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It’s here! One of the favorite times of year of many homeschooling families. No, not spring break – curriculum fair time! It’s also the time of year that leaves many homeschooling families scratching their heads and wondering, “How do we choose curriculum?” With so many choices out there, it can be overwhelming.
The biggest thing to remember when choosing curriculum is that there is no one perfect curriculum; there is only the best fit for your family. My family may have had great success with XYZ math, while it would be a huge flop for your family. Your best friend may have hated ABC phonics, but it might be just the ticket for your young learner. With so much out there, how do you choose what is right for your family?
Discover your style. Two of the first things to consider are your child’s learning style and your teaching style. If your child is a visual learner, workbooks might be the best choice for him. If, on the other hand, your child is a kinesthetic learner, you may want a more hands-on approach. Your voracious reader might enjoy a literature-based curriculum.
Do you, as the teaching parent, need workbooks to stay on track or feel a sense of completion? Maybe you like the sound of a child-led approach, but you need to feel more of a sense of control. If so, unit studies might be the way to go, letting your child pick the topic, while you choose the content.
Educate yourself. Once you’ve narrow down your curriculum choices based on your child’s learning style and your teaching style, you’re ready to see what is available to you. You’ll want to learn as much as you can about your choices and see what others have experienced with them.
Visit the Rainbow Resource website and request a catalog. Often referred to as the “Sears Roebuck” catalog of the homeschooling world, Rainbow Resource offers a huge selection of curriculum choices. However, the treasure of the catalog is its product reviews. Each product has a detailed review from someone who has actually used the curriculum.
Next, be sure to visit The Curriculum Choice for personal and detailed reviews of a wide variety of homeschool curriculum by homeschooling mom bloggers. that they’ve used, telling why they did or didn’t like it and how it worked with their child.
Ask! Ask other homeschoolers what they’ve used, whether they liked or disliked it and, most importantly, why. The very reason that a certain piece of curriculum didn’t work for one family may be the reason that it will work for yours. Word-of-mouth is a great way to find wonderful curriculum treasures.
Get hands-on! Whenever you can, look through the curriculum choices you’re considering. New and used curriculum fairs, new and used book stores, teacher supply stores, and homeschool stores are all great sources for homeschool curriculum. Another great source for getting hands-on are your fellow homeschoolers. Most homeschooling families will welcome you to look through the curriculum that they use. We love to talk about what’s working for us and why!
Buy used. No matter how much research you do, trial and error is inevitable. What sounds great on a website may turn out to be a poor fit for your family. So, I buy used when I can. It’s a whole lot easier to toss something that you got for half-price! In addition to used curriculum sales, websites like Vegsource allow users to place their ads flea market style and you simply pay the price that someone is asking, rather than bidding on as you would on eBay.
Utilize your library. A final thought is to start with the basics and use your library for everything else. A child can explore endless aspects of history and science – even foreign languages – with a library card while you’re making sure that the math, phonics and grammar materials you’ve chosen are the right fit. Once you get the basics down, you can add in curriculum for the other areas of study as you find things that look interesting to you and your children.
What curriculum-shopping tips have you picked up over the years?
Kris is the sweet-tea-drinking, classically eclectic, slightly Charlotte Mason mom to her three Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers. You can also find her blogging about having reached the huge milestone of 70 pounds lost on her weight-loss blog, Eclipsed.
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Very informative post. Another good place to find used curriculum is through http://homeschoolclassifieds.com/ I’ve had nothing but positive experiences selling there.
I also recently wrote a post about how to put together your own curriculum when you just can’t find quite what you want. Feel free to check it out. http://missmoe-thesearethedaysofmylife.blogspot.com/2011/03/planning-your-own-curriculum.html
I’m glad we’re not the only ones who piece together our own curriculum. I wrote my own unit studies for most of the first 2-3 years we homeschooled.
These are great tips! Getting a chance to look at things in person is a biggie for me, I have to thumb through something to really get a feel for it.
My first year homeschooling, I went to a used sale and bought everything that said 7th grade on it! Much of it actually worked pretty well for us 🙂
I agree that looking through things in person is key. I do that as often as I can.
I think that the hardest part about finding curriculum is that there is so much out there and it is ALL brilliant, of course. Word of mouth is your friend, talk to people that are homeschooling and ask them what really works for them, which is not quite the same as what they wish was working for them!!! Lots of products look wonderful on paper but are not quite so wonderful in practice. Once you find a product that works then stick with it… don’t keep fishing around for something better it is just a waste of energy that could be spent more wisely!!!
I agree that the “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” motto definitely applies to homeschool curriculum.
Great tips Krys. As far as gathering up our materials (and being overseas) –I have to shop online. I love CBD.com and Amazon.com is my personal friend. 😉 I try to look at all sites for reviewes, ebay.com and used curriculum sites too…but I find I use Amazon for most of our purchases for books.
Also, I think it helps to know your philosophy of education –they helped me tremendously in finding our curriculum. We now following Charlotte Mason and truly love it!!
Only thing is the English…still wondering about what to get for our next school year…Any suggestions would be fantastic! 🙂 Thanks for this post.
Oh, Amazon is my friend, too. I bought a lot through them using Swag Bucks last year. Free is awesome!
We are huge Easy Grammar/Daily Grams fans for grammar in our home. As far as other subjects that fall under the “English” heading, we piece much of that together ourselves.
Thank you Kris. I will look at your suggestions for Grammar/English. *I really need to get into the Swag Bucks thing… lol. I <3 Freebies too. 😉
Here’s another suggestion: when I retired from fulltime classroom teaching, I brought home my entire resource library, which was quite extensive, as I had taught all grades from kindergarten through junior high. My brother was just beginning to homeschool, so he raided my study and attic, collecting just about everything he needed. That was two years ago, and my personal collection still keeps his family supplied with books and resources, at least through 7th/8th grades. So my thought is this: inquire of any private/public school teachers of your acquaintance as to what “extras” they may have or are not using at the moment. You may find more than you’ll ever need!
Great tip!
I like your idea and have had one of my son’s previous teachers give me alot of stuff at the end of the school year. I volunteered to help clean out her classroom, and she in turn gave me supplies (that she bought) over the years and no longer needed. I still have them and they’ll be ready to use for my younger ones. Thanks for the advice. 🙂
Great guide! I’ll have to read it again when my daughter is actually school age. For now I am wallowing in the fact that she doesn’t need a curriculum just yet! Lots of drawing and reading here! 🙂
Love this Kris! I’m heading off to my annual convention next week–it doubles as a retreat of sorts for me so I’m super excited.
Oh, I’ve had those retreat/curriculum-shopping weekends. They’re wonderful. Enjoy!
Really great advice! I’ve had several people contact me as of late about beginning the homeschooling path. I’ll make sure to refer them to your post for more ideas. After all the prep work, the most important thing is to just jump in. Although the fairs seem daunting, you only have to go to your FIRST curriculum fair once!