Education on Paper

After making the decision to homeschool, one of the most overwhelming choices parents face is choosing a curriculum. If you’ve been paying the least bit of attention to your children over the years, and I’ll assume you have, you begin to realize that children learn in many different ways – even children in the same family.

If you are starting to homeschool after your children have spent many years in school outside your home, it may take awhile to figure out how they learn best, because time in a public or private school can turn anyone into a “workbook” learner. Rushing into a curriculum purchase, then, is an almost instant recipe for disappointment and frustration. So sit back, pour yourself a cup of coffee or tea, take a deep breath, and read on before you buy that first book! (But don’t panic if you’ve already spent some money – there’s always used book sales.)

Here’s how to figure out your child’s learning style.

* Take a few weeks just watching them. Yes, I said weeks! This is a process, and the more information you collect, the clearer you will be on how to move ahead. Provide educational books (fiction and non-fiction), games, models, kits, software, etc (only limited and supervised internet surfing allowed!) and see what they gravitate towards. What do they choose to do when they have free time? What toys do they like to play with? Take good notes ~ you will not remember, trust me.

* Look at your notes and see how their choices fit into the following categories. While there are many ways to assess learning styles, this particular way is based on personality characteristics or temperament. I find it easier to use these distinctions, as they take into account how a person behaves and responds in situations outside of the school environment as well:

The Active Learner: sometimes known as the “strong-willed” child; likes hands-on activities, manipulatives, construction-type toys; most young children are in this category

The Routine Learner: best-suited toward traditional curricula; likes worksheet/workbooks and completing tasks

The Specific Learner: needs to be challenged and uses hands-on activities to deepen his understanding of concepts; well suited for learning under a mentor

The Global Learner: loves working and learning in a group; likes to read and learn about ideas in context

* Start a Word document and write a summary for yourself. If you keep this updated as your child grows and changes (some characteristics may overlap even in the same individual), you can use this when making curriculum choices each year.

Now what do I do?

Check out this resource as a starting point. Some catalog companies, such as ROCK Solid, Timberdoodle and HomeSchoolingBooks also offer assistance in choosing or evaluating curriculum choices. It’s worth the effort to take the time and understand your child’s learning style. Time spent now will pave the way for a positive and productive homeschool in the future.

If the idea of using used homeschool curriculum for your kids seems tacky, then you need to re-think the matter. Used curriculum is often in excellent quality, the information is the same as in new books, and it can save you an enormous amount of money.

As you begin your homeschool, you’ll quickly find that the biggest expense will be the curriculum. This is true for every homeschool family. Thus, each year, every parent finds themselves asking the same question: How can we make the curriculum fit in with our budgets. The good news is that this does not have to break you, thanks to affordable curriculum alternatives.

The best option: Find some place that sells used curriculum materials in good condition. By doing so, you can save more than half of your brand-new curriculum costs. What’s more, at the end of the school year, you can round up all of that year’s materials and re-sell them, thus recovering even more of the money you spent. If you choose to go the used routes, here are some suggestions that might help you in your quest to buy and sell used homeschool curriculum:

1) Keep an eye on auction websites. The bigger ones have an enormous amount of almost everything, and this includes homeschool material. You can often score quite the bargain here–as well as sell your old stuff at a decent price.

2) Likewise, the big-named booksellers have textbook and workbook materials for your homeschool. And the biggest names let you buy either new or used.

3) Don’t forget to visit your local library. Most are chock full of school texts and workbooks, which you can use at no charge whatsoever!

4) Here’s our suggested process when you get ready to buy and sell curriculum materials. First, look through the catalog from which you normally order your curriculum. Find all of the items you’ll need for the next term for all classes. Then examine last year’s curriculum, nothing everything that you can get rid of. Now make a list of all of the things that you don’t need that you think others might want to buy. Then make a price list, giving a price to everything on your list of items. Finally, go to the major auction and classified-ad sites to sell your used items.

There is one other option that many people forget when discussing buying and selling curriculum. Most homeschool families know other homeschool families. Why not create an exchange that includes all of the homeschool families you know? This way, everyone in the exchange can make use of curriculum materials that other members no longer need. You can include other supplies in the exchange, too: chalkboards, erasers, pencils, markers, swab boards and swab, plus many other items.

The benefit of buying used homeschool curriculum is the advantage of spending little money on what are perfectly fine school materials. Keep in mind that the important thing in a textbook is the information it contains. And information stays just as beneficial and valuable, no matter how used the pages are. Buying used is smart, not tacky.

You have decided to teach your children at home. But which homeschool curriculum will you choose? Have you considered Waldorf Homeschooling? The Waldorf Homeschooling curriculum has garnered a lot of followers in recent years. One of the reasons for such increasing interest is the school seems to react to what many complain is a couch potato society and children who are far too dependent on technology.

What is the Waldorf method? It is based on the work of Rudolf Steiner and stresses the importance of educating the whole child. According to one parent’s forum, Waldorf “emphasizes body, mind, and spirit. In the early grades, there is an emphasis on arts and crafts, music and movement, and nature. Older children are taught to develop self-awareness and how to reason things out for themselves.” In this system, children play an active and critical role in establishing the contours and content of their education. Boredom and lack of interest are overcome because the children are studying what they have selected to study. Of course, this does not mean that children are free to ignore the basics, but rather that children breathe their own life source into those subjects and give them a vitality which stimulates and maintains their interest.

Standard textbooks are not used by children under the tutelage of Waldorf. Interestingly, the children create their own textbooks. In addition, children are discouraged from using computers and television for fear of stifling their health and creativity.

For those desiring more in depth information, click the link below. The school’s site provides a forum where parents can interact with other parents and experts as well as many other resources.

Homeschooling is not for everyone. However, if you have decided to home school your children, then you will need to select a good track on which to run so you can avoid educational collisions. Waldorf homeschooling is well worth considering.

Are you looking for a Catholic home school program? Consider Seton homeschool curriculum.

With so many homeschooling options available nowadays, it can be challenging to decide what will best meet your child’s needs. Seton is an affordable, easy to use program for Catholic homeschoolers. It provides all of the materials and support a family needs to establish a solid foundation for its children by combining modern and traditional teaching techniques.

The school is named after Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton, the founder of the American Catholic Schools. Seton’s primary concern is the education of Catholic children.  Its foremost goal is helping children become and remain practicing Catholics. It abides by the statements found in The Christian Education of Youth, which influenced the school’s mission and purpose, as stated in the school’s guidelines.

Seton homeschool curriculum is all-inclusive. One low tuition fee covers everything, including textbooks, and grading essays and book reports. While some curriculum companies require you to purchase teacher and student materials separately, and may even charge an extra fee for grading and transcript services, Seton’s one price and affordable tuition fee includes everything that your homeschooling child needs. It also includes standardized testing to effectively measure the student’s progress. This service is essential for students who wish to attend college or eventually return to school.

Another great feature of Seton is that it includes counseling services for general home school questions and specific problems such as discipline issues, organizational challenges and academic concerns. Also, the school provides college guidance counseling for all Seton homeschool students who want to prepare for the SAT, ACT, and other college entrance exams.

Believing that education is man’s preparation for what he must do for eternity, the Christian education offered by Seton homeschool places supreme importance on the individual’s purpose in his family and in society.

As St. John Chrysostom have said, “what greater work is there than training the mind and forming the habits of the young?” The flexible learning programs offered by Seton homeschool curriculum are just one of the church’s ways of living up to its duty to watch over the education of her children. 

Catering to a child’s strengths when planning your homeschooling curriculum offers a greater opportunity for learning to sink in and become permanent. Not only will your child increase in excellence, but her motivation will soar, too, which makes your role as teacher much more exciting!

Let’s take a closer look at how certain children learn and how you can plan lessons around their strengths!

If your child shows skills in math, then capitalize on that strength by having him/her make graphs, organize information, or explain how a problem was solved. Involve calculation, logic puzzles, and planning in your lessons for this child. Children with musical intelligence can be heard a mile away. They’re creating their own rhythms and music, even unconsciously. Capitalize on this strength by having your child listen to different kinds of music for each historical period you study, have him make and play his own musical instruments and put new knowledge to rhythm and song.

Some children love spending time alone, reflecting and pondering life. They keep journals, notebooks, and wonder about the meaning of others’ actions (as well as their own). Utilize their creative writing capabilities, and they’re on cloud nine! Some children bounce as they go through life. They don’t walk, they skip. They don’t just run, they gallop full-speed ahead. Movement is the name of the game. Plan lessons for these children that involve role-playing, inventing, exercise, sports and hands-on experiments.

No doubt about it – some learners need others with whom to bounce ideas around. These children will learn best if you plan team activities, lessons that involve talking, listening and relating to others. Children who are visually gifted need activities that involve drawing, imagining, designing, building, painting, and watching. If your child shows great verbal skill, then you’ll want to design learning around reading, explaining, writing, and storytelling.

Some learners excel when they’re outdoors. If you have a nature lover, then plan lessons around growing, planting, observing the environment, investigating the outdoors, and recycling. Almost any activity can be altered to fit a child’s learning style. By gearing your home school curriculum and lessons to your child’s individual strengths, you increase his excellence in that strength and heighten motivation to finish projects. The motivated learner tends to remember facts and new skills with greater ease. It’s the perfect way to make learning stick!

A Homeschool Curriculum For Dyslexia Can Teach Your Child To Read

When faced with the challenge of teaching a dyslexic child to read, many parents would opt to homeschool their child, which gives their child the advantage of focused instruction, at his own pace. For the novice in homeschooling, it may seem like a huge task to teach a child with learning disabilities, yet, those little breakthroughs on reading, writing and speaking are enough to encourage any parent to keep trying to help their child overcome their learning disabilities. Using a homeschool curriculum for dyslexia is the best help that a parent can have in dealing with a dyslexic child’s learning issues.

Dyslexic children often display difficulties in reading and hearing the differences in word sounds during their early years. Often, children with this kind of learning disability can not handle the connection between thought and language (thus difficulties in reading and writing occur). They cannot recognize sounds, and therefore, can not spell words nor connect a written word to an image that it represents.

Do not consider it a losing battle, however, if your child has been diagnosed to be dyslexic. Many of the world’s achievers started out with the same disadvantage, such as Churchill and even Einstein. It is possible to overcome this language learning disability through a specialized homeschool curriculum for dyslexia.

Most dyslexic children are observed to have short attention spans, especially on subjects that do not interest them. They are more akin to learning better using kinesthetic or interactive methods. Thus, language games are often incorporated into a homeschool curriculum for dyslexia in order to achieve learning at a faster pace.

One of the most used approaches for a homeschool curriculum for dyslexia is the Orten-Gillingham method, which makes use of the different senses. It is a systematic and sequential way of learning language which allows the student to recognize sound patterns associated with letters. The student is taught to recognize the different letter sounds, usually starting with the long and short vowel sounds. The different sounds of consonants are then introduced, until the child is finally able to start reading short three letter words. Repetition is an important aspect of this method, which can also be used to learn new vocabulary and various sentence structures.

Dyslexia affects children in varying ways. Some children only have a mild case of it, while others can be severely affected. This is why a homeschool curriculum for dyslexia is a better option in helping your child learn, rather than having your child go to a traditional school. You can customize the curriculum based on your child’s level of learning and according to what he or she needs to learn.

With several good homeschool curriculum developers nowadays, getting the right materials for your dyslexic child is a lot easier. There are also educational companies nowadays that offer organized homeschool programs for children with learning disabilities, that can easily be accessed online. These homeschool curriculum developers have been helping parents for many years now find better strategies to help their children read, which is a necessary skill that their children should develop to prepare them for life.

As a Christian homeschooling parent, how do you go about determining which method of teaching is best for your family, or what lessons you should be teaching, and at what speed? Now that you’ve made the decision to begin homeschooling your children, are you still doing things the way they were done in your child’s public school? In other words, are you “homeschooling”, or having “school at home”?

Many parents, when they begin to set up their Christian homeschool, end up doing things the way they were done in the child’s previous school, simply because that’s all they are familiar with. Now that’s fine, if that’s what you want to do. But for your children to really be equipped for life, you should really take advantage of the benefits of what homeschooling will permit you to accomplish. Basically what that means is that you, and no one else, gets to choose your objectives and goals for your Christian homeschool, and you get to set the pace in relation to your children’s specific needs.

One of the biggeset challenges that most homeschoolers discover is in making a schedule for their homeschool. Some parents use various homeschool software programs, others write their notes in notebooks or on sticky notes plastered everywhere. Some take things one day at a time, some plan for a week, month, or even a year in advance, and some simply don’t make any plans at all. Whatever will be, will be. There’s no right or wrong way to do it, and that’s the beauty of homeschooling. Each family, each child, each mom/teacher is different, and so you do what you are comfortable with.

However, when it comes to putting together your Christian homeschooling curriculum [http://www.christianhomeschool.myreviewsandtips.com/what-to-teach-in-your-christian-homeschool.html], it becomes much easier, and less stressful, when you make a yearly plan of school objectives and goals. Depending on the goals you have set for you school year, it will be much easier to determine what homeschooling curriculum you will need to help you accomplish those goals.

Since no one knows your child better than you do, it is important that the goals you set be based on his/her capabilities. As your children get older, you can get them more involved in the goal-making process. Asking questions about what they would like to learn, where would they like to go, what projects they would love to work on, etc. will help make your yearly curriculum selection process that much easier.

Any first time homeschooler can recount the details of their first homeschool convention. Some may have wonderful experiences, but the many that I have come into contact with, come away feeling hopelessly overwhelmed and confused by the availability of choices. The families who go to homeschool conventions and come away with the right fit or mix of curriculum normally have a well thought out plan.

Perhaps you are the type of homeschooling parent who does not attend homeschool conventions. Possibly you prefer to order your homeschool curriculum from various catalogues that you request by telephone, mail or over the internet. Here you are selectively contacting those curriculum providers that you feel will best suit your needs.

You could possibly be part of a third group – the homeschooler who enjoys surfing the web and sifting through the maze of homeschool curriculum advertised on line. This was where I found myself about 10 years ago. Not being in a country where annual homeschool conventions were the norm all those years ago, I needed a strategy to survive the curriculum hunt.

Here are my top 8 tips for choosing the right curriculum for your family, whether online, via catalogue or at a homeschool convention.

Tip no 1 – Know your children well.

Here I am not talking about learning styles. This is knowing their particular bent – their interests, their heart, their hopes and dreams.

Tip no 2 – Family focus

Here you consider what you as a family are about. Are you a missionary family? Are you a family with special needs children? Perhaps you want to travel more. All these issues need to be taken into account.

Tip no 3 – Learning styles

Knowing your children’s learning styles (and your teaching styles) is an important consideration but it should not be the only thing that you consider when purchasing curriculum.

Tip no 4 – Long term goals

What are your long term goals for your family? What are your children’s goals for their own lives? The answer to this question may only become clearer as your children get older. But if you desire that your children are self employed then you would look for curriculum and resources that aid you in this goal.

Tip no 5 – Cost

This is an important factor. While there are many homeschooling families who feel alright with photocopying and borrowing material, I have never thought it fair to “rob” others of their income. This does not mean that buying a homeschool curriculum need to bankrupt you, but planning in advance can make all the difference if you know what your budget is.

Tip no 6 – Philosophy

Research what homeschool philosophy appeals to you. There are a large number of differing schools of thought. Briefly they are: Literature Based, Unit Study, Textbook, Unschooling, Accelerated, Catholic, Classical, Delight Directed and Charlotte Mason.

Tip no 7 – Time available to mom

This is an important factor to take into consideration. Do you have lots of children? Perhaps you work part time? Do your children pursue lots of activities and have other co-op classes? These need to be thought through as you prepare to purchase any curriculum.

Tip no 8 – Know your child’s preferences and weaknesses

Part of choosing curriculum is finding the right tools to build up your children in their weaknesses so that they achieve an acceptable standard. It is also good to have a general knowledge of all scholarly disciplines, but this is not necessarily the only goal. Make sure you also choose things in which your child can delight in.

Finally before starting out to the homeschool convention, surfing the net or sending out catalogue request, be sure that you have prayed about your choices, sought your husbands counsel and that you have your guidelines in place. Happy curriculum hunting.