Sigh. Just writing the title of this post annoys me. I bought these perfectly nice pieces of curriculum and they just didn’t work for us. It totally irks me that I spent the money on things we didn’t use, but at least I’m not alone :).
CHC – Who Am I? levels A & B.
This is a great intro catechism for children ages 3-5. There is a workbook with activities for each age as well as a craft.
Why it didn’t work for us:
There was a lot of discussion about lofty topics and I’m completely unable to just talk about I without the teachers manual which makes it impossibly dry for my daughter. Neither of us liked how it worked in practice, though the topics were great. Not sure how to make it work for us, so I just called it a loss. Moving on…
CHC – I Can Find Numbers and Shapes and I Can Find Letter Sounds
These are little workbooks to introduce numbers 1-10 and shapes and letters, respectively. They have a large easy to color picture along with the number or letter. Then there is a spot for gluing items cut out of magazines that match the spread.
Why it didn’t work for us:
My daughter knew all of her letters and most of her numbers well before she mastered cutting & gluing. And she HATED to color at that age. While it has a godly statement at the top, there isn’t much Catholic about it and now that she likes all those things, the book is just a really expensive coloring & activity book.
First of all, for a homeschooler, it was cheaper to buy 2 subscriptions per grade than a single. $24.95 a year or $9.95 each for two. The preschool weekly reader had about 50 words in it and a worksheet on the back that seemed to be harder than the content inside.
The teachers guide had a little poem, suggested story & discussion information and an extra worksheet. In a classroom, you could probably stretch it to a 30 minute activity. At home? Five, ten minutes max. And there isn’t enough there to make them interesting to read again. It might be good for a 2-3 year old but my 3.5-4 year old was bored to tears. The topics were seasonally appropriate and there was little that was objectionable (for me that usually involves recycling & global warming) :).
The rest of last year’s curriculum we just didn’t get into a groove with or we are going to use this year.
[…] can see our other preschool year curriculum here. And what didn’t work for us in preschool […]