Homeschooling Programs

Question:
My daughter is thinking about homeschooling her 9-year-son, and I have a few questions:

1. Do you use a particular homeschool curriculum? I'm talking here about "brand names", such as Steiner. We are not interested in any fundamentalist religious programs.

2. If so, why? And if not, also why?

Answer:
I've been homeschooling now for about 13 years. This year I sent my eldest to the university with a full scholarship and now have a high school student and a middle school special-needs child still at home.

We are not at all religious. No, we did not use any full homeschool curriculum.

Many reasons, but mainly: 1. No single level full curriculum is going to serve any one child. All children learn each subject at different rates and begin at different levels. You might have an advanced reader, but one who is slower at math, or decidedly uninterested in history. I prefer being able to decide for each child how s/he best learns each subject and then go from there. 2. No single full curriculum teaches each subject in the best way possible. Believe me, I've looked at a great many of them. For math, we mixed many different programs, and the exact mix changed depending on the grade level, and the child. 3. Sometimes a subject is best served without using a curriculum at all. History and literature come to mind.

Your daughter needs to join a homeschooling support group so she can view and discuss different programs before she buys. There are, usually in the spring and most of summer, homeschool conferences where she can browse the vendor hall, again looking and thinking before spending money. Even if your grandson is already reading very well, chances are he is not ready to be learning from a high school-level program. They require a great deal of maturity and can easily discourage a younger student.

Yes, you can spend a great deal of money but you don't have to, and it's nothing like the cost of the private schools that are popping up all over. Some people do it on a shoestring, going to the library several times a week, and frequenting the bulletin boards that offer used materials for sale. Depending on where you live, the community often can offer quite a bit in the way of low-cost educational opportunities - concerts, museums, the planetarium. In addition, travel can be wonderfully enriching, and can teach lessons that stick with a child longer than any textbook education.