Deputie Tribe: Eclectic Foundations Review

I LOVE LANGUAGE ARTS!

I know, I'm a nerd like that. Verbs, nouns, prepositions get me excited! Language just makes sense to me, and I never knew how much I would ENJOY teaching language arts! Do you crave the way things used to be? Before our American school system was dumbed down and the Bible and McGuffey's reader were the textbooks that all students learned out of? PLEASE CHECK THIS CURRICULUM OUT!!!

Seriously though! Eclectic Foundations Language Arts Level B has been an incredible experience for my kids to put some skills and new understanding behind their reading skills. This curriculum is exactly, EXACTLY what I would want out of a language arts program!!

It's so thorough yet uncomplicated.
Its advanced, but at a slow pace.

It includes poetry, grammar, handwriting, spelling, phonics, reading comprehension, vocabulary, art projects... *gasp for air* ... so much!

AND it only takes 30minutes - 60 minutes a day and is intended to be used 4 days a week, which how how many days I like to do schooling during the week. PERFECT!!!

It introduces difficult concepts, but doesn't stress that the child masters the concept before moving on since the curriculum continues to touch on the previous learned ideas while adding more and more understanding along the way. It also gets progressively harder right under your nose! You don't even realize it really.

So let me break down the details:

You need to download or find a copy of McGuffey's Reader to work with while using this program.

We read through the section of McGuffey's reader that was recommended each day. There is either questions (reading comprehension) regarding what you've read, or there are flash cards with words from the story that we cut out and color according to what part they play in the sentence. There are also options for the kids to get creative in drawing what else they think is going on in the story. What is the man writing? Is it a letter? A story? About what? To whom?

We have been having LOADS of fun breaking down the different components of a sentence and color coding everything! As you can see on our white board :)

Cursive writing is implemented which my husband and I LOVE LOVE LOVE! I could give the author of this program kisses!

This is seriously an all-encompassing curriculum.

The creator of this curriculum included a copy of McGuffey's Reader for me which is not typically included in what you purchase from Eclectic Foundation Language Arts, but it can be downloaded and printed for free right off their website or ordered off Amazon.

The poetry changes every 4 days - i.e. every week. This increases the children's vocabulary and understanding of abstract thinking. My kids are now able to decode what the author was meaning by not taking him literally, but learning to think figuratively as well as looking at the piece of poetry as a whole to get a better understanding.

My kids loved the poetry so much they have memorized almost every poem so far and recite them as they play with thier Barbies.

There's copy work that consists of quotes from authors, historical figures or philosophers.

It's not just empty things they're copying, but meaningful things that will be stored in their minds.

Here are a few other sample pages:

Guys, this method of teaching that is used in this program has been used since 1836. It's historically the best!

Not to mention this program is SO economical! With everything it encompasses for 1 year! Well worth the money.

Obviously, I can't say enough about Eclectic Foundations Language Arts.

Here's how the levels break down:

Eclectic Foundations Level A uses Eclectic Primer: 1st grade
Eclectic Foundations Level B uses 1st Eclectic Reader: 1st–2nd grades
Eclectic Foundations Level C uses 2nd Eclectic Reader: 3rd–4th grades
Eclectic Foundations Level D uses 3rd Eclectic Reader: 5th–6th grades
Eclectic Foundations Level E uses 4th Eclectic Reader: 6th–8th grades
Eclectic Foundations Level F uses 5th Eclectic Reader: 7th grade–college sophomore
Eclectic Foundations Level G uses 5th Eclectic Reader: 7th grade–college sophomore
Eclectic Foundations Level H uses 6th Eclectic Reader: 9th grade–college senior
Eclectic Foundations Level I uses 6th Eclectic Reader: 9th grade–college senior

They only offer levels A-C with level D coming out in April.

PLEASE support this program!

At the very least, like them on Facebook.https://www.facebook.com/eclecticstudent

Cons: The only con I have with this program was the quality of the papers inside of the books I received. They were clearly photocopies that had dark black lines across the pages. This was a bit distracting and I would want and expect something that was clear and cleaned up.