As a homeschooling parent, you likely have a good understanding of your child as a learner. Your child will have strengths, as mine does. She loves to run and kick a ball, and her verbal abilities are fantastic. Your child will have things to work on, as mine does. Her interest in reading is intermittent, although she’s plugging away at it. Your child will have interests, as mine does. She loves birds and baking, for a start, not necessarily together. But have you thought about yourself in the same way? Some of your reasons for homeschooling might lie in your … Continue reading →

Hang out with homeschoolers long enough and you’ll hear talk of grade levels. Your kid’s reading at a grade three level. Mine is doing things that are part of grade five science, and she’s only in kindergarten. As per usual with parents, we don’t tend to highlight when our kids are underachieving, so most of the conversation tends to focus on how divergent our kids are from the norm of the school system, how much farther ahead they are in certain areas. As a parent of a kid who is above average, below average, and distinctly average in different areas, … Continue reading →

You see it wherever you go. It is a sad sight to behold. Homeschooling moms walking slowly slumped with aching backs as they drag their chains connected to heavy books on one hand and their children on the other. They are trudging along in quiet desperation waiting for the end of the school year when they can finally let go of the curriculum they committed their money, time and children to. The curriculum is now the teacher and this teacher carries a heavy ruler of guilt. Are you in curriculum bondage? Curriculum bondage occurs when you feel the need to … Continue reading →

Homeschooling your Kindergartener will come with challenges, frustration, joy, and so much fun. Kindergarteners are naturally curious so this can make learning both difficult and easy. Difficult because the child often gets distracted and wants to veer off to the left of your straight path. Easy in the sense that you get a student ready, willing, and able to learn anything and everything she sees. It’s up to you to find the proper tools to guide your little student down the right path. I hear “What curriculum should I use for my Kindergartener?” all the time. It is reasonable that … Continue reading →

I recently wrote about the ethics behind selling curriculums from companies that forbid resale and instead licenses curriculum. This does not mean that there are not opportunities for purchasing second hand curriculum. In fact, there are many opportunities for purchasing pre-used curriculum programs and books for your child. Amazon.com offers many books that can be used for homeschooling that can be purchased used or new. Thebackpack.com offers affordable educational resources for public, private, and home schools. EBay can also be a reliable source for certain homeschool curriculums. To prevent purchasing curriculums and materials that are not necessarily allowed to be … Continue reading →

With it being time to start considering homeschool curriculums for next year, the homeschool boards are full of questions about whether selling or giving away used or gently used curriculum is ethical. The problem arises in the fact that the curriculum companies lose money when homeschoolers sell used curriculum instead of buying new. Some have even gone as far as to make copies of curriculums for their friends. To cut the losses, many curriculum companies, have placed rules around use and re-use of curriculums in the form of licensing agreements. For example, a Calvert customer must sign a legal binding … Continue reading →

In part 1 of Knowing You have Found the Right Curriculum, I talked about our personal journey in choosing our first curriculum and then transitioning over to a new curriculum as the kids got older. Our first curriculum was an online program, and our second curriculum is through a local homeschool program called Masters Academy of fine arts. When it was obvious that our kids needed a change, we started taking them to the History and Fine Arts program that was available one day a week. As their academic needs grew, we also put them in the programs academic program. … Continue reading →