Home School Curriculum

        Many parents who are new to homeschooling wonder about curriculum, this may be one of your concerns. Like all parents you just want your child to have a great education. You want them to learn all the things they need to know to prepare for adulthood.

Choosing the curriculum you will use seems complicated but it doesn't have to be. It can be as easy as printing out a page here and there online. Or purchasing the curriculum of your choice online or else where. If you choose to home school through a Charter program whether online or offline the curriculum that you use will be given to you.

If you go the independent private school route then you will need to get the curriculum yourself. There are many free and payed sites to download curriculum. Many sites offer complete lesson plans, tutorial videos, tests, and work pages for any child! Thrift stores can also be a great place to get book on a budget. Not to mention that you can buy workbooks at just about any store like Target, Wal Mart, etc.

The main thing to remember is to listen to your child. Ask them what they want to learn and help them find appropriate books, work pages, etc.. to help them along the way. if you Tailor make your curriculum around your child's likes and interests it will be win, win.


If you use a Home Based Charter School, they will supply you with the curriculum required for your child's grade and you will have a Teacher to assist you. This may or may not cost you anything some home based private schools will have a charge but the charter is usual public by state, this is something you will have to look into.

Other Home School options will require you to provide all necessary curriculum to your child for their grade, you will have to purchase most of it and the Internet has many sites were you can get FREE lessons and curriculum ideas and worksheets.

Curriculum Sites: These may or may not be free sites. Although it seems that most offer some free worksheets, etc... Some require you to purchase a membership for full site capabilities.

www.softschools.com

www.superteacherworksheets.com

www.discoveryeducation.com

www.jumpstart.com/parents/worksheets

www.tlsbooks.com/

www.education.com/worksheets/

www.ezschool.com/

www.homeschoolmath.net/

www.homeschoolbuyersco-op.org/free-curriculum/

Primary Phonics and Explode the Code by www.epsbooks.com

There are many choices for curriculum. The info I provide is meant to be a guide for you, you still need to do your own research so you can make informed choices for your family.

Get To Know Your Community Social Studies Project

Our Home School Begins Another Year

    We officially started on workbooks again, this year we are not focusing to much on workbooks but I feel they have there place. My son started 2nd grade home school and my youngest is starting to learn pre k reading. It was nice to have a break and we all needed it.

Last year we took on a lot of book work and didn't finish all of the workbooks we had but my son still did very well. So this year we are only using the workbooks needed for basic knowledge and this year we have picked curriculum that are more straight to the point and easy to follow along.

That way we can focus more on reading great books and doing fun activity instead of workbooks all day. My son loves video games so we incorporate educational computer games into our day, and my kids can play on their own while I get some stuff done.

Not to mention it is a great incentive to getting workbooks done!

This year we have chosen Pathways for our reading curriculum and I am very happy with it. Pathways consists of a chapter book and a workbook the child does a page before the section of the book is read and then does a page after. There are also phonics pages to do anytime, this is a straight forward curriculum in reading and hits all the important parts to reading. Pathways was created by the Amish to be used in their school houses. Pathways chapter books are filled with great stories that children love as well as character building scenarios.

We are using Math Steps for our math curriculum. This curriculum has a teachers guide as well as a great easy to follow workbook that gets right to the point of each math lesson.

We also are using a vocabulary workbook called Vocabulary Workshop by Sadlier Oxford. This one has a teachers guide and it is also very user friendly and hits all necessary vocabulary skills.

For spelling we use Spelling Connections by Zaner Bloser also a user friendly curriculum, this has a teachers guide and a workbook that gives a spelling list at the beginning of each section. The student practices the words by doing the corresponding work pages and then a challenge page that introduces more challenging above grade level words.

In English we are using Houton Mifflin.
Science is Mc Graw Hill.
Social Studies is California Vista this curriculum is standard for CA public schools.

There is not much to say about the last three, but we read them do the workbooks, activities and discuss the information. Later we may read other books and enjoy Field trips to places where we can further our education on the subjects.

Thanks for reading I just wanted to post something about our curriculum choices. We will not however be focusing our day on workbooks. I feel that curriculum has its place in home school especially when it comes to a basic knowledge which I feel essential in life but not solely obtained in a strict curriculum program.

We get all this curriculum for free provided to us by our Home Based Charter program provided to us by the state of CA. There are many Home Based Charter programs for your homeschooling needs, also see Online Home School Programs.  Home Based Charter Schools

World Map Color Page

Great Map Color Page Link

My son needed a world map to color for Social Studies and I could not find the one I was looking for until I found this blog * here is the post with the free printable map link * and I found just what I was looking for when I clicked on the map.. The link took me to a great site with other maps so I also found a great USA map color page as well.

This is a great blog with great resources you should check it out for your home school. I also am a follower of that blog you should follow too.

Free Math Curriculum

   For Math we are using the Houghton Mifflin curriculum, the workbook is great and it is full of color and clear images the kids love.

This curriculum is very easy to use and we have the first grade one for the coming up school year.

The kindergarten one we did touched on everything a child need to learn in K and then we supplemented the learning with math blocks, counting cubes, pattern blocks etc you can get these at any school store and the kids love to use them.

And don't forget your kitchen is a great place for math aids. Baking is a great way to teach fractions using measuring cups and spoons and dry beans are always helpful for counting out math problems.

For pre school children teach more and less using cups of juice or water etc just get creative and you will see that math is all around us and every opportunity is a time for learning.

The post below has the link for the HM site were you can learn more about the curriculum choices they have.

Also check the FREE Printable Worksheet site for some great math worksheets.

I also love to go to The Dollar Tree store they have great workbooks and I have gotten many math workbooks there.

Check your local dollar store, Wall Mart, Target stores these are great places for workbooks and cheaper than a school store.

Spelling Curriculum

     For spelling we have been using Houghton Mifflin Spelling and Vocabulary workbook this is a first grade workbook and it has worked out great. The pages contain a step by step instruction which consist of reading the word, writing the words and fitting them into sentences, we do one page a day and then I give my son a oral quiz based on the spelling words provided in the workbook once a week he has a written test on the spelling words.

I think this particular curriculum is being discontinued but I am sure HM is replacing it with a new spelling curriculum and HM has many other great curriculum's to choose from, this is a CA standard curriculum.

The post before this has the EPS books curriculum which also assist the student with spelling and vocabulary.

Also check out my FREE Printable Worksheets link for spelling worksheets and activity.

FREE Printable Worksheets

Awesome site for FREE printable worksheets.

I just printed out a bunch for my son you can choose which grade you want and just print them very convenient and FREE!

What type of curriculum will you use and where will you get it?

  I mentioned before that depending on the state you live you have many options for home schooling once you know what is available to you, you have to decide how you will be home Schooling.

If you use a Home Based Charter School, they will supply you with the curriculum required for your child's grade and you will have a Teacher to assist you. This may or may not cost you anything some home based private schools will have a charge but the charter is usual public by state, this is something you will have to look into.

Other Home School options will require you to provide all necessary curriculum to your child for their grade, you will have to purchase most of it and the Internet has many sites were you can get FREE lessons and curriculum ideas and worksheets.

Curriculum Sites: These may or may not be free sites. Although it seems that most offer some free worksheets, etc... Some require you to purchase a membership for full site capabilities.

www.softschools.com

www.superteacherworksheets.com

www.discoveryeducation.com

www.jumpstart.com/parents/worksheets

www.tlsbooks.com/

www.education.com/worksheets/

www.ezschool.com/

www.homeschoolmath.net/

www.homeschoolbuyersco-op.org/free-curriculum/


Other posts about FREE curriculum

There are many choices for curriculum. The info I provide is meant to be a guide for you, you still need to do your own research so you can make informed choices for your family.

FREE curriculum!

FREE curriculum sites.

I am always searching for new fun ways to teach my kids, any time I need something specific I can usually find it online so I am listing here some great home schooling and curriculum sites!

dltk's

ABC TEACH

activity village

easy fun school

PRINTABLE FOR KIDS

Home schooling for Free on the Internet

Free Homeschooling Curriculum Materials


These are all great sites and you can get pretty much what ever you are looking for..

Comment on this post and add the sites that you like the best!

Thank you!

Happy Home Schooling

Reading and Phonics Curriculum

     I know that starting out homeschooling can be overwhelming and scary especially when you know very little about the curriculum available, this post is meant to give you ideas about what other home schoolers use, recommend and have worked best for there kids!

My son is in K and we are doing the Primary Phonics workbooks plus easy readers and Explode the Code workbooks. I love these programs for Phonics and Reading it is so easy to use and to the point and my son loves it! He is 5 and is reading at a 1st grade level with these programs I highly recommend them!

Primary Phonics and Explode the Code by epsbooks.com

Reply your recommendations to this post, which programs have you used and what do you like about them?