Homeschool Curriculum - Do I Need It?

Homeschool curriculum and books are plentiful. Choosing from the huge selection can be overwhelming. Do you really need to purchase a home school curriculum or can you save some money and home school with books alone? Here are some thoughts that can help you make your decision:

1. You need a core plan - Whether you purchase a home school curriculum or develop your own, you need to know what you want to accomplish. What do you think your child should be doing each day? What do you want them to know and understand by the time the school year is over?

2. Focus on reading, writing and arithmetic - Any good home school program focuses on the basics. Make sure you address the core subjects and know what you want to accomplish there before you add any other subjects to your list.

3. Know how you and your child learn best - Learning style plays a key role in how you and your children will learn. In public school teachers can’t really teach based on learning style because of the volume of students they have to work with. But a home school parent can certainly know their child’s learning style and use resources to support that. If you don’t know yours or your child’s learning style you can take an assessment online and find out. http://www.hjresources.com/hsrecommend Then when you decide to choose curriculum or books you will know what types of resources you need. You might even save yourself a lot of frustration in the long run.

4. Use your resources - In the early days of home schooling there wasn’t much available to parents. That is definitely not the case now. There is almost too much information available now. You have the internet, library and a host of used curriculum sites where you can get books and resources at a fraction of the cost.

5. Do you use a curriculum to learn something yourself? Think about what you do when you want to learn about something. Do you buy a curriculum to learn or do you read books, listen to audio and watch videos? Your children need to see you have a love for learning. You can learn about how to cook, sew, garden, remodel your house, improve your skills at a job, etc.

Even though purchasing a curriculum can give you a feeling of security knowing that everything your child needs to know will be covered, be careful that you don’t take on too much and get burned out. If you focus on the basics and know what you want to accomplish, then you can make an informed decision as to whether you will need to purchase a curriculum or whether you can just use books and resources to accomplish the same goals.

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