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This is the first post in a series dedicated to choosing your homeschool curriculum. As you have probably already figured out, there are tons of curriculum choices out there. Options are a great thing, but how do you know what to choose for your homeschool curriculum? I’m going to give you some steps and ideas to help you choose the curriculum you need for a successful homeschool year.

Before you start choosing your homeschool curriculum, it is helpful to know about different learning styles and homeschool styles. I would read those posts first before proceeding to curriculum shopping.

You can also school without formal curriculum or piece together free resources to make a curriculum plan. If you have the time and energy, these are great options. This is not my area of expertise as I like all the shiny books and teaching helps that come with formal curricula. That’s a great benefit of homeschooling. You do what works for you!

Since this series is about choosing your homeschool curriculum, we’ll stick with formal curriculum choices.

Check your state laws

Some states are more strict than others regarding what to teach and when. New homeschoolers should always start by checking their state’s requirements to ensure they stay in legal compliance and out of trouble. Most states’ department of education has information on homeschool laws. These can sometimes be difficult to interpret but you can check with HSLDA (Homeschool Legal Defense Association) as they break things down into manageable language. You can also use your social media channels to find homeschool groups in your area. These groups are often a mix of new and veteran homeschoolers and are a wealth of practical information.

Choose an option: School in a box or customize your own

The next step is to decide if you want to go with a full curriculum, or school in a box, or if you would rather put together your own set of curriculum.

School in a Box

The benefit of school in a box is that you place one order, and you have everything you need. These types of all in one packages cover all your bases and are usually compliant with state laws (but you still need to check to make sure). Most school in a box curriculum comes with a schedule, so it eliminates the need to come up with a lesson plan. You also end up getting a big box of new, shiny books that make you feel like it’s Christmas.

There are downsides to using the school in a box. If you get behind schedule in one subject (it will happen), it can throw off your whole plan. That convenient, all-done-for-you schedule can start to feel like a blazing reminder that you are off track. Usually the schedules for these curricula come in a weekly grid format with all of the subjects listed. Say you are ahead in reading, but get behind in read alouds, you will end up flipping back and forth between weeks and the convenient schedule become an inconvenient schedule.

Cost is also a factor to consider as some all in one programs can be expensive. There are some less expensive options but they tend to not have very thorough teacher guides.

A lot of first time homeschoolers choose the all in one to get started since it eliminates the guess work. As they gain more experience and start tweaking the boxed curriculum until it is no longer recognizable, they move into customizing their own.

Customize your own

When you customize your own curriculum, you can take what interests you from different publishers and cater to your child’s specific learning needs. This is great if your child is strong in one area and a bit weaker in another.

Customizing also gives you the flexibility to create your own schedules and if you need to slow down in a subject, it’s fine. When you create a separate schedule for each subject there is no dealing with a cumbersome teacher’s manual while trying to flip back and forth between weeks.

While customizing curriculum can be pricey, it’s easier to spend less on custom curriculum than it is on boxed curriculum. If you are on a tight budget, customizing allows you to prioritize your money on the important skills subjects, while finding free and cheap resources for the rest.

Customizing can also take a lot of time to put the curriculum and schedule together. You have to decide if the cost savings is worth the time it takes to use subjects from differnt providers.

Start Checking out Curriculum Publishers and Request Catalogs

Curriculum Publishers

There are many choices of curriculum publishers, and many different worldviews represented. You can find plenty of options for Christian and neutral worldviews. Among Christians there are many different views and if it’s important to you to find curriculum that lines up with your beliefs, most Christian publishers have a statement of faith on their website. I would encourage you to read those to see what you are comfortable with.

I know there are Christian homeschoolers out there that use charter school funds to pay for their curriculum, and they need neutral choices to qualify for funds. There are several publishers that will either offer publicly funded packages, where they remove certain books that are considered Christian. There are also some that will help you customize your order so that you can pay for the Christian resources separately. Off the top of my head I know Beautiful Feet Books does this.

I’ve linked to several publishers in Homeschool Styles and Curriculum Choices. This should give you a good start.

Request Catalogs

After you get a feel for the different publishers, start requesting catalogs. You can look at their offerings online, but getting a shiny catalog full of pictures of shiny books is so much fun! Here are popular ones that I recommend requesting as they are fun (and pretty).

Beautiful Feet Books
Sonlight
Masterbooks
Memoria Press
Timberdoodle (I haven’t personally seen this catalog but I’ve heard good things and their stuff looks fun)

These should get you started for now. If you see any others that you like, order away. Then come back and tell me which ones you like as I can always look at more shiny new resources.

Today’s Action Items

Here are your action items from today’s post:

• Check your state laws
• Choose School in a Box or Customize your Own
• Check out Different Publishers
• Request Catalogs

In the next posts of the Choosing Your Homeschool Curriculum series, I talk about Skills Subjects and Content Subjects.