Choosing the right homeschool curriculum for your family is a decision that will have a lasting impact on your children’s education. There is a lot of help available online to guide you to make the right choice. Here are a few tips to help you make the most of any education website you encounter.
The three main areas of discussion in homeschool curriculum are subjects, publishers, and methods. You will see some education websites or articles dedicated entirely to a particular school subject, such as science or history. It will also talk about various publishers and teaching methods of course, but only as they relate to that subject.
You will see education websites for various publishers. These sites will advertise that publisher’s homeschool curriculum. It will likely be rather boring, though perhaps a few have some interesting articles or reviews comparing their curriculum (usually favorably!) with other publishers.
Perhaps most interesting of all are the websites devoted to discussing various methods of homeschooling, such as the Charlotte Mason method, the classical method, or traditional homeschooling. They will discuss when as well as how to teach various subjects according to that method. They will usually have critical and honest reviews of the homeschool curriculum that’s available from various publishers.
It’s a good idea to start your investigation with a clear-cut question in mind. Try, “What math curriculum would work best for a bright second grader who hates to write?” Or, “What publisher sells a complete line of K-12 homeschool curriculum that includes DVD components?” Or, “What method will give my sixth grader a good foundation in history and literature so that he does well in high school?”
Take notes of what you learn. Maybe you are a highly organized person and do this anyway. Even if you are not, I’d recommend you do take notes for this. Homeschool curriculum is a big topic. You don’t want to have to go back again to all those websites when you need to remember one little something you read.
If you don’t have time for a lot of research, try asking your question in the homeschool curriculum forums. Unless you’ve already picked a method and are just looking for recommended publishers, go ahead and ask the same question on different forums or email lists for a variety of methods. That way you can hear the different perspectives. Here are a few to get you started:
Charlotte Mason Method – http://simplycharlottemason.com/scmforum/
Classical Method – www.MemoriaPress.com/forum/
Traditional and other methods –www.HomeschoolReviews.com/forums/default.aspx
Along the same line as taking notes – I’ve found it to be very helpful to bookmark the most informative education websites as Favorites. Not every education website makes the cut, just the best ones. Also, when I’ve found a few good articles, but there’s not much else there, I print the article to a file (.mdi or PDF) or I copy it and paste it into a Word document, being sure to include all the author information and copy the URL and put it at the top. That way I can reread the article without worrying whether the website will go away some day.
Once you’ve read a several different articles and reviews gotten the flavor of a few of the method-specific forums, it should become clear which homeschool curriculums are likely to be a good fit for your family. You can settle into a more relaxed education website routine where you are not researching with a hawk’s eye for specific information, but just enjoying the discussions with other parents like you.
