Bonner County Homeschool Group

Pre-packaged curiculums are nice because they remove the parent/teacher from the responsibility of having to plan or prepare.  They relieve stress from parents worried that they might be leaving important things out.  They give kids a school-at-home experience that may be desired if you are planning to put your kids back in school, the kids will already know how to take a test and fill out worksheets.  Some state-sponsored curriculum plans are free, like the K-12 program and others.  Some curriculum plans offer accreditation and a real high school diploma.  They often have lots of support and online or over the phone tutoring.

Most curriculums are very expensive and if you have more than one kid may be far too much for limited budgets.  Curriculum plans are usually filled with busy work.  They cannot possibly tailor learning to your own child's style.  They do not allow for the free persuit of topics that interest the child at the moment, but require rigid adherence.  They do not allow for the teaching style of the parent.  They insist on tests and grades.  The only subjects available are traditional school topics.  They take longer to get done because of all the busy work.  They do not allow you to saturate your kids learning with your personal moral philosophy.

Most parents feel unsure of themselves when begining to homeschool.  They like the idea of a pre-packaged curriculum.  When I first started i thought that was the only option, until I began to read more online adn checked out library books on homeschooling.  To come up with your own curriculum you need a direction: what do you want your kids to learn, tehn you need a homeschool catalog and reccomendations for resources.  There is a book for anything you wish to teach.  If you are someone who enjoys planning and organizing then the process of coming up woth your own plan for your kids education will be very enjoyable and rewarding.  For the rest of you, don't worry it's not as hard as it seems.  Begin with my K-12 Curriculum guide and then tweak it to put in the subjects and resources you are most drawn to.  The benefits of a custom, made for you education plan are enormous and it's far less expensive as well.

It sounds like to do this you would have to spend hours every day preparing for the next day, but on average I spend zero time preparing for the day.  I spend several hours once a year planning and buying materials and a few minutes each week updating the kids student planners, then the rest of the time we just pull out the work and get to it.