# First time Abeka user



## kinderfeld

I was wondering if any of you use the Abeka parents kits. Are the parent kits worth buying? I have been using the K5 child kit since a few weeks ago. This is my first year using a curriculum and didn't buy the parent kit. Now I am wondering what i should do. I taught him so much on my own, but bc I can't get past the thought of not teaching him something I have choose to use the curriculum. Then to make it worse the lack of support in homeschooling only adds to my low self confidence.My son is using the K5 kit and knows about 3/4 of the book work. He is reading most words, he sometimes has confusion between short and long vowel sounds. He has a grasp on addition and subtraction. I thought we would just go through every page in the books, he is so bored with it. Although it does make him very happy that he knows all of the answers. Sometimes he will sit at the table and do his work and others he stands or jumps, or simply acts goofy . No matter how he acts, he will still learn. I am not sure if I should skip what I've already taught him or continue doing what he already knows? My husband *Kinderfeld* says I'm doing good and should just keep doing whatever it is I'm doing.


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## mommathea

I have younger kids - I've never done the kits. 
My 2nd grader is advanced in school - he's 1st grade age but he was so bored that we started him early. At first where he was a grade ahead I wanted him to do everything and to not skip stuff, BUT he was bored out of his mind and started refusing to do the work. 
He'd sit and stare off into space and flat out refuse to do it. so I'd circle 2-3 of his math problems and tell him that if he got those 2-3 right that he didn't have to do the other similar problems. 
Sometimes with Science/history, and some on Language we'd read it together then we'd do the questions orally. 

I agree with you in how he acts isn't as big of a deal. Little boys we not made to sit still. Think back historically, most children didn't start school till they were 6-7yrs old. They were A LOT more mature when they started their formal learning than kids now. 

My dd is 6 and is doing some K5 stuff, but only math and phonics. And even then it is only a few days a week. If I had tried this with her brother he'd drive everyone crazy out of bordom, but she needs to take it slow.


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## ovsfarm

Relax.

I used to stress about missing something that I "should" have taught also. But I finally, after years of doing homeschool, realized that if it is important either 1) it will come up several more times during the course of our program and I will catch it then, or 2) it is perfectly okay to leave some things for our children to learn later in life, on their own.

As an adult, I still love to learn new things. How sad it would be to have nothing new left to learn. So I came to the realization that I didn't have to teach my daughter everything worth knowing by age 10. I NEED to leave some fun, good, or important things for her to discover and learn on her own in later life.

Your child is still so young. I would say, cover the basics in the most fun ways you can. Follow the Abeka table of contents if you want to make sure you are covering the material for the year, but do it in fun and active ways. The goal is not to be able to check off every single blank of things that you have taught, but have a child who is bored with school. The goal is to have covered most of the material and have a child who loves learning and who gets excited about school.

Some of the silly things we did with K level were to write many of our words and simple math problems in the dirt with a stick and "erase" with a tree branch, play quiz games that involved hopping forward for correct answers and backward for incorrect ones (can also count as PE if you ask enough questions!), making geography maps out of sugar cookie dough so we could eat mountain ranges, of course practice spelling with alphabet soup, play math games with M&Ms or Cheese Its, and dd's favorite - she loved to make up tests for Daddy to take and got a big thrill when he got something wrong or said that the work was so hard.

We used a lot of the Abeka during K - 2, but became rather bored with all the repetition and found other curricula that fit better with our interests and learning style. However, I doubt I ever did do the Abeka 100% according to the book. We always deviated when it suited our purposes better to do so.


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## jamala

I didn't use the ABEKA parent kits at all. I purchased them the first year and found them a huge waste of money. I still purchase abeka for some subjects but we have found curriculum that my children enjoy more. Abeka is somewhat boring to lots of kids I know including mine. My youngest is 5 and his favorite "school book" is the "BIG book of kinder. " I got it a Michaels for $9 and he LOVES to do schoolwork now. His abeka kit just sits on the table.


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## kinderfeld

Before he turned 4 we started working on Kindergarten Brain quest book i bought at a local book store. I used that plus a typical course of study gudline on a website i found. It seemed to work but I was still afraid i left something out. I had forgotten about boys needing hands on learning. I was never around children growing up and now that i am a parent i'm only around my 2little boys a 5 yo and 1 yo. 

I have read other threads and noticed most homeschooling parents don't use just one curriculum. Is this less stressful? I would assume that you just tailor to the childs best learning style. I think this is what my husband and I are going to do, especially since our 1 yo is showing signs of being just as smart if not smarter than our 5yo. So it is best I learn now.


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## mekasmom

I only bought student textbooks in any curriculum all through school years. I didn't buy any full kits be it student or parent.


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## ovsfarm

I mix and match curricula based on our needs at a given time. For example, when we started, I was new and needed lots of hand holding and dd was learning basic skills such as number and letter recognition, so we used Abeka. After a couple of years, I felt more confident and dd was starting to perceive all the repetition as a punishment rather than practice. So we switched to other materials. I think we used Rod and Staff English for several years, Math U See from third grade until 7th, Tapestry of Grace for history for 3rd through 7th, etc. 

We changed things throughout as needed. For example, by 4th grade it was clear that the spelling program we were using was NOT working. So that Christmas I ordered a new program and we went back to the very beginning. We were able to buckle down and cover grades 1 - 3 spelling the second half of 4th grade and then did 4th grade spelling the first half of our 5th grade year and 5th grade spelling the second half. That, IMO, is the beauty of homeschooling - the flexibility to determine if something isn't working and the luxury of being able to do whatever it takes to fix it. Dd is now an adequate speller, if not a wonderful one. But if we had stayed with the old program, there would have been lots of weeping and wailing and little learning and she would now be a terrible speller and a poorer student to boot.

Regarding stress, it will be there for any caring parent. But it does ease over time as you gain confidence. Just be careful not to get caught in two traps. First, the trap of comparison. Keep in mind the saying, "comparison is the death of contentment". It doesn't matter if Mrs. Smith's little boy Johnny, who is the same age as your child, is doing nuclear physics in the basement, just aced the National Latin Exam, and has received letters of early admission (as a 7yo) to all the Ivy League schools. As long as you and your child are happy and making good progress, it really doesn't matter one bit how Johnny Smith is doing. (BTW, he was unable to attend college in spite of the invites, due to having had a nervous break down at age 12.)

The second trap is that of overly catering to your child. If he doesn't like to do language arts and is all about science, all the time, too bad. He still needs to learn how to read well and how to write a decent sentence. He may never be great at those subjects, but he does need to be functional. So don't let a desire to preserve his love of learning mislead you into exempting him from some very important basic life skills.

You will do him no favors by letting him become the center of his own and your universe. Because the rest of the world will not treat him as such. Under ideal circumstances, our children spend 25% of their lives as children (under 20) and the remaining 75% as adults. By catering to their every whim in the first quarter of their lives, we practically guarantee that they will be miserable during the remaining three quarters. However, if we parents allow some fun during childhood, but also expect some discomfort, the learning of some of life's more unpleasant lessons, then our children will be much better able to deal with adult life, better able to hold down jobs, keep spouses, be good parents to our grandchildren, etc. Young spoiled brats grow up to be bitter, disappointed adults, constantly seeking to regain their position as center of the universe, at the expense of everyone around them. Be sure to include character issues such as sacrifice, delayed gratification, dependability, ability to accept authority, integrity, decency, etc. as part of your homeschooling. HTH!


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## jamala

My first 2 years homeschooling I only used ABEKA and Saxon. It is a little confusing to use lots of different curr. but after about a week it gets easy, not stressful at all. I have each child a rolling 4 drawer cart, even the 5 year old. Top drawer is pencils, paperclips, pens, crayons, calculator. Next one is their devotion books/journals/ folders for tests etc. . 3rd is notebooks and 4th is school books. Shop around and find what works for each subject and just go with it. Take your time and it will work.


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## Becka

We used A Beka for the first two years of homeschool, then I got brave and branched out and tried other things. For the lower grades you really don't need the parent kit.


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## kinderfeld

> I have each child a rolling 4 drawer cart, even the 5 year old. Top drawer is pencils, paperclips, pens, crayons, calculator. Next one is their devotion books/journals/ folders for tests etc. . 3rd is notebooks and 4th is school books.


Thanks a bunch for the orginization advice. I am so horrible with that. 


> We used a lot of the Abeka during K - 2, but became rather bored with all the repetition and found other curricula that fit better with our interests and learning style.


I was told the Abeka is used by several private schools, since it is made by their university for their private school. This is one of the reasons i wanted it. I never thought about the repitition or the "begining" of school refresher most public and private school students need. I am going to homeschool year round. The refresher would not be needed. The past few days, thanks from the advice of many of you, I have been looking into actual homeshool oriented curriculum providers.


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## bourbonred

Abeka is an awesome curriculum...but it takes no prisoners! If you plan to use the tests, then you need to plan to do the drills and the teaching on every subject every day. The tests are murder. First graders in Abeka are already taking several tests every week. As the kids get older, the tests are often not over the chapter studied but from the beginning of the book to the current chapter. Now, if the kids are getting continual teaching and drills and review, it's a great system. Most of us don't want to do school at home. We homeschool, it's a different approach. It often allows the kids to learn at their own pace and as they get older they are reading and learning independantly. We used a lot of abeka materials, but did not use the testing and did very well.


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