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Basic Homeschooling Information |
Curriculum The specific subjects that you teach will depend
partly on your state’s law, partly on your children’s ages, and partly on the
interests of your family members.
Write your goals before selecting materials, and pray for God’s
guidance. You might need different
materials for different children. To learn what’s available, browse through
homeschool catalogs (Rainbow
Resource, Sonlight, Timberdoodle, Veritas Press, and CBD would be a good selection with
which to begin). The Classical
Homeschooling website has excellent curriculum recommendations (even for
non-classical homeschoolers). Plan to purchase teacher resources, as well as
materials for your children. Resources
that I like include: Why Gender Matters, by Leonard Sax, MD, PhD What Your Child Needs to Know When by Robin Scarlatta What Your __ Grader Needs to Know, E.D. Hirsch, Jr. The Way They Learn, by Cynthia Ulrich Tobias The Well-Trained Mind, by Susana Wise Bauer A Charlotte Mason Education, by Catherine Levision The Reading Teacher’s Book of Lists, ed. Edward Bernard Fry,
Jacqueline E. Cress, Dona Lee Fountoukidis Handbook of Nature Study, by Anna Botsford Comstock All Through the Ages, by Christine Miller At the time of this writing, Following are some curriculum comments (mostly
arranged by subject), based on what we’ve used in our family.
Kindergarten
Samples of Five In A Row can be viewed at the
author’s website. If your public
library doesn’t have a copy, you can request Inter-Library Loan; Art AppreciationMy children really like Mommy, It’s A Renior, and I like it too (aka How to Use Child-Size Masterpieces to Teach Art Appreciation). It’s for ages 3-12, so the little ones
don’t feel left out. I’ve also used
MacIntyre’s Drawing Textbook which
I loved until we found Draw Squad. Also, there are art and sculpture
merits in the Royal Rangers programs (see bottom of page). Foreign LanguageFor the study of Greek with my kids, we began Hey
Andrew, Teach Me Some Greek around age five or six. It was fun and a good introduction, but given
what I already knew about Greek, decided not to continue with that
curriculum. I would recommend it for
starting out, though. My kids liked it
and they learned the Greek alphabet and a few words. The same author as the aforementioned Greek
curriculum also wrote, Latin’s Not So
Tough. We did not like it as well
as the Greek. I discovered ¾ of the
way through book one that my son was able to write the correct answers on
pages, copy letters, and parrot sounds to me without actually learning the
material. For the study of Latin, we
used Latina Christiana. It was extremely fun for my kids to do,
because we met with three other families.
The kids in all the families studied throughout the week then met with
friends every Friday morning for a new lesson. Since none of the moms knew any Latin, we
used the dvd’s as well as the workbooks, and they are definitely worth getting; I would not do the program without
being able to watch the lessons on dvd.
We had younger kids in one room and older kids in a different
room. For my kids who were too young
to study Latin that year, we plan to do Prima
Latina in second grade, followed by Latina
Christiana 1 in third grade, and then take two years to work through Latina Christiana 2 in fourth and
fifth grades, then take a year off and begin Henle in junior high (I do not
like Wheelock). For those who don’t like Latina
Christiana, take a look at Matin
Latin – I probably would have used it if we had not been learning along
with a group of friends. My children do not like the Rosetta Stone foreign
language software, and I am inclined to agree with them. We did find an excellent computer-based Spanish program called Visual
Link Spanish. My fourth grader child
wants to learn French. Memoria Press
(the people who publish Latina
Christiana) now has a French curriculum.
We are planning to try this French program once they have the DVDs
available. Note: at
the time of this writing, two-years of the same foreign language at the high
school level are required for entrance into any state university. At least one of those state universities
accepts public and private school transcripts, but does not accept foreign
language on a homeschooled student’s transcript. Homeschooled students claiming foreign
language credit are required to pass a test demonstrating proficiency in the
foreign language. This is
reasonable. However, it does affect
your scheduling. If your student
studies foreign language as a freshman and sophomore, the information might
not be retained by the time college placement tests are taken two years
later. Another option is to simply
wait and take a year of foreign language at a community college before
transferring to a four-year college. GeographyThe most interesting geography is also the
easiest. Post a large map on the wall
and locate places that kids encounter in their reading. Search the internet to find information
about various places. The kids will
remember those things that they were most interested in learning about in the
first place. World Discovery Deluxe is an excellent software
program. This is one of the few
computer programs my children are allowed to use at a young age. Toddlers can sit on your lap and use a
pencil eraser to point out what should be clicked while mom or dad operates
the mouse. Junior high and high-school age students can use Mapping
The World By Heart. It is not
recommended for younger students because of the fine-motor skills involved. Health and FitnessThis does not need to be extensive. Kindergarteners review basic things like
how to wash their hands, how to brush their teeth, and other basic hygiene
issues. Teach nutritional theory and
have the kids help you plan menus. One
year we used Meet Your Teeth
(ordered from Rainbow Resource). We
received as a gift a software program from DK called My Amazing Human Body; we've used it as part of our anatomy
curriculum. Also a game called SomeBody. Both make learning basic anatomy fun. Also The
Body Book, which is a school curriculum (around $15-20 I think). Younger
kids can use it for rainy day activities, and make paper models of eyes,
ears, etc. – even a whole paper skeleton.
To enrich this subject, when we raised meat rabbits the kids helped
dress them out at butchering time, which was great for cementing what they'd
already learned about anatomy - they could handle lungs, heart, stomach, etc,
and see their sizes relative to one another.
We also let them watch when we have a cow butchered and have kept some
of the organs for dissection (our favorite has been to shove the shop-vac
blower down the trachea and use it to blow up cow lungs). Volume 3 of Lyrical Life Science is junior high level anatomy. PE can be as simple as daily family exercises, or
as complex as joining the YMCA for I look forward to designing a high-school level health
course with a biology prerequisite.
Kids will do a family tree and learn the difference between drawing a
genealogy tree and a medical info tree (they’ll do both). Kids will compile their own complete
medical history (to have as they graduate and need to maintain their own
records). They will learn the meaning
of some of the basic lab tests that doctors order. The required reading list has not yet been
compiled, but will include You: The
Smart Patient and How Doctors Think.
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History
Greenleaf
Press has an excellent history series for those who like a
literature-based approach. For my two
oldest children we used Old Testament
History and Ancient Egypt
concurrently in kindergarten. In first
grade we used Ancient Greece
followed by Ancient Rome. Next was Greenleaf’s Middle Ages in second grade and Renaissance and Reformation in the third grade. Greenleaf does not have a Greenleaf did not work for my third child. Another excellent option for elementary
history is Susan Wise Bauer’s Story
of the World. For my third
child, Story of the World, volume 1
– Ancient World began in first grade. Volume 2, Middle Ages was for second grade, and volume 3, Renaissance to Modern Times for third
grade. Volume 4, Early Modern Times was published in 2006. An optional activity book can be used with
the story book to help students retain information – do not do all of the activities, just choose the
ones that work for your family. On the light side, watch Schoolhouse Rock’s
American History cartoons. Other options
are some of the Royal Rangers merits:
Presidents, American History, Citizenship, Railroading, and Pioneer
Lore (see bottom of page). On the negative side, one of our first purchases
(before I learned about praying before purchasing), was The Light and The Glory. It
was so boring that I fell asleep while reading it aloud to my children. LanguageI like Learning
Language Arts Through Literature, however it is fairly time-intensive for
the parent. It works well for one or
two children. I found it impossible to
do for four kids. I finally gave my
oldest three kids the Rainbow Resource catalog (turned to the Language Arts
section) and told them to pray about it and pick what they thought looked
good. Every child chose something
different, every child chose something that I would not have even looked
twice at, and every child now has something that works well for them. For add-ons, in second grade (and up) our
family likes English From The Roots Up,
which has 100 Greek & Latin roots on which many English words are
based. We also like Rummy Roots, which has only 40 roots
in the basic game, but is presented in a manner that there’s greater
retention. Both are good for basic
English etymology. Another excellent
curriculum for etymology and grammar is the Latina Christiana series from Memoria Press. If you’re just
looking for grammar and a quick Latin introduction, Prima Latina can be
used by kids as young as five. That said, my current favorite “language” curriculum
is Shurley English, mentioned above
in the Writing section. However, it
would become tedious to do every
year because there is significant repetition. Math
If you are not strong in your math skills, don’t
use that as an excuse for your child to grumble about this subject. Use it as motivation to learn along with
your children. Order a free demo disk from Math-U-See. This is an excellent curriculum. For young children, start teaching addition by
playing dominoes. Concurrently, play
Go-Fish with half a deck of regular playing cards (age 3-4) to teach number
recognition. Once kids don’t have to
count all the dots on dominoes to add two of them together, introduce the
card game Uno. Next teach children to
play cribbage (age 4-6). You can also
do some building projects together to teach kids how to use a tape measure. Cooking is very good for teaching children
about fractions, and children should be allowed to help in the kitchen at a
young age. Adding scores for a Yahtzee
game is another fun application for basic arithmetic skills (no
calculators!). I recommend purchasing Base 10 blocks (search for “base ten starter set” on Rainbow Resource’s website). Base 10 blocks have 1s units (a 1cm cube),
10rods (1cmx10cm, equivalent to ten of the 1s units), 100flats (10cmx10cm,
equivalent to ten of the 10rods), and 1000cube. We play a game where we take turns rolling
two dice; give children one 1s unit for each pip on the dice. For example, if the child rolls a 3 and a
2, say, “here’s your 3 (set down three units), and here’s your 2 (set down
two units).” If the child rolls a five
and a six, say “Here’s your 5 (set down five units), and here’s your six (set
down six units).” Younger children
will want to count their units every turn, older children will be able to
remember. You do not have to formally
instruct your kids to count – they’ll do it on their own and have fun doing
it if you don’t make it “schoolwork” for them or get impatient about all the
time they take counting up their score every
turn. Whenever a player has ten of
the units, they can be exchanged for a 10rod.
Younger children will need to count them every time; older children
will get to where they recognize combinations and be able to make more
advanced exchanges. We have a rule
that if the dice fall off the table, we still look at the number on the dice
but the player loses that many units.
Three year olds can play to at least fifty; attention spans increase
with age (my four-year old always wanted to play to three hundred). Children who have played this game should
not have any difficulty understanding carrying and borrowing (regrouping)
when they get to those concepts in their written arithmetic. In our family, we do not do written arithmetic
until the basic facts have been mastered (easily done when playing the
above-mentioned games). For
non-written drills, Math-U-See has online drills. Kids who use the computer can do the drills
on their own. Kids who don’t use the
computer can say the answers and have parents type the answers for them. It is not necessary to do timed math
drills, but if you wish to do so, there are two good options. Mad
Minute is one option for a good set of drill sheets: kids have one minute to see how many of the
problems on the sheet they can do. A
new sheet is given every day. A
different approach is used by CalcuLadders.,
Kids are timed to see how long it takes them to complete all the problems,
and they get the same sheet every day until they can do it in the designated
time (usually 2-5minutes). That can be
encouraging for kids who feel that there’s no point in trying because they
don’t think they’ll ever get done in one minute. However, I honestly believe that the best
approach is Math-U-See’s online drills. The Math-U-See
company is very easy to work with and has excellent workbooks for
students. Math-U-See has the hands-on
advantages of Miquon so kids really understand what they’re learning. It has additional advantages: enough repetition that kids retain skills
(you choose how much review they must do), and the workbooks include “story
problems” so that kids get to apply what they’re learning to real-life
situations. Many of the other
materials out there that are available to homeschoolers only go through one
year of algebra. Math-U-See begins
with kindergarten, and progresses through two years of algebra, one year of
geometry, and also a year of trigonometry/pre-calculus. There are dvds to watch (about five-ten
minutes of dvd, then a week or two of practicing the material taught in that
lesson). Those who have already begun
with a different curriculum and want to change can download a placement test
from Math-U-See’s website, and begin kids at the appropriate level. My children really enjoy this math and
remember what they’ve learned better than with the old curriculum. I highly recommend ordering a demo disk
from Math-U-See’s website. If you want math beyond trigonometry/pre-calc,
look into the Life of Fred
series, which has fractions, decimals & percents, beginning algebra,
advanced algebra, geometry, trigonometry, calculus, and statistics. My current intention is to pick up calc
& stats from Life of Fred after
we have completed the entire Math-U-See
curriculum, however modifying the approach differently for girls than for
boys (see the book, Why Gender Matters,
by Leonard Sax, M.D. Ph.D.) Regardless of which curriculum you choose for
math, you will probably have small pieces that help your child understand the
material (these blocks/beads/buttons… that your child manipulates in order to
better understand the material are called manipulatives). If there is a baby in the house, math might
best be done during naptime (and carefully put away) so that there is no chance
of the baby choking on small parts that fall on the floor. Music AppreciationKeyboard
Capers
is great for introducing music theory, and can be begun as early as age three
if you have a piano or keyboard. Software
that I highly recommend for older children who use the computer is Music Ace (both volumes 1 and 2). Recorder is an easy instrument to learn
once kids’ hands are large enough to be able to cover the holes, around age
six – public schools usually teach recorder in fourth grade. I highly
recommend Jean Welles’ Worship Guitar Class
dvds. She has a Kids’ Guitar Class dvd for ages 6-10, plus the 4-volume set for
adults (and teens). Private music lessons are beneficial, if you can
afford them. If you have three or more
students taking lessons from the same teacher, you should be able to find
someone who will come to your home to teach.
Customize reading to your child’s interests. I had one child completely uninterested in
reading until we started getting car ads (Auto Trader, etc). Another child’s reading ability exploded
when he discovered the Sports section of the newspaper. Dr. Sax’s book, Why Gender Matters has some tips on the differences in boys’
& girls’ reading.
I don’t like any of the expen$ive phonics
programs out there; they are overpriced and just not worth their cost; you
can teach phonics by drawing in the dirt with a stick. We started with Why Johnny Can’t Read by Rudolf Flesch. This is recommended reading for anyone who
plans to teach a child to read. The
book contains narrative in the first half, followed by reading lessons in the
second half. The lessons are simple
and kids learn to sound words out, however I found that the type-face is too
small for beginning readers. I had a
large amount of preparation time rewriting the words for my children. After I had already found something easier
to implement than Why Johnny Can’t Read,
I learned of Reading Reflex and
highly recommend it. This book should
be available through your public library. The Writing
Road to Reading
by Romalda Spalding is probably the best reading program available to
classroom teachers. A large amount of
preparation time is required to figure the program out, and I found it
impractical to implement in the homeschool setting. Teach
With that information as background, my personal
recommendation for teaching reading is Teach
Your Child To Read in 100 Easy Lessons.
It is well written, fun
for children, and requires zero preparation time for the parent. At the end of the book children can read at
a second grade level. At that point
you will need to supplement with additional phonics; I recommend the Explode The Code series for ease of
use, fun for kids, and thoroughness. Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy
Lessons cost less than $20 through Rainbow Resource. AlphaPhonics is very good, and I
would recommend this for younger children who don’t like 100 Easy Lessons, as
well as for older children needing remediation. I have also used Sonlight’s I Can Read It
and don’t recommend it because 1) I think 100 Easy Lessons is better in many ways, 2) it’s too expensive. I do not like the McGuffy’s Reader’s because they contain inaccurate information
and are not well written. The worst
readers I’ve ever seen are the Pathway
readers; although the content is wholesome, the quality of writing is terrible. After children have learned to read, they need
reading material every year. After a
kindergartener or first grader has learned to read, the child can advance to
real books. I like some of the books
from the I Can Read It series – your public library probably has a section of
easy readers in the children’s library.
When we read, it has worked well for me to read the title and first
paragraph, then have the child read a paragraph, and we alternate so that
beginning readers don’t get overwhelmed.
Sometimes I’ll read a whole page.
It’s a good idea to stop before your child is tired. Before long they’ll be doing all the
reading. With Fire Cat, we read one story, then put the book away while the
child was still interested and wanted to know what happens next – that way
they’re looking forward to reading the next day. I Can Read Books that my kids have liked
include Fire Cat, Frog & Toad , Amelia
Bedelia, Mouse Tales, Daniel’s
Duck, The Boston Coffee Party, George the Drummer Boy, The 18 Penny Goose,
Long Way to a New Land, Wagon Wheels, The Long Way Westward, The Josefina
Story Quilt, Clara and the Book Wagon, Dust for Dinner, Buffalo Bill and the
Pony Express, Snowshoe Thompson, and The
Drinking Gourd. By the time
they’ve read all of these, children should be capable of reading just about
anything they get their hands on. I
like the reading recommendations in Sonlight’s catalog (however I do not
always think that their read-aloud selections are age-appropriate, so be sure
to pre-read books if you use SonLight’s list). New readers will enjoy some sort of visual
displaying the books they have read.
We made a reading train and
posted it on the wall. ScienceScience should begin at birth and be a natural
part of daily life as your children explore the world and discover how things
work. Take toddlers for walks and
allow them time to look at bugs, weeds, and other things that we easily ignore. We found some very good field guides that
help us identify and learn about the plants, lizards, bugs, and snakes we
find. Stay up late and learn about the
constellations. When kids become
interested in the weather, let them use an experiment book for guidelines in
building their own weather station.
This should continue well through the elementary grades. Homeschoolers usually call this
"nature studies". Public schools
call it botany, biology, anatomy, astronomy, geology, and other -ologies. Wal-Mart carries
placemats (in the toy section). I
bought planets placemats, so after we eat (and while we eat), the kids read
information about the planets. We've also borrowed books about the solar
system from the children's section in the library. I have a couple videos from a Christian
perspective, too. They guy who wrote
Curious George also wrote an excellent book about constellations. When children become interested in dinosaurs,
around age three-five, there are some good resources to use as bedtime stories. At this age, children can be told that
people only know what they’ve been taught, so it’s important that they not
ridicule those who haven’t been taught the truth about creation/evolution
(this works regardless of your personal beliefs on this topic). Older children should have this reminder
repeated, and can be provided additional age-appropriate resources to do
their own research on this crucial topic. Around 2nd-3rd grade, I recommend the songs from Lyrical Life Science. This is a junior high curriculum, but the
songs are a great introduction for younger kids. Parents can read the textbook portion
themselves and assign portions they deem appropriate, or simply use the
information as background to be able to answer their children’s questions
(lyrics from the songs will inspire
questions). We began with volume 3 to
correspond with our study of anatomy, then followed with volumes 1-2. Second-Fifth graders can work together on Beautiful Feet’s History of Science. Third
graders are capable of working through TOPS experiment books; we liked the
electricity and magnetism studies. At
the time we needed fourth grade science, Lyrical Learning came out with a
volume on geology that we liked every bit as much as the life-science
series. Apologia now carries astronomy
and botany for the elementary-ages. On
the light side, Schoolhouse Rock has a fun science video/dvd. The Apologia
series, which begins with general science for seventh graders and physical
science for eighth graders, goes through high-school and includes biology,
physics, chemistry, and marine biology, plus advanced placement courses in
biology, physics, and chemistry. There are some people who oppose homeschooling
strictly on the grounds that there are some Christians who teach that
creation is a fact and evolution is not.
Regardless of your personal beliefs about creation/evolution, when you
homeschool your children, you have a responsibility to teach what all the
theories are so that your children have a thorough education. It is perfectly acceptable to say, “This is
the theory that I believe, and here is why…
Other people believe __ because__.”
Kids should have enough facts to evaluate the different theories
objectively and come to an educated conclusion for themselves. SpellingPeople hunt for the “perfect” spelling
curriculum. I don’t believe there is
one. Some kids are born with the
spelling gene and spell all words correctly without ever needing to study;
others are less fortunate and misspell every-other-word in a sentence even
after studying for years. For those
with the spelling gene, it doesn’t matter what curriculum you use because
they’ll always be able to spell the words.
For those without the spelling gene, it doesn’t matter what curriculum
you use because they won’t be able to spell anything until they decide that
they want to learn. That said, once
spelling becomes the child’s problem instead of the parent’s, and the
child wants to learn to spell, Writing
Road to Reading can be used for spelling.
We are currently using Sequential
Speller and like it very much. The
kids are learning, and it is easy to implement. It works both for my kids with the spelling
gene and for my kids without the spelling gene. We have Natural
Speller, but it is not as easy to implement. We do not like Spelling Power. You can
also try The ABCs and All Their Tricks.
WritingPenmanship First graders learn correct stokes to form
individual letters. Practice with
large arm motions, writing in the air, before taking pen in hand. We liked Getty & Dubay’s Italic
penmanship. Handwriting Without Tears is also very good. Once letters are easily formed, words and
sentences can be copied from favorite books.
For continued penmanship in the upper grades, consider A Reason For Writing. Composition Grammar is typically considered essential to good
writing. We tried English For The Thoughtful Child with
a couple of my children. It seems like
a good introductory writing curriculum for second graders, but didn’t work
very well for me. At this point, my
recommendation is Shurley
English for first through seventh grades (but probably not every year, as
there’s quite a bit of repetition!).
After that, I recommend Jump In:
A Workbook for Reluctant and Eager Writers (available from Rainbow
Resource) as a two-year junior high
level writing curriculum. We are
actually using Jump In for our
high-school freshman composition class. OtherScouting programs provide the opportunity for
kids to earn merit badges. Many of
those merit badges qualify as history, health/PE, Language Arts/Speech, or
art. You can start a Keepers of the Faith club –
either just for your family, or invite friends. We use some of the Royal Rangers merits (click on
“merits” in the RR sidebar). Merit
requirements can be downloaded. Lesson
Plans can be purchased for red and blue merits (3rd-5th
grades). Many of the green and gold (6th-8th
grades) merits have lesson plans – but not all. 3rd-5th
grades: Art, Bird Study, Compass,
Fingerprinting, First Aid Skills, Insect Study, Rocketry, Safety, Space
Exploration, Weather, Astronomy, Law Enforcement, Music, Pioneer Lore,
Presidents, Railroading, Sculpture, Reading, Wildlife 6th-8th
grades: Swimming, Advanced Swimming,
Hiking, Cycling, Physical Fitness, Citizenship, Communications, Public
Speaking, Emergency Preparedness, CPR, Nature Study, Environmental Science,
American History, Computers, Energy, Forestry, Gardening, Indian Lore,
Photography, Plant Science, 9th-12th grades: Check the silver merits list. High School
The best time to plan high school is when your kids
begin junior high (if you qualify, sign up for the Washington
College Bound Scholarship during junior high, too). Study subjects in junior high that make it
possible to take the necessary high school courses. It is recommended that the high school
curriculum be such that kids have the option of attending college. In general, students should study English
composition or literature every year.
For math, they should study two years of algebra and one year of
geometry. They should have at least
two years of lab-based science.
Students need three years of social science such as If you have not yet read Dr. Sax’s Why Gender Matters, read this
book. Boys and girls are different, and your child’s
education will be greatly enhanced if you consider those differences when you
teach (and parent). Click here for a more
detailed discussion of high school and college.
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