There are several options available when looking at Abeka home schooling curriculum. For parents who want to have a school-at-home atmosphere in their home, Abeka provides the resources to make that happen.
There are various video and non-video options along with accredited and traditional learning packages. Programs start as young as 2 years old and go all the way through high school. Here is a basic breakdown of the options available:
Accredited
Traditional
Payments - Parents can choose two options for paying for their curriculum. They can either pay in full when they order, or pay a $350 fee and then pay a monthly fee during the rest of the school year.
Discounts - There are very few discounts when dealing with Abeka home schooling. There is a $50 early enrollment discount before June 25th but it only applies to full grade and full year enrollments. On an average year that is only a 6% discount.
The only family discount available is when families have 2 children in the same grade. How often does that happen? The second student pays a reduced grade fee.
The only way I know of to get Abeka discounts is to purchase used Abeka books on ebay or from used home school curriculum fairs in your area. The editions change often, so it can be difficult to get the workbooks and textbooks to match up sometimes. Even if someone uses the DVD instructional program, the student still uses workbooks and textbooks when doing their homework. The books are included with the program, but you pay full price for them.
All DVDs have to be returned, so there is no chance of finding used Abeka DVDs to use. It looks like they encourage people to use the video program. The student watches a teacher and classroom on the DVD and then does their book work on their own.
Video Time
The stated times that a student needs to watch the DVDs each day is a minimum of 3 hours. The Kindergarten program states that they need to watch 3 hours of video per day. The elementary program also requires 3 hours of video a day plus homework. The high school program states that the student needs to watch 50 minutes of video per course and then complete their homework using the workbooks and textbooks. If a high school student takes 6 or 7 classes, they will be spending over 6 hours a day watching videos and then have a number of hours of homework to complete beyond that.
As with any curriculum program or resource that a family will use for homeschooling, it's important to look at the pros and cons. The more a family knows about what is involved and expected from a curriculum, the better chance they have of making an informed choice.
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