Growing up in the 1980’s and 90’s I homeschooled before it was popular. As a homeschool student, I didn’t see the struggle that my mom went through picking out the curriculum. Those struggles didn’t come to light until I had my own children and suddenly was faced with the same difficulties.
Picking out curriculum is one of the things that most homeschool parents have in common. While we all have different approaches to homeschooling we all have one thing in common when it comes to picking out curriculum, deciding what will be the best fit for our families.
The question inevitably comes up at homeschool meetings. What kind of curriculum is best, and how do you pick out your curriculum?
The short answer is, whatever curriculum works best for your family is what is best. There is a ton of curriculum out there though and figuring out what works best can be tiresome as well as expensive. Unfortunately, I have yet to figure out a way to cheaply try out the curriculum and determine what works best.
For kindergarten and pre-school, I like either the dollar store or sites like education.com. Education.com allows users to print off worksheets, and although the free side limits how many worksheets you can print off per day, you can pay for a subscription which will allow unlimited printing. At the same time Dollar Tree® offers decent workbooks for $1, and to be honest at that age spending a dollar on a workbook isn’t a bad price.
Since I began teaching my oldest five years ago we have gone through a lot of curriculum. Starting out we did the free or dollar store workbooks, but as he got older we needed something a little more, so we tried, Saxon Math, Lifepac®, Abeka®, Rod and Staff®, just to name a few, and here are the two things I’ve learned.
1.It’s okay to change!
Alright, I am not a fan of the exclamation point, but it is necessary in this case. Because the hardest lesson as a teacher is that it’s okay to change.As the years have gone by we have inevitably hit a roadblock as one curriculum or the next hasn’t worked out, and I have been reluctant to change.
After all the curriculum costs, depending on the type of curriculum it can cost a lot of money, and so it is hard to give up on something even though it is clearly not working. But I want to assure you that if it is not working, it is not working, and it is okay to change and try something new. After all, isn’t that why we got into homeschooling.
2.We understand that there is a shoe for every foot.
By that, I mean that every student is unique, with a different learning style. Personally, I believe that rather than students having learning disabilities they have different learning styles. Which is why it is important to acknowledge that if a curriculum isn’t working it's not too late to try something new.
Recently my son was struggling. We fought, argued and admonished him for not doing his school work. He would get distracted during a lesson, not listen and most days we spent more time angry at each other than learning anything. Finally, I threw in the towel and offered to change curriculums. Since we made the change two weeks ago he has thrived.
He has learned more about early American history in the last week than he learned in the previous five months. He has also learned more about math and science, and we haven’t fought nearly the same. I am disappointed in the expense that changing curriculums 100 days in cost, but in the long run we are gaining so much more than we are losing by making the change.
As you work through deciding on the best curriculum for your family I urge that you let go of certain notions and be willing to try different things, remember that homeschooling should be something that you and your children enjoy doing, and if your child is miserable with the curriculum you are using then they aren’t learning, and you will find that a happy child learns more and quicker than an unhappy child.
Good luck and happy hunting.
