Let me start by saying that this was our first year homeschooling, but my son ended up liking most of our curriculum so I feel like it was a success.
I am naturally a detail person who likes to be prepared. I’m sure I must have spent over 50 hours during the last few months of my son’s 3rd grade year researching every curriculum I could find in preparation for homeschooling. I had no idea where to start, but I was determined to pick curriculum that challenged him while being something he would enjoy.
Here are 7 tips I learned along the way:
1. You don’t have to buy a packaged curriculum.
While there are lots of All-In-One curriculum packages available, they aren’t always the best way to go. Kids are so unique, and by custom picking curriculum for each subject you can often put together a unique package that better fits your child. One publisher might be strong in one area but not as strong in another. When you go with a bundled curriculum you tend to have little variety in the types of assignments which sometimes makes it hard for kids to maintain interest. When you custom pick each subject you can create lots of variety so each subject brings something new.
Timberdoodle is one “packaged curriculum” that doesn’t fit into the above challenges. Their website was a huge help when I first started looking at curriculum. They sell grade level bundles that include their favorite curriculum from all different publishers. They also let you build a custom bundle, so you can customize it to fit your child. I thought they had a lot of great suggestions and do a really good job putting together bundles for those that are looking for one stop shopping.
2. Not all curriculum matches grade level.
Math curriculum definitely falls into this category. Many of the math curriculum options have a pre-test to help determine what grade level to start with. Some run easier and some run harder. Don’t feel bad about moving ahead a grade or starting back a grade. I highly recommend starting back a grade if you are moving to a new math curriculum that might teach concepts in a different order. Worst case scenario you fly through it quickly just making sure your child has a basic understanding of everything covered. (We used Beast Academy and starting back a grade worked great even though my son is strong in math because they introduced concepts he hadn’t been exposed to yet in his previous curriculum.)
3. Preview the content.
There are three great ways to preview content. The first way is to look for PDF previews on curriculum websites. I found that many of the curriculum we were interested in had some kind of a pdf download that showed the table of contents and at least one lesson. The next way is to find a curriculum “petting zoo”. I know it’s a crazy name, but often groups of homeschoolers will get together and bring their past curriculum for others to look through. It is such a great way to get to really see what a curriculum is like. The third option is used curriculum sales. Here in Boise we have a big one in Nampa at the Idaho Homeschool Convention in June and another one put on by Selah in July. Not only can you browse through the curriculum, but you can grab it for a great price.
4. Sometimes “less is more”.
You don’t have to get everything that goes with the curriculum if it’s not a good fit for your child. This year my goal was to make sure we learned all of the core components without all of the busy work. My son doesn’t want to build the big diorama or dress up like someone from the civil war. As long as he could demonstrate and understanding of the material, I didn’t make him do lots of project type work. This meant we didn’t always buy all of the workbooks that went along with our curriculum. Instead we discussed the information to make sure he understood it, and we were selective with the add on materials. For example for our reading comprehension curriculum I bought the test CD that had multiple choice questions and skipped the workbook that was full of essay questions.
5. It’s ok to return it.
For us, Science was the hard curriculum to pick. We looked at many different options in person and online. We found one curriculum that we thought was the perfect fit. When it arrived, we didn’t love it. It made lots of assumptions that my son had learned things in previous grades that he had never been taught (he was previously in a private school that wasn’t strong in Science). Had we started with the 1st grade book and gone all of the way through we might have loved this curriculum, but starting with book 4 we were going to be lost. We boxed it up and sent it back even though we had to pay shipping to return it. It wasn’t the right curriculum, and we weren’t going to use it just because it was here. We ended up finding something that worked so much better. Science was his favorite subject this year because we were willing to keep looking to find the best curriculum for us.
6. It’s ok to scrap it part way through.
We bought a grammar/writing curriculum that started out great. The first half of the year was all grammar and the second half was all writing. The grammar portion sailed along smoothly. When we hit the writing portion we hit a road bump. I realized that even though he had been taught writing for 4 years, there were some basics he was still struggling with. We decided to grab some other curriculum so we could focus more on revising writing, and we put our other writing curriculum on the shelf for a while. Sometimes you get half way through the year and have to shift gears. It is better to be flexible, than to stick with something that isn’t working.
7. Include your child in the process.
For our family, this was the most important part. I took my son with me to the petting zoo, and I had him tell me what he liked and didn’t like about different curriculum. Then I did lots of browsing online and made a list of my favorites for each subject. I showed my son samples for each of them, and I had him give me feedback. Letting your child help pick their curriculum not only makes it more likely that it is something they will enjoy, but it also teaches them to take some responsibility for their education. There was only one curriculum that my son didn’t enjoy this year that I made him do anyway. As mom’s we still get the final say, but for the most part my son really liked school because he got to pick curriculum that taught him in a way that he enjoyed.
I hope those tips are helpful to you. I know the curriculum thing seems overwhelming at first, but I can tell you picking great curriculum is a key to less drama for the entire school year. It’s worth the upfront effort to have your kids happily sit down and do their work without nagging from mom. I’m working on writing reviews for all of the curriculum we have used so far, so you can see what our favorites were. Do you have other great tips for choosing curriculum or a curriculum you just can’t live without? I’d love to hear them in the comments.