When we began looking into curriculum it was important to create a list of things that we found important for educating our children, because not all curriculums provide the same style of learning nor the same education!
Personally, I think it’s much harder to narrow down and select effective homeschool style and curriculum for your family than choosing public school. Putting yourself in the driver seat of your child’s education is a big step, and for many people, it can be very overwhelming.
Thankfully several of the mom support groups I’m a part of on facebook have homeschool parents, and they were able to direct me to support groups for my children’s age and our area. Those ladies provided so much support and information over the first few months which truly impacted our journey being successful.
We researched our state laws regarding homeschool which turned out to be surprisingly relaxed compared to other states/areas. For more information about homeschool laws in your state click here. In our state, there is no requirement to provide notice to the state itself that you intend to homeschool your child, and additionally, children under the age of 7 are not required to meet the states compulsory school attendance requirements. It was simply recommended that we notify our district via formal written communication that we intended to withdraw our child from the public school system.
Then we began researching the HSLDA, and their role in assisting homeschool families. The HSLDA was founded by two homeschool fathers who also happen to be lawyers back in 1983 with the goal to provide homeschool families low-cost quality legal assistance aiding families in their right to homeschool. HSLDA is a membership-based program that provides full legal aid/defense to homeschool families should they need it. HSLDA offers payment packages in monthly, yearly, or lifetime options with discounts for pastors, missionaries, military, first responders, or special HSLDA discount groups. For more information about membership click here.
After that, it was encouraged for us to discover what style would work best for us, and holy whoa was that an overwhelming task. I will be 100% honest and say there is so much information out there about different styles of homeschool. The list seems endless, the information on each style is monumental, and there are dozens of blogs/support groups dedicated to each style.
After becoming overwhelmed I was directed by a good friend to the blog post by Eclectic Homeschooling where a simple quiz can help guide you in the right direction. The quiz asks a number of questions based on what is important to you as a homeschool parent. I will say looking back as I write this post, and nearly 6 months of homeschooling my answers have changed slightly. I have discovered new methods, ideas, and have a better grasp on some of the more important things for our family. The outcome, however, hasn’t changed for me winning by a landslide is the Charlotte Mason Education style.
Just for kicks and giggles my scores when I retook the test looked like this
Score for Waldorf Education: -1
Score for Traditional Education: 8
Score for Unit Studies Education: 15
Score for Montessori Education: 8
Score for Thomas Jefferson Education: 4
Score for Unschooling: 10
Score for Classical Education: 15
Score for Charlotte Mason Education: 25
To check out our friends over at Eclectic Homeschooling click here.
Next, we went back to that list of things we found important for our children and their early elementary education.
That list included:
- fostering creativity
- encouraging problem solving
- building vocabulary
- teaching phonics not just memorization of words
- challenging but rewarding curriculum
- a curriculum that meets or exceeds our states public school requirements
- interactive learning system (we were very drawn to web-based learning)
- incorporates books, reading, and hands-on activities for learning
- flexible, but structured
- an all in one curriculum (we did not want to use multiple different curricula)
- and more!
Once we discovered the legal requirements for our state, how to legally protect ourselves, the style we most closely relate to, and the things we find important for our cirriculm we were able to start exploring programs themselves.
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