Summaries and Customer Reviews are supplied by Amazon.com
Summary:
The key to successful home education, homeschool veterans will tell you, is determining your educational philosophy and marrying it to your child’s learning style. Then you can make an informed decision in choosing the right educational curriculum for the child. This is the formula for success.
In 100 Top Picks for Homeschool Curriculum, homeschool guru Cathy Duffy can help you accomplish these critical tasks. Cathy will give you her top choices from every subject area, approaching everything through a Christian worldview perspective. This book is a critical volume for the homeschooling community.
Customer Reviews:
Average Customer Rating:
homeschoolreview.com
Customer Rating:
I didn't actually buy this book, I checked it out at my library. First, let me say that I like to read reviews on homeschool curriculum and books. So, I was going to be entertained no matter what. =) I knew that I was getting this Cathy Duffy's opinions and only her opinions. It still helped to get her insight. Something she liked or didn't like about something at the very least made me a bit more aware of what to expect from the material. I am a Christian so the fact that she had a Christian perspective didn't bother me. However, I do not buy only Christian materials. Plus, I teach my children about evoltuion and creatiionism. I feel it is important to be knowledgable about all kinds of topics and concepts. I also teach my children about various religions, cultures and so forth. I wish that I would have found a book to read that was more inclusive. But again, I knew what what I was getting, I had read the reviews prior to checking it out. I only gave this book 2 stars because I would never buy this book and I have since found the website homeschoolreview which has tons of various people's reviews on all kinds of materials. It is free, very handy, tons of materials are listed (religious and secular), you can review material and read what others have said as well.
Must have for 1st timers!
Customer Rating:
This book is very valuable. I am homeschooling for the 1st time and was simply overwhelmed by the many many choices of curicula. I ordered this book and it took about 3 months to work through it. It is not only a top pick book but also a workbook for figuring out your own teaching style and your child's learning style. I went to my first convention already knowing what I was looking for and would have been lost had I not read this book first. I recommend it highly!
Good IF you are looking for fundamentalist Christian choices
Customer Rating:
This would be a great book if only she had offered some secular choices. The book was well organized. I love the intro on learning styles and there's a great chart that summarizes all her choices (although I wish she had indicated age appropriateness).
I am Christian, but this book was definitely written for fundamentalist Christian homeschoolers. I am a first time homeschooler and the book was useful in selecting the subjects that are more secular by nature - like reading & math. And while I like her Charlotte Mason approach to science and history, I was dissapointed with the lack of non-Creationist choices. If you are looking for Creationist choices, this would be good. If you are looking for secular science and history, this book is not for you.
book with an agenda
Customer Rating:
I was looking forward to this book but early on came across such statements as:
1. (In schools) "they learn that all gods are created equal and that it is intolerant to expect others to accept your beliefs about God". 2. "Evolutionary theory is shaky at best." 3. "For example, I agree with most of the California goals or standards for third grade mathematics, but I do not agree that children at this age need to be learning probability and graphing."
Since I read these all early on it made everything else that came after that extremely suspect. The reviews were *very* skewed towards a fundamentalist Christian viewpoint.
Completely incompatible with anyone homeschooling primarily for academic reasons but I can see it being a good resource for someone homeschooling for primarily religious (Christian) reasons.
BTW - this would have gotten a much better review if it had a more descriptive title such as "100 Top picks for Homeschool curriculum for the the *Christian* Homeschooler". Unfortunately it's a bait and switch because you don't find out until you open it that it's written from such a skewed, one sided perspective. Theoretically it could have some good info and reviews in it, however I found myself just completely unable to trust the source in anything (especially subjects like science, math, world history etc.) after the early remarks.
kindle edition review
Customer Rating:
I've wanted to get this book for a long time. I don't have anything new to add to the other reviews, except for this: don't buy this in the Kindle edition. The charts are very difficult to use because they span two pages (so, since the Kindle shows only one page at a time, you can't tell which product the lines on the second page refer to) and are printed in very faint "ink". The charts refer to the page number where you can find the entire review for each product, which is useless when dealing with Kindle "locations" rather than actual pages. Very frustrated with this product. May have to buy the print version as well.
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