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How to Choose Your Homeschooling Curriculum

By Peter Sagner


More parents are making the decision to homeschool their kids. Homeswchooling is no longer as rare as it used to be as more parents decide to go this route. Homeschooled children don't let socialization interfere with other priorities such as work according to studies. Homeschooled children also develop stronger family bonds. While it's good to know all this, deciding to homeschool your kids is just the first step. You also need to decide on the curriculum. The following are some tips to help get you started.

One type of curriculum that might interest you is called unschooling, this type is much more relaxed. This curriculum allows your kids to teach themselves in a manner that focuses on their natural instincts and interests while building their own curriculum. Really it's not schooling at all since that term refers to a lesson plan and curriculum. This method allows kids to decide when and how they learn. Parents are basically uninvolved. Some parents have had great successes with this method of homeschooling but not all colleges, scholarships and SAT's are favorable to it.

Diane Lockman's Authentic Classical Trivium is another curriculum that is quickly becoming well known and highly respected as a homeschool curriculum. It is especially popular among parents who are looking for a Christian based curriculum for their children to follow. This method does not follow those classical education archetypes as the name might suggest. Thought, language and speech are the three pillar focuses. One of the reasons that parents like this particular curriculum so much is that it allows a lot of freedom for helping kids make the most of these three major tenets.

Sometimes one of the better methods for picking out your home schooling curriculum is to spend some money on boxed sets for a variety of lessons. The boxed sets can help give you a format for your day and your lesson plans. Generally, they are packed with books and other teaching materials, which will assist you in saving some time when you need to decide on your method for a specific unit or lesson plan. If you feel that your ideas are better, a nice thing about the boxed set is you don't have to use everything-you can pick and choose. Additionally, you don't have to rely exclusively on the boxed set for your curriculum-you can decide on areas that you don't already have curriculum in place.

You can see by the proven value in homeschooling to your children. The fact is that kids who were homeschooled do better on tests and in college. They often have stronger family bonds than those in public schools too. This is good news for those who've thought about homeschooling but worried about it's efficacy. Of course, before you actually start homeschooling you need to spend some time figuring out what kind of homeschooling curriculum you want to use. Talk to other parents and research your prespective curriculums. You'll find a way!




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