Thread: Weekly Poll: How do you put together your curriculum?

This is one of the first questions I get from new to homeschooling or curious others, what do you use to teach your kids at home? It is one of things that it totally by personal choice, and in my opinion is an on-going decision in our homeschooling life.

Our is probably "most of the Above", we do online programs (free or not) some we use are SpellingCity, time4learning, scratch, timez attack and alot of other online sources for learning about animals etc.

Then we also use some workbooks/books, Singapore Math, All About Spelling, Life of Fred, Story of the World and some unit studies from School Express. (trying science by the grade~ recommended by a friend of ours BUT the boys can't stand it so probably for not much longer)

Areas that we are still working on improving are well almost everything but math ( we are doing pretty good in that area)

Ok so I showed you mine and now its your turn to show me yours

When I first started homeschooling, I thought I had to make things look like school at home, had to keep up with the Jones' so to speak. I almost went with a virtual charter, then realized that we would have the same issues we wanted to get away from with the public school.

I then used the Worldbook typical course of study to put things together.. now I don't do that, but it was a start.

Now we use all kinds of things, I don't like to be married to any curriculum(ish thing) Our favorite is learning from life, but we do use some workbooks, some videos, some games.. what ever strikes our fancy at that moment

We just finished up Calvert Pre-k and really enjoyed it. I did make substitutions and skipped a few things, but I really liked a lot of it and the structure. We've also been using Kumon workbooks to get some extra practice, get ahead and just for fun. I really like how they are laid out, how the concept builds. Also my daughter just thinks they are fun and she loves that she gets a certificate when she's done. She has me put them on her wall.

For the most part, I piece our curriculum together by using workbooks and picking and choosing information from books. So far, we have only followed one book closely and that is Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons. I am finishing up my degree in early childhood education, so I really enjoy putting together the curriculum. I am thinking though that my daughter would benefit from a more "structured" math course, so I might be buying some boxed curriculum in the near future.

So far, I piece-meal our curriculum together, for the same reason as others do--it fits my kids. However, we do on occasion use texts, such as math texts or our 2-year stint with Easy Grammar (which was just enough, thank you--when the kids started correcting MY grammar, I knew it was time to quit).

However, looking forward to the high school years, we may be doing more online work. It's ever evolving, which is one thing I wish veteran homeschoolers had told me when I started. From the outside looking in at the beginning, it seemed like everyone else had it "all buttoned up."

My first couple of years I did a boxed curriculum, Calvert K -1st ( I bought 2nd but never used it ). Back when I started 22 years ago there wasn't much of a choice LOL. Then I moved to Sonlight and bought the Core only..... not the full package, and added in other things. In 1999 I found TWTM, I have used most of not all of her suggestions since then. I still purchase Sonlight Cores, because I love the books but plug them into a TWTM order. We are rigorously ( neo as some call TWTM ) classical. Great literature, latin, 4 year cycles, etc. Luckily my children have really enjoyed it.

Originally Posted by inmom

So far, I piece-meal our curriculum together, for the same reason as others do--it fits my kids. However, we do on occasion use texts, such as math texts or our 2-year stint with Easy Grammar (which was just enough, thank you--when the kids started correcting MY grammar, I knew it was time to quit).

However, looking forward to the high school years, we may be doing more online work. It's ever evolving, which is one thing I wish veteran homeschoolers had told me when I started. From the outside looking in at the beginning, it seemed like everyone else had it "all buttoned up."

A child can throw a wrench in your best laid plans at any moment, and send you scrambling back to the drawing board. ;-)

We have a few different approaches that we run in parallel. We start with the UK government's list of required topics for teaching in state schools; known as the National Curriculum. We supplement that with GCSE (exams taken at age 16) revision guides. That gives us the bones of what other kids will be covering and makes for a good, solid 'todo list' that will last us for the next five years or so. We flesh out those bones with a good sprinkling of general purpose reference books and 'activity ideas' books that also broaden our curriculum to include a lot of other interesting topics. We use the library for detailed, short term, specific project stuff that probably isn't worth purchasing because it will only be of temporary use. But the vast majority of stuff we use on a day to day basis is online stuff that we've found or had recommended to us.

That's really the crux of our resources. There's so much fantastic stuff available online. The only trouble is finding it. People are constantly posting to mailing lists or forums or blog posts about great resources they've found online but it only ever reaches a really tiny audience. I've started putting some of the stuff I find on a wiki at http:\\www.contribulum.com Feel free to take a look (it's mainly populated with maths and science stuff only at the moment) and/or add your own favourite resources. It just seems daft that there isn't a central repository where people can add this stuff so that we can all benefit.

Mike, Awesome !!! Thanks for sharing, I am sure I will be browsing for a while over there.

I'd say we use a bit of everything. It really depends on the subject & grade level.
For some things, I want the structure, order, and cohesiveness that comes with using a program. This is mainly for Math & Foreign Languages.
There are some subjects that I piece together in the early years - using lots of activities, projects, Science kits, Notebooking pages, Projects Books, library books, etc. - but then use a more structured approach at the high school level. The main one of this group is Science. We don't buy Science textbooks until high school level. Then, the text is the core of the course, but I also add extra reading, assignments, and labs to flesh it out as a more complete & comprehensive course.
There are some subjects that I won't buy a textbook for & will only use a program if I created it. These include Art & History.

We use some online stuff (mostly free) to supplement various subjects. We also utilize games, crosswords, word searches, MadLibs, and other fun activities to reinforce & review what they're learning. We watch documentaries & educational shows and use software, library books, and various supplemental materials. We do lots of hands-on activities, projects, experiements, tri-fold display boards, posterboard displays, and other similar work. I get some ideas for activities & such from the internet, some form books, and some just come to me.
We have very high standards for their education. All materials need to work toward the standards & requirements we've set for the kids schooling (which are well above what our local district requires), as well as filling the needs & requirements for a customized education for whichever child it is being used.