i was very familiar with the company and when we started homeschooling it was one of the first places that i went and i looked and i researched as far as would this also work for my boys and so when we started homeschooling three years ago we used a becca for all of our subjects for all three of the boys um except for handwriting i've always used handwriting without tears for handwriting we really enjoy that handwriting curriculum so i never used a becca handwriting that from the beginning we used handwriting without tears but for all other subjects the first year we did use a becca um since then our second year and now our third year that we are in right now a becca has stayed as part of our home school but it's definitely not been um used for every single subject so i wanted to share kind of how we're using it currently and how we make it work for us so currently how we're using a becca is we're using it mostly for language arts so starting especially in fourth grade um i like to use other curriculums for math for science for history and if you've seen our curriculum choices you'll notice that that mostly becca is used just for our language arts the reason for that is i believe rebecca's strength and our opinion in my opinion is its grammar um i think the grammar and the writing especially grammar i think is very strong speaking of writing i feel it doesn't have as much writing as i would like which is why i kind of had decided to do a rotating schedule year to year so one year we use a becca for grammar and also add in some writing this year that's spectrum writing and then the next year we'll use essentials in writing um so i'll insert a picture of that so you can see what that looks like which is very heavy on writing and not as much on grammar so it's kind of the opposite of a becca so i feel like last year for example we use essentials in writing and now this year we're using a becca and then next year we'll use essentials in writing the year after that we'll use rebecca and i think overall it gives the boys a really solid um foundation in grammar as well as in writing and composition okay so we use a becca as a guide we don't use it as a script and what that means is we use this curriculum which is a very i think comprehensive curriculum it's really it it's very comprehensive and i think i really enjoy it because of that but we as a parent right as a homeschool parent we are able to tailor the curriculum and the day-to-day work to our child's needs so i do not kind of allow rebecca to kind of tell me every single thing that i have to do every single day instead i use it as a guide and then i modify it to work for my children so some of the ways that we do that is this so the things that we do do right we do do the complete lessons so we follow their lessons inside the book so i'll show you an example this is the language b um book so this is what my fifth grader is using so he will do the lessons that are in the book so he does the lessons every day um and also we do use the test so for language i get the this book and as well as the test so i'll show you that right here so these are the tests and then this is the test answer key but i'll get into the teacher part in a minute so we do use our tests and we do use um the lessons now what we don't do are quizzes so if you look inside the quiz and tests you'll notice that rebecca has tests so for example this is test two here so it has tests but it also has quizzes so for example here's an example of a quiz i think it's a lot i really personally for our family i don't believe they need as much so much honestly i feel like you're doing quizzes like every other day or test if you follow exactly what they do so i have decided that we do not do quizzes we only will do tests now the quizzes i may use them as worksheets so if i feel there's a concept that i want the boys to be able to work a little more on we may use a quiz just as a worksheet but that's one of the changes or the one of the ways that we adjust the curriculum and that we do not do any of their quizzes we only do their tests now for the younger grade as i mentioned apart from language i will also use it for example history and science so this is the history my third grader is using which is biabecca in this case a change that i make is i only buy the textbooks so this is all i bought i bought no teacher materials i bought no tests i didn't buy anything except for this and so what i have done is that within here there are comprehension questions already inside each section so i have created my own kind of tests um that are not as often so in the full year he may have four or five tests for the whole year that i kind of created based on what he studied and he'll take those and then what i have done is gone online and found some free coloring pages for each of the people that are covered here so then he's making his own timeline that kind of goes with this so he gets to color those pages and make a timeline of history that he's that he's studying so that is another way that i have adjusted so for history there are no additional worksheets there's no tests there's no quizzes just those things that i have created for him to go along with the curriculum i've done the same thing for science so for science we only bought the textbook we go through it and then i just find free resources online or makeup activities or we make up experiments to go along and kind of make it more hands-on so what i like to do like i said is use this curriculum as a guide but then tailor it to each of my children's learning styles so if you have a kinesthetic learner a hands-on learner doing every single worksheet in a becca is not going to work it's going to be a lot they're going to get tired they're not going to connect to the concepts so being able to read through the lesson for example with my son and then do a fun hands-on moving activity with him is going to help connect the information much better but again the content is solid i enjoy the content of a becca but i do adjust it to work for my family another thing i wanted to talk about is the teacher component so i do buy the answer keys especially for the older grades so for example this is what i had shared as far as my son's um language for fifth grade so i bought the answer key for the textbook and i bought the answer key for the test here um i did not buy the lesson plans so i have never bought lesson plans for any of them so i don't buy like the box curriculum it's a little more work maybe the piece piece by piece but for me um and for us we rather just get what our children need and what we need and so i think just having the answers is more than enough um for me and so what i'd like to do instead of going with a lesson plan that's kind of like a script and tells you say this and then do this i like to make it more hands-on and more fun and more interactive so i'll look at what lessons are being taught and then i'll look at what what who is who is being taught right my child and his learning style and i'll come up with a way to be able to introduce the lesson in a way that will work for that child so again if you have a kinesthetic learner being able to stand up and sing a song or play a game is a great way to introduce a topic and then after we do that introduction then they can go into their workbook and then complete the work um sheets that are assigned so that is another thing that that we do now if you think the lesson plans um you'd like that additional support then my suggestion is you definitely get them but again have the freedom to read through the lesson plan and introduce it or paraphrase it in a way that kind of makes it your own so you don't need to follow it step by step by step ultimately as a homeschool teacher you have the flexibility not just for rebecca but for any curriculum that you use to tailor it to your child into your home and to your needs so again use the curriculum as a guide make adjustments as needed use it for the subjects that work for you um and not for those maybe that don't like i said in our case we're not using it for many of our other subjects for the older grades because i have found options that work better for us so again i'm not tied to any specific curriculum don't be tied to a specific curriculum allow that freedom to find what works best for your family another example is we don't use it for reading i've never bought a becca's boxed reading curriculum and i recently actually did a video um talking about how we do reading in our home school so again you have the flexibility and the freedom never feel like you need to follow something word for word you know step by step um you have the freedom so the goal is to have your child learn and the goal is to have them grow and for us one of our biggest goals is that our children have a love of learning so it really is going to take making some adjustments um no curriculum is going to be laid out perfectly every curriculum is going to need adjustments so um this may not work for your family a becca is not for everyone and i definitely encourage every single family to do your own research and check what works best for you you know your child best you know your family best and you know what will work well i pray this video was helpful if you have any questions feel free to leave them in the comments below um thank you so much for watching i pray god blesses you and your family and i look forward to talking to you soon

Channel: His Arrows - Our Hands

Views: 2,830

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Id: AK4eHzUmMpQ

Length: 10min 25sec (625 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 01 2020