Dollar Homeschool: Eclectic Education Series

Everything old is new again with Dollar Homeschool's Eclectic Education Series or EES. EES is a collection of textbooks used in the American public schools between the years of 1865-1915. Due to limits of copyright, all of these texts are available for distribution free of charge in various locations. Dollar Homeschool has located and organized them by subject, scanned them and placed the texts on CD.

EES covers every major subject area including, science, math, grammar, history and reading. It includes well known titles like McGuffey's Readers, Ray's Arthimetic, Pinneo's Grammar, Thalheimer's History, and Norton's Science. The CD holds copies of each of the texts spanning basic educational needs for grades K-12. Customers can choose between buying the entire series on CD for $159.00 or individual subjects for $39.00 each. Dollar Homeschool offers FREE shipping on orders and a 30 day money back guarantee.

I received an email download of EES for free in exchange for this review. Since our family only had six weeks to spend with textbooks spanning an entire 12 years of curriculum we choose to focus our time with Harvey's Elementary Grammar and Long's Language Readers. Complete product descriptions, pricing and ordering information can be found at Dollar Homeschool's website, www.dollarhomeschool.com.

I was very resistant at first to make use of Harvey's Elementary Grammar. Not being a huge fan of the subject matter to begin with and being slightly turned off by the dull pages I glanced at with old-fashioned typeset, I had high doubts that information from the "good old days" truly was better than curriculum options of today. I was WRONG!

Charlotte Mason fans take note....Harvey's Grammar is a huge inexpensive resource which will fit idyllically with this educational philosophy. Broken into small simple lessons with intelligent vocabulary each lesson is designed for discussion and narration. For $39.00 customers can have an entire Grammar curriculum for 12 years of education. Wow!

My 2nd grade student, Sierra and I spent several weeks working through the beginning of Harvey's Elementary Grammar. She had never studied Grammar formally before and Harvey's was a perfect fit for her. Sierra has been a late bloomer in the area of language development and still struggles in her writing with letter reversals, fine motor control, verb tense, and spelling. Harvey's Grammar met Sierra's need to advance her conceptual understanding of language without having to constantly face these hurdles which slow her down. I could not have loved a curriculum more!

When asked for her opinion, Sierra enthusiastically replied, "I really liked it (Harvey's Grammar) because it tells you different things you probably don't know. I like some of the words that are in it because they are big words. It seemed easy because I just got to talk through it instead of like having to fill out the answers."

Eclectic Education Series is available only on CD format at this time. I am not a huge fan of e-books, but the value of this curriculum will certainly off set any printing costs incurred at home. The CD is bookmarked making it easy to locate desired texts, print and use in an alternative location from the computer.

Although we have spent six weeks with this massive curriculum I still believe we have much to discover. Dollar Homeschool has created a Yahoo group for discussion for Ray's Arithmetic. A link to the group can be found on their website. In addition, their blog, http://www.dollarhomeschool.com/blog/index.html offers customers articles of interest and helpful links to use while using their curriculum.

Write With the Best, Volume 2

A few years ago I determined I would not rest until I had taught my then 6th grade son something about writing. He had such a fear of the subject that I had let it slide for many years, but enough was enough. I read in a catalog a description of a unique curriculum designed to teach writing fundamentals by having students’ model writing of famous authors and great works of literature. So unique was this approach compared to any other curriculum I had encountered that I knew we had to give it a try. I had read art students usually spend hours copying the works of the great master artists, so it made sense to me that children should learn the art of writing by modeling the works of great authors.

The curriculum was Write With the Best, Volume 1 written by Jill J. Dixon, B.S. Ed., M.Ed. and published by Diagnostic Prescriptive Services. It was so successful in our home, allowing my son to conquer his fear and my then 4th grade daughter discover a new passion for the written word, that I couldn’t wait to use Write With the Best, Volume 2 the following year. For some reason I lost focus on this goal and we never did pick up a copy of Write With The Best, Volume 2 until it arrived in my inbox as an e-book this fall for me to review.

My now 7th grade daughter, Micah remembered instantly the joy she had experienced from our previous year. As we opened the curriculum and began to use it I remembered the beauty of its set up and ease of use. The curriculum is divided into 8 different units designed to be used over 16 weeks of time. Each unit is supplied with lesson plans and instruction for 10 days. Topics studied in Write with the Best, Volume 2 include:

How to write a poem in Free Verse

How to write a business letter

How to take notes

How to write an outline

How to write a summary

How to write a persuasive essay

How to write an expository essay

How to write a literary critique and book review

How to write a newspaper article

How to write a speech

How to write a dramatic monologue

A separate “How to Write Guide” with step by step instruction is included which gently guides the student through the creative or fundamental process of writing their original work after studying the famous work for one week. Answer keys for grammar questions asked within the text are included for the teacher for quick grading. Write With The Best easily contains all the necessary elements for a complete language arts course including grammar and writing instruction. If the student is so inspired to read the complete work of the author rather than just the excerpt studied you could check off a literature component as well.

A typical day with Write with the Best, Volume 2 begins with brief instruction/ discussion time between the teacher and student. We usually spent anywhere from 15-30 minutes. All of the instruction and discussion topics are scripted for the teacher along with a list of objectives to be accomplished during this time. A small assignment is listed for homework or independent study allowing the student to reinforce the learned objectives of the day.

I especially like that Dixon has listed the number of objectives to be accomplished each day. As a teacher this helped me break down the important elements of the lesson and not get overwhelmed or bogged down in details too quickly.

Write with the Best, Volume 2 is appropriate for use for grades 6-12. It is a non-consumable product, although I recommend making copies of the included “great works” selections for each student to use and study. Diagnostic Prescriptive Services offers Write With the Best, Volume 2 on their website in e-book format for $24.95 (for a limited time $18.65, 25% off), soft cover format without binding for $27.45 plus shipping, or soft-cover in three ringed binder for $29.95 plus shipping. Payments can be made on the website through PayPal.

If you have a student living in fear of the monstrous task of learning to write encourage greatness with Write with the Best. They will have Emily Dickinson, Thomas Paine, Helen Keller, Francis Bacon, Edgar Allen Poe, Ernest Hemmingway, Cicero and Shakespeare guiding them through the process. You can’t ask for better language arts teachers than that!