How can I combine several students at once?
Each of our programs includes books to read together and discuss as a family. During these discussions, questions can be tailored to the ability of each student. The content and stories themselves are ageless, meaning that they will be interesting and absorbing to almost any age, even if the reading level itself is not at the age of the student.
Additionally, our program offers activity ideas, journaling, notebooking, timeline building, DVD suggestions and internet links — resources that can be used or discarded as they work or don’t work for your student(s) particular learning style(s). This variety of resources also means that a family can require older students to complete/use more of the resources, while younger students do less. Students can also work independently on projects or try to venture out on their own on research or ideas offered in the guidebook or resources.
Some of our programs are multi-level programs, that share some common resources, and split to offer a set of resources for two age groups. These programs allow family work done together to be a shared and memorable experience, while resources particular to each age group are chosen for their ability to excite students right at their grade level.
You’ll also find that we offer a few “extension” guides for some studies. Look for guides for “Older” or “Younger” learners that will offer you helps and ideas on how to make a program work to fit all of your family members.
Finally, a range of language arts programs are available to coordinate with the history or science program that is right for your family, giving you quite a few options for age groups.
How Do Our Programs Change from Level to Level to Meet the Changing Needs of Students?
Our youngest learners begin with programs that focus more heavily on hands-on learning and do not have as many different kinds of activity suggestions as older programs do. “Animals and Their Worlds,” for example, has fewer suggested videos and “activity-based” ideas like games or cooking. Instead, this program focuses on giving this additional space to alphabet activities written into the program, designed for learning and reinforcement for young learners. It has less written work, no independent work to speak of, and includes living books designed to engage students with lively reading; primarily because this is written to target young learners. You see, this program is specially designed to meet the needs and interests of young learners, and to give them plenty of time to master reading, which is their top priority at this time of their education. As you move up these aspects of the curriculum do not disappear but take shape in different ways to serve older students.
As students mature, the programs Amerincan Story 1, American Story 2, Adventures in the Sea and Sky, and Children Around the World all focus on interactive opportunities with written work as well, with an emphasis on hands-on, experiential learning. Independent work is introduced and gradually becomes a greater part of the program for middlers.
As we move into our high school programs, the emphasis changes once again. These programs focus on a balance between the hands-on experimental learning, research opportunities, written work, great literature and discussion sessions. In short, our program grows and changes as a students’ skills, mental development, and interests grow over time.
