Choosing a Homeschool Curriculum
In this article, you will find:
Create your own course of study
This is not as difficult as it sounds. There are several approaches to curriculum development for the "do it yourself" homeschooling parent. Traditional (Classroom in the Home) Approach:
If you wish to replicate the school environment in your home and provide a classical education for your children, read The Well Trained Mind: A Parents' Guide to Classical Education by Jessie Wise and Susan Wise Bauer. This book introduces the techniques, curriculum, and resources you'll need for an academically rigorous, comprehensive education for your child. Its highly structured learning approach has been a hit with many homechooling families.
Rebecca Rupp's book, Home Learning Year by Year: How to Design a Homeschool Curriculum from Preschool Through High School is another excellent resource. Less rigid in approach than The Well Trained Mind, it's also more accessible. The author recommends quality books (available from the library), as well as games and websites as part of her program.
Non-Traditional (Unschooled) Approach:
When asked how to develop a curriculum, Pat Montgomery, founder of the Clonlara School, (see previous listing) replied, "The question is not 'How?' but 'Why?'" In The Homeschooling Book of Answers, by Linda Dobson, Ms. Montgomery explains her position: "Many home-education parents accept the myth that educating is about curriculum, textbooks, tests, and lesson plans, the trappings of institutional schools. I submit that the design of a child's education ought to be about the child. What are his interests? Her needs? His capabilities?"
But if you don't use a comprehensive curriculum, how will you know what to teach your children? Parents who follow this model agree that a child's education should be about the child. Curious children give us all the guidelines we need. Dobson's book urges us to purchase learning tools rather than toys for holiday and gift giving. Surround your children with beautiful books, useful materials, and perhaps a garden. Provide a rich and varied learning environment, and oblige their requests to build, paint, create and, yes, make a mess.
You may wonder how you will meet your state's legal reporting requirements if you choose this method. Experienced parents have achieved success by using the curriculum guides, which double as record-keepers and help you organize your child's learning experiences into an acceptable format that meets most homeschool requirements.
This is by no means a "hands off" approach to learning. It is a process that lets parents disregard those elements in a traditional education that are not particularly relevant to their children, while giving them the freedom to explore, develop, and grow according to their own inner timetables. John Holt promoted this learning style, better known as "unschooling" with his books Freedom and Beyond, How Children Fail, and How Children Learn.
Online Curriculum Resources
LauraMaery Gold and Joan M. Zielinski provide a 40-page listing of online curricula recommendations and tips in their book, Homeschool Your Child For Free. Core knowledge, scope and sequence outlines, lesson plans, worksheets, placement tests, unit studies, and even field trips are covered. The remaining 435 pages contain over 1,000 practical resources for home education on the Internet.
Advantages:
You and your family get to choose what approach offers the best learning opportunities. The traditional, structured approach provides a high-quality, school-type education at home for your child. The unschooler approach encourages self-discovery and inspired learning every day. The online curriculum resources enable you to supplement any of the aforementioned methods or create a specialized online course of study.
Disadvantages:
You may be afraid of making the wrong choice and would prefer others to make curricula decisions for you. With a structured, "school-at-home" approach, younger children often have difficulty focusing and memorizing the required blocks of information. Like their schooled peers, behavioral problems can develop, and a resistance to learning emerges. For unschoolers, children often learn beautifully, but parents may have difficulty trusting their kids to learn independently. The need to conform to accepted school standards is almost overwhelming, and a strong support system is essential. Record-keeping, chronicling your child's progress, and meeting all local homeschooling requirements become your responsibility.
