Choosing Homeschool Curriculum For Your Family? Consider the Four Major Curriculum Options

When choosing homeschool curriculum packages, there are numerous full programs with all subjects included. This is the most expensive option, but for many it fits them perfectly. It is like choosing a private school, but one that comes to your home. Once you have made your selection, most other choices are made for you. The program will provide all texts or materials for all subjects. Some may have flexibility where you can advance or go back a grade for one particular subject. Some may provide the record keeping, have support systems in place, and issue transcripts. Much of the work is done for the parent.

Some parents prefer choosing the individual subjects of their curriculum. You may like one textbook company for math, a different company for reading and history, and still another for science. This gives the advantage of choosing homeschool curriculum with each subject individually selected for the students' needs. In many cases, it will be the same texts used by those in full service programs, but you select them separately.

Bits and Pieces

The third major option for those choosing homeschool curriculum is what I call the "Bits and Pieces" approach. Some parents select a variety of resources to create their own curriculum for one or more subjects. For instance, instead of purchasing a Language Arts curriculum, they may choose a spelling book, a writer's guide, a grammar text, a list of age appropriate reading books, and a library card.

The sky is the limit in designing your curriculum from the myriads of resources available. The cost will depend on your choices.

The advantage: a creative and flexible education tailored to your child.

As you can imagine, the disadvantage of choosing homeschool curriculum tailored so specifically to your child is the amount of time it may take in designing the program, selecting the materials, scheduling the course of study, and evaluating the outcome.

Flying Solo

Yes, it can be done! Shun all the curriculum and books and develop your own from scratch.

Actually, there are a few different philosophies using this option. There are similarities between them, but they have their differences too.

Unschooling is a term popularized by John Holt, an educator and critic who described his approach several decades ago. Forget the textbooks. Live a real life, engage in real tasks, and teach the student what is needed for each task.

Real Books is another philosophy that spurns the curriculum-crowd in favor of educational alternatives. Want to teach auto mechanics? Would it be better to buy a textbook or simply read the owner's manual of the cars you own? Home economics textbook or a real live cookbook? An international affairs text or the daily newspaper? Remember that in the days of the one room school house students had a few McGuffy Readers then went on to reading the King James Bible and legal briefs.

Are you an artist, politician, mechanic, or expert in a special field? Perhaps you don't need to buy a curriculum in that field for your student; instead you may be able to write the curriculum yourself. In fact, that is where many of the curriculum choices available came from.

Other Considerations

Having read the four major options for choosing homeschool curriculum, does one of them seem right to you? If so, you have narrowed your search by eliminating 75% of the other choices. (Don't worry, they will still be there in the months and years ahead.)

Before moving on in your curriculum search, there are two other considerations:

1. Do you prefer textbook based instruction or unit studies? 2. What role will computers play in your homeschool program?

For more information on choosing your homeschool curriculum based on these considerations, see the links right below.

Compare unit studies and textbooks with this article.

What role will computers play in your homeschool design?

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