Horizons Kindergarten Complete Set

Such a great curriculum for academically advanced students. We started with Kinder and have continued with subsequent grades. Our son is excelling in all subjects - way beyond current grade standards. It is open and go and requires no prep for the homeschool parent. Love that it is spiral and incorporates review into the lessons daily. It is writing heavy, which is a necessity for early grades in my opinion. I absolutely love this line and will continue as long as we can through higher grades.

I am a first-time home school mom and have loved teaching my son kindergarten with this material. The language arts portion was intimidating initially, but now that we are approaching the halfway mark I love it. I do not have a teaching degree so I am not an expert on reading instruction; however, I would say that your child must have a firm foundation with letter recognition and the sounds that each letter makes before starting at the kindergarten level. I especially love that I don't have to worry about what I'm going to teach each day. Everything is right there in the books. I always try to squeeze in art and other enriching activities, but if we get too busy I always feel confident that learning took place when the worksheets get done.

My son is 5 years old with ADHD and we decided to pull him out of kindergarten 2 months into the school year. We weren't able to seek treatment because of his age and the school environment was just leaving him ostracized from the group and leaving his teachers frustrated that such a bright boy wouldn't (or rather couldn't) complete any classwork without them hovering over him when they have 20 other kids that needed their attention as well.So, after investigating curriculum options so late after the start of the year and not having prepared at all .. we knew we needed to have a curriculum that was laid out for us. I am teaching Language Arts and Social Studies and my husband is teaching Math and Science.So ... We are now two months into the curriculum and here are our thoughts on it:1. The packaging was damaged when it arrived and we were missing the dry erase tablet. Not a biggie but certainly a disappointment.2. The Language Arts (Phonics, Reading, Writing) is sometimes a bit overwhelming for my little guy but he is learning to read rapidly. We split subjects Monday and Tuesday for Math and Science, Wednesday and Thursday for Language Arts and Social Studies, and Friday for Bible Study and work overflow. Because of this, and the fact that we started 2 months into the school year ... we have to complete 12 pages of Language Arts a day. This takes my highly distracted boy about 3 to 4 hours to do. (I know, I know, yikes). We could lengthen the school year beyond 180 day but this is what we have to do to get to 180 days.((((NOTE: DO NOT GET THE STAND ALONE BOOKS WITHOUT THE TEACHER GUIDE!!! Some questions show you a picture of a person and you are expected to know that their name is Bob or Stan without any indication at all what their names would be .. .How am I supposed to know a picture of a girl is "Beth" when the question being circle everything starting with the letter B? I have to open my teachers guide and tell my son the names of the people on the page)))))3. Math: Math is great. Based on how many pages there are, he has to complete 8 pages per day. This is substantially more doable. However, it should be that way because with math there is a lot of instruction outside the book practicing how to count money and time so on his days the math tends to take about 3 hours in the morning.Science: Um... the health segments ... are .... not challenging enough for my son. He got almost all of this education in Pre-K last year. He blew through it in no time and we are not supplementing with our own material. We stick to material that is in line with what we found kindergarteners should learn in Kindergarten like life cycles and then we pepper in other things like planets and zoology with online material we find for free, the library, or through a couple of books we bought online.4. Social Studies: I really am curious as to why there is NO social studies at all. I noticed that almost NO "complete" curriculum includes Social Studies a the kindergarten level. I have been peppering in my own social studies as a result. We started homeschool around Christopher Columbus Day so I started with that and then have moved on to Native American studies which I'll wrap around to the first settlers around Thanksgiving. I have also purchased two books 180 Days of Kindergarten Social Studies and Kindergarten Essentials for Social Studies. Don't waste your money on the 180 Days book, it's awful, but the other one is gold! I'll definitely use that one every time we're in class. I really would have liked to have a daily social studies curriculum. (I also got DK Workbooks K Geography which is a good book).All in all .... I'm glad I got this to help start our year. Two subjects are entirely covered .... I just have to fill in Science, Social Studies, and Art.I have to seriously ponder if I'm going to do this curriculum for 1st grade or if I'm going to try another route. I notice next year has the same "Health" books instead of science and there still isn't Social Studies. :/Update: we just finished 100% of this curriculum. As stated, our son has AHDH and the first 5 months were a big challenge with his focus. But he did it!! We did have to supplement a lot especially in math. He needed a lot of help with coins and time.But .... with phonics, he learned how to read very well. We bought the Good and the Beautiful for next year.Updated Edit: We just started first grade with the Good and the Beautiful and it made me appreciate Horizons a million times more! TGTB is a JOKE! I can't believe people buy this for their kids as a full curriculum. We were on day 5 and there still was no written work at all, just class instruction and reading. Y'all, I threw it away because I didn't want to sell it and subject some other kid to that garbage curriculum.SPRIAL LEARNING IS TOUGH BUT IT IS 100% WORTH THE WORK.I just bought the first grade curriculum for my son, can't wait to get started next week! When they say it is a complete curriculum, they mean it is complete for writing, reading, phonics, reading comprehension, spelling, and vocabulary. Yes, you'll still need to supplement some, but the major components are there and I don't feel like we're missing anything major like I feel TGTB was.

I pulled my 5 year old son out of kindergarten after Christmas break due to them saying he was behind and wanting him to go to school on Saturdays. I just didn’t think giving him another day of a school…the day he’s supposed to be nothing but a kid, was the best option for him. That’s why I decided to try horizons. The plan was to “catch him back up” so that he could go to first grade at a different school. So far he is doing great! He is learning very quickly, the lessons aren’t extremely long and because we are at home we can take breaks when he needs them. I have seen so much improvement and though I was nervous at first, I do not regret my decision and am confident that he will be ready for first grade in no time. After starting this curriculum I have even debated homeschooling him next year too, but only time will tell.

These workbooks are great for first time home school moms or dads. My son absolutely loves to do these books. They are super easy to understand on both sides and have a great layout. They came quicker than I thought they would and have been an absolute pleasure to work with.

Our homeschooling family loves Horizon sets. This is our first year so I was really wanting to by a boxed set to ease into. We also purchased Grade 2 for another kiddo and love both programs. My Kinder loves the bright pictures and stories. We are halfway through the Reading & Phonics section and she can now sound out words to read short stories and has the Alphabet Story (in the back of the book - we review it every day) memorized!The math is excellent, using a lot of pictures to explain when introducing new ideas. She asks to do math when we are NOT in doing school that alone is worth it!

It got here exactly when they said it would and in perfect condition. While this wasn't the curriculum for us it is a great curriculum. It is well laid out and already planned for you so there's not much work on the parents part. Our daughter loved the health part. The only reason it didn't work for us is the repetition. If your child needs repetition then this would be great for them. The little readers are right on track for their phonics program as well.