If you are new to home schooling, or you've been doing so for a while, but haven't been happy with it, then perhaps you need to do a different style of schooling. You could just choose a homeschool curriculum provider, and buy their curriculum packages for each of your children, which will likely come with a teacher's planner/notebook, and everything you need, and just follow that, or you could go your own way.
Do you find your teaching style to best fit a path someone else has laid, in which you just follow the textbooks, teacher's guides, and possible suggested lesson plans? If this is you, then you simply need to find a curriculum provider that suits you and your children. Below is my personal suggestion, based off of cost, and quality materials:
Christian Liberty Press
This is what I'd probably use, if I wanted to buy pre set up curriculum kits.
On the other hand, perhaps you lean more towards the Charlotte Mason approach to home education. In this case, you may enjoy:
Ambleside Online, which provides free home school curricula. (However, there are still some books/materials you'll likely need to buy, but they usually give links to them, for where/how to purchase)
or
Simply Charlotte Mason
I've used stuff from both of the above over the years, and do recommend both.
Another method that many ladies enjoy home educating their children with, is the Trivium Method. You can learn more about the Trivium at:
Trivium Pursuit
and
The Well-Trained Mind
In my opinion, The Well-Trained Mind is THE best book to read on home schooling, especially if you want to do it via the Trivium Method.
We homeschool via the Trivium, but also throw in a bit of Charlotte Mason, as the two dovetail nicely, and further put in our own style and flair, of course. Teaching the Trivium is another good homeschool Trivium book.
Another book I recommend, regardless if you want to school via Trivium, Charlotte Mason, or otherwise, is Educating the WholeHearted Child.
You don't need to choose any specific style, and stick with that. You can choose what you like about different homeschooling styles, and then create your own style. Further, there are a LOT more other homeschooling styles, other than the few I've mentioned above.
First, determine your teaching style. Then choose curricula that will work with your children. As the teacher, you need to choose material that works for you first, before you choose what works for your children. Since you will be in charge, you can pizazz things up, however you want.
I started reading about, and studying home schooling when my oldest child was a baby. I decided on teaching my children via the Trivium Method. In order to not feel overwhelmed or scared, I read, and re-read the book The Well-Trained Mind, and even placed several page flags and bookmarks in many spots.
I then decided to start formally educating my children at around age two, where I taught each of them their colors, shapes, and how to count to and above 20. I didn't use any curricula for this - I just used homemade flash cards, and counting on fingers, and using objects as manipulatives.
At age three, we moved to learning letters and their sounds, in which I used little cardboard ABC books that had lots of colors and pictures. We also moved to basic addition and subtraction, using large buttons (like from a crafting store) as manipulatives.
For age four, I used the book Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons to teach reading, and introductory writing. Thanks to this awesome book, all of my children were reading at second grade reading level at the age of four. Once they were at second grade reading level, they were each gifted a full text, KJV Seaside Bible. No one told them that the KJV is "hard" to read, so they took to reading it at age four, with no problems.
For kindergarten, I still used no curricula, other than my own, or free printables from the internet. We moved to more advanced addition and subtraction, using buttons as manipulatives, in addition to starting to learn their multiplication tables, via learning to count by 2's, 5's, 10's, etc. We focused on lots of reading out loud, from various good books, including poetry from such books as A Child's Garden of Verses, and whatever else looked good at the time. We focused more on learning to write more, as well, via using free printable worksheets, teaching how to write capital and lower case print letters, and the numbers. Sometimes I made my own worksheets for them, and sometimes we used worksheets that I'd search up online, and print out. I also started introducing copy work. They'd copy our address or phone number off of our homeschool whiteboard, or I'd write out a scripture on a piece of paper, and they'd copy it under my writing, etc.
Copy work is great to integrate into all grades of homeschool, as soon as the child can write. When we physically write something down, it stores in a different area of our brains other than when we just read, hear, see, or even type it. Something written down (especially repeatedly) can be more easily assimilated in our minds than things learned in other forms.
Copy work is also great for adults. For example, many people copy bible verses into their own personal bible study journals, or their planners, etc. In the past, copy work books by students and grown ups alike were common place. For example, when a woman would read something of high interest to her, she'd get out her little book, and copy it down. There is virtue in doing this, and this is something that needs revived.
As soon as my children were able to read and write, they received copy work books, and got assigned copy work at least twice or more a week. In the early days of learning to write, copy work was assigned every school day.
I didn't start purchasing any official curriculum materials until first grade for each of my children.
This article wasn't much of a "Homeschool Plan With Me," but rather an intro, to help us get more on the same page. Know your homeschooling style, and then you can go on from there. And remember, it's okay to try out different styles and curricula each year, until you find something that works well for you and your children.
In the next article in this series, we'll begin to work on the center of homeschool planning, and that is creating a Curriculum Chart.
