My daughter and I had the privilege of trying the
Alpha Omega Publications Horizons Preschool Curriculum Set Review for this review to use in conjunction with our own homeschool
curriculum. This is a Schoolhouse Review Crew Review. All opinions expressed are my own or those of my family.
Alpha Omega Publications (AOP) has developed some of the best Christian based curriculum available. Their award winning products include: Switched-On Schoolhouse (SOS), LIFEPAC, Horizons, Monarch, and Weaver. AOP has online, print and computer based homeschool curriculum formats to fit the different styles of just about every homeschool.
Horizons is AOP's Christian based teacher-led workbook curriculum. The Horizons workbooks all have brightly colored illustrations and engaging material that is filled with consumable lessons that uses a spiral method of learning to help them master core concepts. The spiral method has your student keep revisiting the same skills over
and over with increasing difficulty over a period of time, gradually
expanding upon the skill level to build new understanding. They also have hands-on activities included with the workbook lessons to make the learning more exciting.
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| Alpha Omega Publications Horizons Preschool Curriculum Set |
The Horizons Preschool Curriculum Set is an all in one kit. You can use this kit in a homeschool or classroom setting. The kit
comes with the Horizons Preschool: Student Workbook 1 & 2, Teacher's
Guide Book 1 & 2, Resource Packet, and Sing Along Music CD. It is
everything you need wrapped up in a all inclusive kit so you don't have
to do an exhausting search for lessons or lesson plans.
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| What the side of the box for the curriculum says. |
The
two student workbooks cover each a half of the school year. Each print workbook has 90 lessons, so 180 lessons total. These workbooks have perforated pages for easy tear out. In the
lessons within the two workbooks you will find Bible concepts, social
studies, language arts, math, phonics and science, arts & crafts,
music, story times, outdoor excursions, etc. The lessons are centered around a Biblical 7 days of creation theme.
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| Zari using the Alpha Omega Publications Horizons Preschool Student Workbook. |
The Teacher's Guides also are set up to follow the workbooks, covering half a year in one and the later half in another. The first part of both Teacher's Guides are the same, covering: Scope & Sequence, Introduction (which gives you a suggestions on what you should do and how to start), Media Resources, Supplies, Memory Verses, Days of Creation Numbers, and Horizons Preschool Music CD Lyrics. The back portion of each book has the Lessons and plans for each, 1-90 in the first book and 91-180 in the second book.
The lessons are spelled out in the lesson plans of the teacher's guide. The worksheets in the workbooks are just a small part of each lesson. At the top of each lesson plan it tells you the activities in the lesson. These could include: bible lessons, Social Studies, Science, Language Arts, Phonics, Reading, Writing, Memory Verse, Math, Shapes, Color, Story Time, Outdoor Activity, Music, Arts & Crafts, Physical Education, and/or Homework or Homework Review.
The Resource Packet is filled with manipulatives you can use with the lessons. This packet is thick, printed on cardstock in full color, and has 284 pages printed front to back. The illustrations go with the lesson books. You can easily put these in page protectors in a 3-ring binder for easy access. These are wonderful homeschool resources.
The Music CD has 17 individual songs. This CD has children singing the songs on it plus the instrumental versions of each song as well. The songs are easy to learn and the lyrics are also in the Teacher's Guide too. You can either sing-a-long with the voice and instruments or just the instrumentals in the songs. These songs talk about God, Jesus, and the Disciples as well as biblical concepts.
How We Used This and Our Thoughts:
I think that getting a strong start in learning before kindergarten is
essential to having a good foundation in education. My youngest daughter
Zari is 4 years old and turning 5 in October. We have been working with
her on pre-kindergarten skills so she is prepared to start kindergarten
and be successful in doing so. I love teaching her because she is so
eager to learn and she sucks up everything I teach her like a sponge.
She has been doing preschool already, but I was quickly spending too much time in finding lessons and designing my own lesson plans to go with them. She has been excited to start working in an actual workbook like her siblings. Kids at this age are so impressionable and so I want to make sure I
teach her the very best Christian curriculum around.
Alpha Omega Publications was unbelievably generous and sent me a complete Horizons Preschool Curriculum Set kit for my daughter Zari to work on. We were so excited when it arrived and had her dive right in to the pages of the workbook after reading the guide. The teacher's guide was very helpful in laying out everything that was supposed to happen for the day, media resources, and supplies needed for each week.
The lesson plans are structured so you can do a whole 5 days of
preschool if you wanted, but you can also do a 3 day week structure by
using days 1, 3, and 5, days 2 & 4 are for review if needed. It also
suggested to only do 2 hours per day of actual academics for preschool.
We chose a 3 day per week schedule. I am not as structured in homeschooling as I would like to be and found myself needing to pace myself so as to not rush things as we did the lessons together. Zari was definitely not used to working on so many subjects in one day. There is a lot to cover per day and fitting it all in was a little tiring for Zari. I let her take her naps so that she didn't get too overworked and she definitely needed them. I am glad that the guide says that you can pick and choose what you would like to do and that the lessons are fairly adaptable for many different situations and children's different learning styles. I love that it is so flexible.
Zari loved the colorful illustrations in the workbooks and resource packet. She is loving doing the pages and activities so far. I think she has already learned so much from when she started.
We were very pleased with the quality of the Alpha Omega Publications Horizons Preschool Curriculum Set. It has exceeded our expectations. We recommend AOP products to anyone that wants an exceptional Christian homeschool curriculum.
BUY IT
You can purchase the whole Alpha Omega Publications
Horizons Preschool Curriculum Set for $125.95.
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