Feeding Giants

Buckle up, this is a long, but important one…

You’ve decided to homeschool…and now the “choose your own adventure” part begins as you figure out CURRICULUM! This can be a prescribed program or lessons you put together yourself, but it basically boils down to what and how you are going to teach your kids. If you chose an online charter, private school, public distance learning option, etc., chances are your curriculum will be chosen for you and you just need to help your kids wade through it. However, if you are homeschooling on your own or through a charter that allows curriculum choice, you have a lot of decisions to make and it can seem very overwhelming!

Fear not! Here are a few things to consider to help you find the perfect fit for you and your kids:

1.) What is required of you? Start by checking your state’s Department of Education website for homeschool requirements and current grade level standards before you commit to any curriculum. If you plan to ever put your kids back in public school, or are legally required to meet state standards, you will want to compare them to potential programs and keep track of standards met throughout the year. Alignment (or not) doesn’t need to be a deal breaker – you can always add in a few lessons here and there to cover missing topics – but it is definitely helpful to know about before you start.

One note about transcripts and accreditation: It varies from state to state and program to program, but be aware that a good chunk of the independent homeschool curriculum out there is not accredited, meaning not officially recognized as meeting any state requirements. That doesn’t mean that it DOESN’T meet requirements – a lot of homeschool curriculum actually goes above and beyond state standards – but it hasn’t been officially recognized as such. This means that if your child ever goes back to public school, you may not have official proof of completion/competency (like a transcript). This doesn’t matter too much for children who expect typical grade level placement or for schools that either do placement tests or accept parent-made transcripts. However, it can be a big deal if your kids get ahead of grade level and you need to prove it for proper class placement. Personally, when we get to a point where the right proof matters (such as advanced math placement in junior high), we will look at accredited independent study classes that provide a transcript to keep our options open.

2.) What is your homeschool vision? What does your ideal school situation look like? Would you prefer to work with all your kids at once around a table? Would you like to be able to send them to different parts of the house to work independently? Do you prefer a more traditional school experience with seat work, white boards, and textbooks? Do you prefer kids learn by experience and play? Are you comfortable teaching new concepts or do you need curriculum to guide you? I guarantee you can find something out there that aligns with your vision if you know what to search for! Chances are, someone you know or someone you can find online has a similar homeschool plan and can give you some good ideas. In fact, our favorite curriculum choices came from other parent recommendations!

A good place to start is simply googling your child’s grade level + subject + “homeschool curriculum” and see what comes up. However, here are a few common homeschooling terms that might help guide your search (in no particular order):

Traditional homeschooling refers to methods/curriculum with elements similar to regular school. A traditional homeschool is likely fairly structured, incorporates the “I do/ We do/ You do” method (first the teacher instructs, then helps the child, then the child works independently), and looks/acts much like an individualized classroom.

Classical education is a philosophy that promotes a heavy emphasis on history, classic literature, art, and language. I’m not that well versed on it, but you can look here for more info.

Charlotte Mason is a “whole child” approach to schooling that promotes internal motivation to learn. Curriculum that subscribes to this philosophy will be heavy on the use of “living books” and narratives in all subjects (even math!), promote lots of interactions with nature and the outdoors, and encourage beautiful/interesting school environments and materials to pique kids’ interest and encourage them to explore. This book is a great one for really understanding Charlotte Mason’s philosophies.

Montessori is another teaching/learning (and even parenting) philosophy that can often be found in a private school setting, but is very doable at home. The very abbreviated version is that children learn through creative play and self-directed choices. Teachers provide interesting and developmentally appropriate activities and learning experiences for children to choose from rather than telling them what to do and what to learn. If you would like to learn more about this style, the Mom Who Raves blog has some great information and insight.

Secular curriculum means books and materials that do not come from a religious viewpoint in any way. Up Above the Rowan Tree offers some great explanations and direction on secular homeschooling.

Defining Religious curriculum gets a little tricky because A LOT of homeschool curriculum claims to take a religious worldview (almost always Christian), but that could mean very different things to different people. Some are very, very religiously overt and specific to certain belief systems- lots of Bible readings, heavy handed social instruction, alternate science, etc. In others, Christian values just guide the overall feel of the curriculum more than what is actually taught – readings might include children who make good choices and treat each other kindly, God is given credit for scientific principles but not used to dispute them, etc. Many are somewhere in between and are flexible enough to work with lots of different belief systems. The bottom line – don’t necessarily discount really good curriculum because it has religious undertones…and don’t buy crummy curriculum just because it says its religious!

Child-led is a term used in a lot of different philosophies, but basically means that the child’s interests guide learning. For some parents/teachers, this just means offering choices within parameters (like choosing a science fair topic), for others, this could mean structuring the entire learning environment or curriculum to accommodate a child’s specific interests, or even letting the child determine what and how s/he learns completely. However, the general principle is that interested children are motivated children, so even if your homeschool isn’t completely child-led (mine can’t be or it would be “Lego-Star-Wars-Marvel-Homeschool-Forever”), definitely keep kids’ learning styles and interests in mind as you choose curriculum.

Unschooling and freeschooling are terms associated with the belief that kids don’t need a formal school program to learn, and can/will direct their own learning. For some, this simply means teaching/learning in nontraditional ways lead by student interests (like through long term projects or travel). For others, this means just letting kids learn naturally as they go through life. There is a fairly large spectrum of belief and practice associated with both terms. I’ll assume that if you like this philosophy, thought, you probably don’t need any tips for choosing curriculum! 😉

Open-and-go refers to curriculum that doesn’t require much advanced preparation or planning – you can literally just open it and use it, picking up where you left off the next day.

Common-Core aligned is curriculum that sticks to the style and grade-level progression of Common Core. In theory, common-core standardizes learning expectations across state lines and teaches “thinking”, not just rote memorization. However, in reality, implementation has mostly been (in my not-so-humble-opinion) a hot mess and not all Common-Core curriculum is created equal. Whether you like it or not, or need it or not, it’s always a good idea to be aware of whether your curriculum is Common-Core aligned or not, as that may indicate whether the instruction style and expectations are right for you.

Family-style refers to curriculum that can be taught to multiple children of different ages at the same time. This is most frequently offered for subjects like Science, History, and Art, where all ages can learn the basic content together and then do age-appropriate assignments or projects. This can significantly cut down on the amount of stuff you need to buy and subjects you need to teach…and encourages cooperative learning and discussion among the children.

Cross-curricular learning involves multiple subject areas in one unit or project. For example, maybe instead of having separate history, reading, math, and science lessons, you create an “Insect” unit that incorporates all of those subjects and work on it for several weeks. You read books about insects, you study the history of entomology, you get an ant farm, you learn how to predict ant population with math, and you draw different insects.

3.) What is your budget – time AND money? Homeschool can be done very, very cheaply (or free), or it can be done very, very expensively. For me, I’m not into really expensive anything…but I also know that some seasons of life allow for greater investments of time to save money, while others allow for greater investments of money to save time. Either way can produce a great homeschool experience – just consider what your current circumstances allow.

Bonus tip: Don’t get sucked into the vortex. Once you start realizing how many options are out there and see all the cool things other parents are doing, it is easy to feel like you need to do and buy all. the. things. but…you don’t. Keep in mind that the whole point of homeschool is do what works for YOU and YOUR kids, so something one person swears by might not be your golden ticket. Personally, I’m never gonna have enough time for a “morning basket” and I think “free-schooling” would be a disaster for my kids (again… “Lego Star Wars Marvel Homeschool Forever”)!

Which leads me to…

5.) When you find something that feels right to you – a good philosophy, a reasonable price, a workable system…go for it…in small doses. You can always switch to something else if its not working, but you need to get started somewhere to evaluate what works and what doesn’t. I would highly recommend NOT buying your entire year’s worth of curriculum in one swoop (if you have that option) if you have never homeschooled before. Instead, get just enough to get started and buy more if you love it. Look for sample lessons to try out before you buy, or videos of other people demonstrating how the program/lessons work. At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter how lovely a book is or how much other parents love a program…if you and your kids hate it, it wasn’t worth the money!

So what do we do in The Uncommon Room?

I will dive into this more deeply in the future, but the short version is that I run a pretty structured, fairly traditional homeschool with a lot of open-and-go, Charlotte Mason-inspired curriculum, plenty of extra books, and child-led, but structured independent learning projects. My kids and I love The Good and The Beautiful (also known as TGTB) curriculum, so we will be using pretty much everything they offer this year – language arts, creative writing, science, typing, some art, and family-style history and science. Math is the only subject that each kid will be using different curriculum. The 1st grader will use TGTB, the 4th grader will use Beast Academy, and the 6th grader (who prefers an unfrilly, just-do-the-math-in-the-book approach) will use a combo of Saxon and Singapore.

So…what philosophies and programs are sticking out to you? Do you have a vision for your homeschool yet? Feel free to comment with any programs or curriculum that you love and want to share!