Six Simple Steps for How to Choose
The Best Home School Curriculum for Your Family
How can you choose the best home school curriculum for your children when there are so many great materials? You can easily feel overwhelmed trying to decide. How can you navigate all the choices? How can you make the most of your limited homeschooling money?
Here are some key steps to save you money and heartache.
Steps:
- Determine what your general home schooling goals are for your family.
Are you home schooling with a definite time limit in mind, be it a few months or a year? If so, you can sometimes ask your local school district for materials to use to keep up with until your child returns to "classroom school." You might not even have to worry about what materials to use.
If home schooling will even possibly be a longer-term option, find out what you need to do to comply with state or local laws. Check with the Home School Legal Defense Association for help. They have information both for residents of the United States and for those living in other countries as well.
Read more in depth process for choosing the best home school curriculum here.
- Determine what general learning goals you have for your individual child.
Ask some broad questions to help you gain a sense of where you'll be going in the next year or so...
- Is it time to focus on basics of math, or do I want to take a season to broaden my children's horizons and instill a love of math outside of the textbook?
- What are my child's strengths? It is often better to build on a child's strengths and let him enjoy the sense of growing competence than only to see the areas of your child's "weaknesses" that need to be "worked on" for next year.
- Once you select some areas of strengths, select one or two areas you want to see more confidence and mastery developed in. This may be to review basic math facts or to become more fluent in writing, or a host of other skills or attitudes.
- More on home schooling goals here.
- Consider what your children's learning styles are and what type of curriculum would work best for each of them.
Does your child do well with independent learning? Or maybe he needs a very structured list of what to do each day. The more you know your child, the better you can tailor the home school curriculum to meet his or her needs. I highly recommend taking the learning styles assessment
because I know how finding out that information really helped our family. You can read more about
the benefit of knowing your learning style as well as your child's.
- Figure out what your limitations are, and work with them.
Be honest, really. Are finances tight right now? No time for lesson prep? Don't ignore these real circumstances just because you'd like to be able to do lots more. You'll only get frustrated (and that's from personal experience!).
So work with your limitations not against them. What could be a limitation for you (little time for lesson preparation) could in fact become a great benefit to your child (becoming a more independent learner). The best home school curriculum for you right now may not be the one that looks the best but takes up too much of your time to prepare. It may be great for another season for your family.
- Decide your priorities.
Sure, you'd like to cover lots of subjects like geography, foreign languages, church history and more, but what can you and your children realistically do without becoming overwhelmed? Read some practical advice on how to prioritize your home school goals here.
- Do some research on different home school curriculums.
Which curriculum would work best with your goals and limitations? With your child's learning style? There are many good home school curriculum choices that work with a variety of learning styles. You can find more information about different home school curriculum throughout this website, or you can sign up for our free eCourse
where I will guide you step by step in more detail with lots of specific suggestions.
These are a few steps to get you started on thinking through the process of choosing a home school curriculum that will really serve both you and your children. I would encourage you to look around this site to read all sorts of help on the process of choosing the best home school curriculum. Don't forget to bookmark this site as I'll be adding more information regularly.
Remember, the best home school curriculum for your family is one that meets both your needs and your child's needs. So take some time to think through some of the issues about what is really important to you. I'm sure as you do you will be well on your way to choosing the best home school curriculum that will really give your family much joy and success in home schooling.
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