What is Abeka Curriculum?
When people first start looking into homeschooling they may wonder "What is Abeka Curriculum?" In homeschool circles, Abeka usually comes up a lot in discussions because they have been used by Christian schools for so many years.
Basically, it is a Christian Bible-based curriculum that was designed over 30 years ago to be used by Christian schools. Many homeschoolers now use it at home for their children. Pensacola Christian Academy has been around for over 50 years and the school was used to help develop the Abeka curriculum.
Teaching Style - Abeka uses textbooks and workbooks to teach most of the material that your student will need to learn. They have a video course that you can purchase, or you can join their academy and watch the videos online. The videos are just basically a teacher teaching the material to a classroom of students. A parent needs to ask themselves whether textbooks and workbooks are really the best way for their children to learn and retain the information that they read.
Parent Reviews - Parents have mixed reviews. I find that there seems to be a love/hate relationship with Abeka among parents. Some parents just love the program and wouldn't use anything else, and other parents used it, find that it was either too time consuming or too advanced and burned out very quickly. Some thought that it moved too quickly or was too repetitive.
Some parents who use Abeka say that it is exactly what one of their children need and not at all what another one of their children needs. That's why it's so important to really look at all the pros and cons of a program and pray about your decision before you purchase it. Just because your friend uses Abeka and loves it doesn't mean that you and your family will love it.
Many parents like to have all their curriculum and lesson plans provided for them in one program. They like knowing exactly what to say when and to know exactly what lessons their children need to be doing each day. Is this always the best method for the student? Only parents can answer those questions for their own families. It's important to not try to cram your student into a curriculum model, but to find a model that fits your student.
What is Abeka curriculum? - Abeka is a Bible-based curriculum written for classroom use and as long as parents remember that, then they can remember that they are in charge and not the curriculum. The Bible is emphasized in every subject which can help keep them focused on what is really important in life. Homeschool programs are plentiful, choosing the right one for your family is the challenge.
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Comments
Good information. I liked that you included pros and cons of the curriculum. We use A Beka curriculum with our two children.
I agree that people have a love/hate relationship with them.
There is a lot of material to cover in A Beka's books. In the workbooks that require pages of drills, we don't make our children do all of them if they have a good grasp on the material. On sections they are not doing as well with, we make them plow through all the drills to help solidify the information.
This is a fair explanation of their material.
Hey, thanks for your comment. It's nice to know someone that uses the curriculum and agrees with my review.
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