Figuring out WHAT curriculum to go with!
It can be so overwhelming. There are a lot of curriculum programs out there. A lot of really great ones!
There are also the government k-12 online schools, which are great too.
I have been wanting to do Home School since my 7 year old went to Kindergarten, but didn't quite feel ready yet, until this last year. I looked into the online schools several times, and just never felt a connection with any of them.
My sister, who has been Home Schooling for about 15 years now, tried the online k-12 school, and has mixed feelings about it. I have talked to several other people, who have tried it also, and they say good and bad things about it. It is where I started looking, but I ended up looking past it all. (Even though the reimbursements are soooo tempting!)
Here are some benefits of an online school -
(please remember I am just starting out with this, so I leave it to you to study out for yourself too. This is just to give an idea of what I have looked into, and found for myself)
- You can do school from home
- Your student still has a "classroom Teacher"
- You can work out a schedule that works for you and your student
- They often reimburse, and send you supplies (it is cheaper for them to do this, than to have your child go to public school. It costs $10,000 per child to go to public school) just a reference
- Your curriculum is planned out for you
- You can mentor them along if you need to
- You are tied down to logging on everyday for school time
- You are required to do testing
- online teaching quality can vary
- not every child learns the same, so it might work great for one of your children, and not so great with another
Here are some other curriculum programs that I have looked into or heard about, that would be worth looking into also:
Latter Day Learning (also known as the Family School)
My Fathers World
Ambleside Online (Charlotte Mason book list and schedule)
Confessions of a Home Schooler, has some great curriculum books too! (I love her website!)
My favorite Method, is of course the Thomas Jefferson Education (TJED).
After several years of trying different curriculums, including K-12, my sister finally found TJED, and has now been with it for about 6+ years.
My oldest daughter was just a baby when she first told me about it, and she invited me to look at their website. http://www.tjed.org/
I had years to go, until I needed to make a schooling choice for my kids, but I was very intrigued by what she had told me about it, so I looked. I ended up registering with their website, and have known since, that whether my kids ended up going to public school or not, that this was a method, I would be using in my home either way.
I love that it focuses on teaching a child to love to learn, rather than forcing a child to just learn how to get a job someday.(not that knowing how to get a job isn't important, because it definitely is, but if you know how to love to learn, you will be more likely to thrive in the job you do get someday.)
Now that I am doing Home School, I am very excited to put this method into full practice for not only my kids, but myself too!
With this method, you get to be the mentor, and the child is the educator. :) We learn from the classics. We learn Math, science, history, reading, language arts, all the important subjects, from our leaders, and from classic authors, like Shakespeare, by reading the books, and then discussing every bit of them. They choose the subject, and then you read the book with them, or before they read it, so you can mentor them along in their questions and studying.
In the first phase of this method, ages 0-8 about, children are learning the important life skill of "between right and wrong". This is a great time for you to start reading about what you want to learn about, for yourself (ex. I decided I wanted to learn about Sun Dials, recently, so I had fun looking up articles, and reading about where they started, who invented them, and things like that). It sets a great example, of you learning to love to learn, so they can transition into the next phase easily, which is "Learning to love to learn". :)
TJED's website has book lists for the classics, and so does the Ambleside Online website.
Why did I continue to choose this method, over all of the other great curriculum and methods?
My sisters oldest boys are 14 and 15, and they are doing things for fun, like memorizing the Declaration of Independence, and taking fun field trips to Mt. Rushmore as a reward, for choosing to do so.
My 14 year old nephew did this, and it is amazing to see the young man that he is becoming. I had a discussion with him, that started out casual, but was very quickly turned into, how he wants to study law, and religion, and deep, smart subjects, and the best part is he is passionate about it!
My 15 year old nephew, (and all of his 4 brothers) have amazing self values, that they hold themselves to. They are the most kind, loving, helpful, hardworking boys I have ever met!
I am telling you all of that, because, watching them, has inspired me to want that for my family too. I want my girls and my son, to desire to learn. I want them to love good books, that have good, wholesome, inspiring literature in them. I want them to learn life skills, from the virtuous wome, like "Jane Eyer", and "Little women" and to have high standards, and good values, and great self esteem about themselves. I want them to read a book, and learn how to handle difficult life situations. I want them to love our country, the way our first leaders did, and for all of the values our first leaders had, to be important to my kids too. I want our constitution to have meaning to them, so they can uphold our country, and be great leaders themselves, in their own small or big ways. I really feel they will get all of this from the Thomas Jefferson Education method. :)
I know that this is something that most families want for their children, but again, this method might not be for everyone, and there are others that are just as just as great out there. I do definitely encourage you to look at this method though, and read the book A Thomas Jefferson Education, to learn why this method works, and how to do it.
You can even do this method, and use other curriculum too if you want.
As this method teaches, we will be structuring our time, but not the content. The freedom to learn how we want to learn, encourages, loving to learn.:)
Anyway, I just wanted to share why we chose to go this route. )
I love hearing about other methods, and curriculum, so feel free to share what you have found, and what you love about it for other readers (and me) too, in the comments.
Happy Learning!
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