Homeschooling curriculum

[Tondi G]

A friend of mine is on the verge of pulling her son out of public school. She spoke with some other in her neighborhood about homeschooling but most of the curriculum they use is quite religious which she is not. She asked me if I knew any home schoolers to ask what program or curriculum that they are using. Her DS is currently in the 2nd grade. They are in Indiana, if that makes any difference. Any websites you suggest too?

Thanks for any suggestions/advise you might have to offer!

~Tondi

[AngelaS]

There are SO many curriculums that it's really hard to pick.

I like Saxon Math and I've heard good things about their phonics too. My history and science are religous based so I don't know what to recommend for those.

[infomama]

I love her website and she home schools her kids....
http://thepioneerwoman.com/homeschooling/

[brittone2]

Yeah, honestly there are so many different curricula out there that it can make your head spin! It causes many people to have either decision paralysis, or a need to enter shopaholics anonymous LOL. There are so many choices.

If she can network with people IRL, she may be able to check stuff out in person to get a feel for it. Here in NC there's a homeschooling store about 35 mins from me that sells new and used curricula and it is nice to be able to *look at* and touch the various items.

We don't really follow anything specific. I have a bunch of different resources available and we just roll with DS's interests.

So much also depends on the DC's learning style. Some curricula are better suited to certain types of learners, kwim?

For math, Singapore gets good reviews. Some kids do better w/ a more manipulatives-based approach. Singapore has sample tests on their site to get an idea of what book they'd want to start with (often kids will need to go down a level from what they are doing in public school as it is a little bit different of a system, kwim?). DS uses some Singapore workbooks and then we also have a ton of math manipulatives we make available (Cuisinaire rods, geometric solids, geoboard, tangrams, pattern blocks, a balance (scale), abacus, etc). I also want to buy the board game Noble Knights of Knowledge.
Math U See and Saxon are two other well known curricula.

I recently got out some books from DH's university library and there were some great ones from the Cuisinaire company (I assume they are still available...they were from the 90s). Anyway, they had a book for each type of math manipulative (pattern blocks, cuisinaire rods, geoboards, etc) and went through different learning ideas with them. They had some geared for K through 2nd or 3rd grade, and then ones for older kids.


For history, we read. DS also listens to Story of the World (the CD series). It has a somewhat Christian slant but we round that out a bit on our own w/ other stuff. History Odyssey gets good reviews as well.

We aren't really following a reading curriculum. DS is pretty much figuring it out on his own. We do have Explode the Code and have done some of that with DS, but not for a while. He also uses Starfall here and there. DS does a lot of listening to various CDs (we like things like Greathall CDs...he listens to things like their kiddie versions of Shakespeare, etc.)

Science stuff is mostly reading and exploring. We have tweezers and bug cages, we've raised butterflies, we keep a bird book by the window near the birdfeeder and DS looks up birds. We have leaf identification books and he looks up leaves. I'm more concerned about spurring his natural curiosity and observation skills than in him learning any particular set of facts. He enjoys books like some of the Usborne and DK books, as well as things like the Magic Schoolbus series.

We make up a lot of games. DS learns from Lego and things like snapcircuits. We just pretty much leave stuff available for him and help him as needed...but there's a lot of just getting out of his way involved ;)

Also, she may want to look into it on her own, but many people recommend a period of "deschooling" when kids are pulled out of school. Sometimes they need to decompress a bit before starting up w/ a whole new curriculum, etc. (depending on the circumstances surrounding why they were pulled out, etc.).

Mothering.com has an unschooling board and a "learning at home and beyond" board. They also have a section with curriculum reviews.

http://www.besthomeschooling.org/ is a great resource for various articles and links. the owner of that site is a regular poster over at MDC. She has a college-aged son who home/unschooled when he was younger.

A lot of seasoned homeschoolers recommend just going slowly at first. Many times people rush to pick curricula that doesn't suit their style or their DC's learning style. There is so much appealing stuff, but you can spend a fortune and then realize it isn't the right fit. So much of what kids learn in primary school can be pulled together without any special curricula anyway, but it is hard to resist that temptation to buy, buy, buy and try to replicate "school at home" when first starting out. So many seasoned homeschoolers tend to recommend starting slowly and not rushing into buying too much too fast, but it can be tough to resist the pull LOL.

eta: My library carries Home Education magazine, which is pretty secular (has ads for religious curricula but on the whole is pretty secular). I really enjoy reading that one. They have a website and I think it has some free articles.