Home School Curriculum - What's the Best to Use?

Once you decide to home school, the next item on your mind might be "What am I going to use to home school?" While it might be easy to freak out at this point and not buy anything because you don't know where to start, it's just as easy to go out and spend a huge amount of money thinking you need to get the most expensive program. Neither one of these scenarios needs to be the case when choosing home school curriculum and books.

Here are a few tips you can use when deciding the best curriculum to use:

1. In my opinion, the first thing you need to consider is learning style - yours and your child/children. Does your children like workbooks, creating their own books, reading a lot, reading a little, listening to music, having a quiet environment? These and more are all questions to consider when choosing the best home school program for you and your child. Check the learning style resources at my websites. Knowing your child's learning style can save you years of frustration and hundreds of dollars. If you pick a textbook approach and your child learns better with a hands on approach then you are setting yourself up for failure. Why not choose a home school program that aligns with their learning style so they can learn and retain the information that you are providing.

2. Think about what you can afford to spend. If you can't afford to spend anything then you will need to exchange some time for money. There are plenty of free and almost free resources out there that you can use to effectively home school your children. If you have money to spend, set a limit and work within that limit. Remember when purchasing home school curriculum, more is not always better. If you purchase too many books you may be overwhelmed and get frustrated.

3. Is it important for you to have your child work independently or do you want to direct everything they are learning or a combination of both? Self teaching programs are wonderful and can build confidence in the child. When you consider learning style and whether your child likes to work independently or with you, you will be able to make a much wiser choice of curriculum.

4. Realize that not all subjects require a curriculum. For the early years of home schooling Science can be taught with a library card, zoo pass and a walk around the yard. There are many wonderful lists of historical fiction that you can read to your children to inspire them to be interested in History and remember what they heard.

When you choose a home school curriculum or program, it's best to start with a skeleton plan of what you have and what you want and go from there. Determine learning style. Decide what kind of financial and physical resources you have. Determine how much time you have to devote to home schooling and what kind of character you want your child to develop. Then move on from there to choose the home school resources that will fit your family's needs.


Author Info:

For more tips on homeschooling, grab your free report "How to Home school using the Best Resources" at http://www.homeschool-how-to.com Heidi Johnson specializes in helping families find resources to simplify and improve their lives.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I am a homeschooling mom and I have struggled to find science activities for my home schooling plan. I am not strong in science and was a tad intimidated to come up science lessons. Steve Spangler Science (http://www.stevespanglerscience.com/) has been a giant help to me. They do offer a ton of great ideas, videos and activities you can do with your children. It is geared at early childhood education, but a lot of the experiments can modify for older kids. The write-ups and the videos educate you first so you can perform the activities with your kids and look like a mom-scientist. Also, many of the activities use materials from your home, so you don't have to buy expensive science kits.