Robinson Curriculum Can Help Your Children Become Well-Educated While Bringing Peace to Your Home

You may not ever have heard of Robinson Curriculum. However, it may be just what you are looking for if you can relate to the following feelings.

Do you believe in home schooling with all your heart, but still find yourself…

• exhausted trying to juggle all your kids' home schooling needs -- trying to stay one step ahead of your kids, while trying to correct worksheets, assign reading, discuss history, review math, and plan for the next lesson?
• afraid that you are holding back the older kids yet neglecting the younger ones?
• feeling like home schooling is like a black hole draining away your creativity and time needed to refresh your soul and be who God created you to be?
• wishing you could have everything you need -- truly a complete home school curriculum -- at your fingertips, without the hassle of spending hours poring over catalogs or searching all over the Internet to update your home schooling needs year after year?
• wanting high quality books at a budget price?
• longing just to be your children's mom or dad, and not have to be their academic teacher and corrector too?

Do your children…

• feel overwhelmed with the amount of school subjects they are expected to get through each day as part of your current complete home school curriculum?
• keep so busy doing the “extras” that they don't have a firm grasp of the basics?
• waste a lot of time because they have to wait for you every time you discipline one of your other children, or help someone else with some schoolwork?
• need your help, yet resent you for teaching them and hovering over them?

Or maybe you are...

• a single or working parent who would love to home school, but you need some type of complete home school curriculum that your kids could use while you work?

Feeling Overwhelmed? I Felt That Way Too

I felt the joy of home schooling seeping away. Sigh. Not what I had envisioned when we started out home schooling.

Then I came across the Robinson Curriculum. Being a book-lover, the quality literature immediately caught my eye as I read about the classic literature that it includes. The simplicity of the program made me take a second look since I was definitely looking for something to streamline our home school.

And what made me actually buy it for our own home school curriculum? The stories of users just like me who have seen their children's attitudes transformed and academic scores improve, and found for themselves the freedom and joy of home school learning again.

RC is soooo easy to implement with a large family. It is also easy to adapt to the children's various skills, interests, weaknesses and personalities. We modify and supplement the reading list and writing requirements to suit each child and the math is perfectly self paced. Colette

This was the biggest 'seller' to RC for my family. My kids needed a mom, not necessarily a teacher. We also realized that we were holding them back.....they sat and waited while I disciplined the younger ones, or while I changed a diaper, or while I fed a baby, etc., and while I was "teaching" they waited for me to tell them what to learn. They now have a mom who can enjoy free time WITH them instead of pulling together lesson plans or searching for curriculum. AAAhhh, life is good. Tami

What is Robinson Curriculum?

• Level: K-12, though not grade-based. Students work at their own pace,
• Format: Literature-based, with over 250 classic books and other materials on the CD-ROMs. Although it comes on CD-ROMs, unlike Switched-On-Schoolhouse, it is not a computer-based curriculum. Your child learns mostly from reading the literature you print out from the CDs, not by interacting with the computer. Math is not included, but it is strongly recommended to use Saxon Math as it is well-suited to the self-teaching method.

  Also included are:

  • Vocabulary exercises (about 6500 words) -- computer-based self-teaching quizzes, printable crossword puzzles, and wordsearches.
  • math flash cards,
  • examinations, -- over 50 SAT-like examinations with answer keys.
  • grammar and spelling books,
  • handwriting practice sheets, and
  • Bible, 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica, and Noah Webster's 1913 dictionary.

• Method: Classical in the sense that it teaches your child the tools to learn and how to think based on reading and interacting with great literature of Western Culture. Not Classical in that your child won't be diagramming sentences and learning Latin. Self-teaching so that your child learns to take responsibility for his or her own learning and time-management.
• Focus: Building a strong foundation in the basics of math, writing, and reading as a way to give children the tools to be able to learn and to enjoy learning for the rest of their lives.
• Worldview: Although the books in the curriculum were selected to uphold high moral values and encourage Christian faith, it can be adapted by those of other faiths..
• Teacher time: Minimal since your children learn to teach themselves.
• Price: $195 for all 22 CDs (includes everything needed except Saxon math). Printing out the books varies depending on your printer and how you want to bind the books.
• Ease of use: Simplicity is a hallmark of Robinson Curriculum. Part of the simplicity comes from focusing only on the basic curriculum. Another part comes from having your children learn to teach themselves.
• Subjects covered: Math, writing, and reading (which includes history, geography and other subjects covered in the books in the Robinson Curriculum materials).
• Basic Learning Principles: Robinson Curriculum is based on a few simple principles:
  • provide a good learning environment,
  • encourage good study habits,
  • use high-quality books, and
  • bring it all together with a course of study that lets a child learn at his or her own level and at a pace which is best for each child.
• Typical day: (this is a goal to work towards for older students)
  • two hours of math (preferably Saxon math),
  • one hour of writing (focusing on writing a one-page essay on the reading material, and then correcting their essay from the previous day that the parent has commented on),
  • two hours of reading (including readings in various subjects such as history, geography, descriptive science and other subjects).
• The Philosophy: Rather than try to do lots of subjects only slightly well, the Robinson Curriculum, as a complete home school curriculum, prefers to give children time to focus on the core subjects (reading, writing, and arithmetic) with lots of time to read, read, read. Through the children's readings, they can learn many of these other subjects anyway. Those subjects that aren't covered? Robinson would say that these are not as important as teaching a child how to think and not really necessary as part of a complete home school curriculum, at least not right away. While I'm not sure I agree with everything he says, I found his article, Multiculturalism and Curricula, very thought-provoking and worth considering.
• The Process: The basic process is that you print out the books, have your children read through the materials at their own pace, and write about what they read, taking vocabulary tests on the books read. There are no grade levels. As your children read, write, and progress at their own pace, they will develop habits and skills that will help them master the material and really understand the material for themselves.

Sound simple? Sometimes we forget that home schooling really doesn't have to be complicated to be effective.

Potential Advantages

Since this is a “self-teaching,” complete home school curriculum, many of the benefits are obvious:

• your children will learn to think for themselves and discover how to find the answers without needing handholding throughout the day,
• you won't have to rush around trying to teach each child at various levels,
• each child can work at his own pace,
• the materials on the CD-ROMs are classic, well-written literature that have stood the test of time. You can read more about the Educational Results for yourself.
• You can read some comments from users on the Robinson website or scroll down to see more.

• your children will develop self-confidence and discipline as they take responsibility for their own learning,
• many children often become more creative and inquisitive,
• you can spend very little time “teaching” your children and have more time just being their mom (or dad!).

Potential Disadvantages

Because the Robinson Curriculum emphasizes self-teaching and creating a learning-rich environment (as opposed to an entertainment-rich environment), it really is a holistic approach to life. Below are the suggestions from the Robinson Curriculum Course of Study about how best to create a learning-rich environment:

• no television,
• no sugar,
• no computer until age 16 or so, and
• you do about five hours of school a day , most of it for the child to do on his own without any help from the parent.

When I first heard read this as part of Robinson Curriculum, I thought, no way! This sounded impossible for my family. You might think this too. However, I would encourage you to look at our FAQ page (which we will be uploading soon) for answers in how people handle these lifestyle issues (I can tell you there are a lot of people who see this as a goal, not a starting point).

As for other possible disadvantages, they seem to center on one of several categories:

• The Philosophy of Self-Teaching:
  • you want to be directly involved in all aspects of your children's education,
  • you feel uncomfortable in giving them the reigns to teach themselves,
  • you assume you would miss out on learning with your child and doing read-alouds together.
• The Fear or Letting Go of Other Subjects:
  • you feel there will be "gaps" in your children's education,
  • you wonder about all those other wonderful books and subjects not covered in Robinson Curriculum. How will you get to cover them if you are focusing on the basics?
• Other:
  • the program sounds rigid or harsh as it is described on the Robinson Curriculum website, like it isn't much fun,
  • printing and binding the books sounds like a bother.

Dealing with Potential Disadvantages

Your first thought after reading this may be, "I could never do that!" or "My kids would never do that!" That's what I thought, too. However, as I researched Robinson Curriculum, I learned that there are numerous people who felt the same way who are now having a great home school experience with the Robinson Curriculum.

Then, I tried Robinson for myself, and I saw my children start to blossom with this self-teaching approach. So, do keep an open mind as you learn about this curriculum.

We'll be posting more detailed responses to some of these potential disadvantages and how people deal with them on our Robinson Curriculum FAQ section (see below).

Robinson Curriculum FAQs

Please see this site's Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) about Robinson Curriculum .

I hope you find this information helpful as you consider various options for your home school journey. Above all, may you and your child find joy and success in your home school adventure.