This post is a compilation of what I call my treasure trove. I will provide my personal treasure trove of curriculum and recourse suggestions at the end, but what I want to share first are those precious treasures of wisdom I've gathered over the years about homeschool life and structure, philosophy on education, and generally creating a house of order and learning, a house of prayer, a house of God.
Generally the first thing parents think about when they make the choice to homeschool what curriculum to choose for their kids. The problem with starting there is that there are thousands of options out there. In order to make good choices that don't end up breaking the bank and causing unneeded stress and anxiety, that may threaten to sink your homeschool before you get it off the ground, you need some idea about what educational approach you want to use. Your approach and educational philosophy will guide your priorities and give you some idea of what you are searching for in curriculum and learning resources. Your homeschool approach should match your children's needs and learning styles, while at the same time, it should draw on your unique strengths. It's because of all these important and unique aspects of building a custom education for your child that every homeschool looks different, just like every child is different.
When you decide to start homeschooling, start with the questions like:
- What is my vision for my homeschool and my child's education?
- What do I want my child to learn during these years I have with them?
- You can’t teach them everything but you can teach them what matters most, so what matters most?
- What do you want them to learn?
- What do they want to learn?
- How do you want them to learn it (this is an education philosophy question)?
- What is the destination?
- What are you preparing for? Family life, Moral Strength, College, Trade, Business, Service to their nation, community, and church.
- What are your child’s aptitudes, interests, and challenges? What do they need to excel in?
- What are their areas of strength?
- What level of proficiency do you expect for their academic attainment in areas of weakness?
Begin your homeschool journey with introspective questions like these. Journal your ideas and thoughts. Counsel in your family. Talk to homeschoolers you know and trust. Go to a local homeschool convention and take classes that peak your interest. Then take all that you learn from this exploration and begin to create the big picture vision. With this foundation you can begin to search for curriculum and resources with purpose. Based on your vision make a more detailed academic plan, but don’t plan too far out, your detailed plan is going to change and adjust in dozens of ways over the years to come; but begin with the end in mind and set up your plans for this year with your long vision in mind.
- Classical Education
- Charlotte Mason
- Well Trained Mind
- Well Trained Heart: Libraries of Hope
- Forest School
- TJED (Thomas Jefferson Education)
- Unschooling (Discovery ED)
- Unit Studies
- Online Schools — Online Private & Public Schools
- Online A La Carte: Outschool or The Great Courses
- Traditional Text Book Curriculum
- Eclectic -- Mix and Match
Purpose of Education:
Years ago I found this outline on the purpose of education from primary education through collegiate education written by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison for a report to the commissioners at the University of Virginia. It became a piece of my treasure trove, a set of concise standards and objectives that I helped build my homeschool on.
Years ago I found this outline on the purpose of education from primary education through collegiate education written by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison for a report to the commissioners at the University of Virginia. It became a piece of my treasure trove, a set of concise standards and objectives that I helped build my homeschool on.
The objects of this primary education should be:
- To give to every citizen the information he needs for the transaction of his own business;
- To enable him to calculate for himself, and to express and preserve his ideas, his contracts and accounts, in writing;
- To improve, by reading, his morals and faculties;
- To understand his duties to his neighbors and country, and to discharge with competence the functions confided to him by either;
- To know his rights; to exercise with order and justice those he retains; to choose with discretion the fiduciary of those he delegates; and to notice their conduct with diligence, with candor, and judgment;
- And, in general, to observe with intelligence and faithfulness all the social relations under which he shall be placed.
- To instruct the mass of our citizens in these, their rights, interests and duties, as men and citizens, being then the objects of education in the primary schools, whether private or public, in them should be taught reading, writing and numerical arithmetic… the outlines of geography and history.
- To form the statesmen, legislators and judges, on whom public prosperity and individual happiness are so much to depend;
- To expound the principles and structure of government, the laws which regulate the intercourse of nations, those formed municipally for our own government, and a sound spirit of legislation, which, banishing all arbitrary and unnecessary restraint on individual action, shall leave us free to do whatever does not violate the equal rights of another;
- To harmonize and promote the interests of agriculture, manufactures and commerce, and by well informed views of political economy to give a free scope to the public industry;
- To develop the reasoning faculties of our youth, enlarge their minds, cultivate their morals, and instill into them the precepts of virtue and order;
- To enlighten them with mathematical and physical sciences, which advance the arts, and administer to the health, the subsistence, and comforts of human life;
- And, generally, to form them to habits of reflection and correct action, rendering them examples of virtue to others, and of happiness within themselves.
[Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, et al.,] Report of the Commissioners Appointed to Fix the Site of the University of Virginia. 4 Aug. 1818, Early History 434--35
The Central Purpose:
I decided years ago that for me the central purpose of education is found in these words from Jefferson and Madison's outline:
“To improve, by reading, his morals and faculties; To understand his duties to his neighbors and country. To know his rights; to exercise with order and justice those he retains. And, in general, to observe with intelligence and faithfulness all the social relations under which he shall be placed.
“To develop the reasoning faculties of our youth, enlarge their minds, cultivate their morals, and instill into them the precepts of virtue and order; And, generally, to form them to habits of reflection and correct action, rendering them examples of virtue to others, and of happiness within themselves.
“To improve, by reading, his morals and faculties; To understand his duties to his neighbors and country. To know his rights; to exercise with order and justice those he retains. And, in general, to observe with intelligence and faithfulness all the social relations under which he shall be placed.
“To develop the reasoning faculties of our youth, enlarge their minds, cultivate their morals, and instill into them the precepts of virtue and order; And, generally, to form them to habits of reflection and correct action, rendering them examples of virtue to others, and of happiness within themselves.
In other words, the ultimate purpose of a sound education is the moral development of the individual so they are prepared with the knowledge and character to employ their agency in correct action, to be faithful in their duties to God, family, and society, and by so doing secure happiness within themselves.
“But what is liberty without wisdom and without virtue? It is the greatest of all possible evils; for it is folly, vice, and madness, without tuition or restraint. Those who know what virtuous liberty is, cannot bear to see it disgraced.” ― Edmund Burke
First, Do No Harm
With the central purpose of education in mind, the next principle any parent should attend to, is to choose an educational path for their child that does no harm. You may be thinking, isn't all education a basic good, how can the pursuit of education be harmful? The answer is that not all education has a moral end in mind, and even an education that might have a good intent, it doesn't mean that every path to that end is healthy.
Over the years I've been interested in learning about Finland's school systems because their students perform exceptionally well on international test that measure the basic academic achievement at graduation. Their students have tested among the top countries for many decades now, and so the methods they employ in their school systems are a curiosity, especially since the school systems who are their top competitors use very different educational methods. These competitors are generally Asian countries, like Singapore and Japan. Asian countries employ methods of high rigor, rote memorization, hyper-testing regimes, and exhaustive academic schedules that keep children in school for extraordinarily long hours each day. While these competitors are aggressively pursuing their top spots on international rankings, Finland is ranking solidly with a completely different approach to education. Children in Finland don't start formal direct instruction until seven years old, and even then the time in this type of instruction is limited to about three hours a day. Play based learning plays a very important role in early education. The time they spend in rigorous academic training gradually increases through primary school. There are no standardized test until children reach upper-secondary school.
Years ago I was watching a PBS special that highlighted Finland's unique approach to education, unique to America because we have attempted to follow Asia's lead, and the interviewer asked the Superintendent of Finnish schools what they did to become a top scoring school system internationally. The superintendent looked at the reporter with a puzzled face and paused for a moment before answering. He said to her, we did not create a plan to become a top performing school in international tests, our plans are focused on giving our children an education most likely to develop happy well adjusted adults.
My take away from my research and observation of school systems, their methods, and their results is that there are many paths to academic proficiency, but some do harm and others build happy moral people. If you are just beginning your homeschool journey, don't skip the vision step, like Finland, start with the end in mind and do no harm by copying incorrect methods and ideologies employed by many school systems.
Recommend you read:
“A Developmentally Appropriate Education: Early ED” by Stephanie Morgan
"Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling", by John Taylor Gatto"Educating for Human Greatness", by: by Lynn Stoddard
"How Children Learn", by John Holt"How Children Fail", by John Holt
A House of Order
The power of homeschooling today is that it provides an opportunity for parents to guide not only the academic development of their children, but also to nurture a healthy development that will build happy moral people. Probably the most important part of a happy homeschool is an ordered home where parents and children understand their roles and responsibilities and are taught skills to communicate and work together appropriately. As a homeschooler, your classroom management is to improve your parenting and create an environment of learning.
Here's my parenting treasure! "Parenting: A House United", by Nicholeen Peck (and her children’s books that go with the method) This is probably the most important parenting book I have ever read, other than scripture!! I cannot give a greater recommendation for a book that lays out clear principles of truth that are able to create peace and progression in family life while instilling order and self-discipline in both parents and children.
Recommended Reads FROM MY BLOG FREEDOMED.NET:
Stop the Homeschool Fights & Instill Independence in Your Child's Learning through Teaching Self-Government
Guarantee Success, and Failure is Certain
A Homeschool Routine:
Kids need structure and routine is important in creating order and developing healthy habits. Structure does not have to be rigid, in fact schedules that are rigid usually fall apart fast in homeschool life. This is why I don't call it a homeschool schedule, I call it a routine. Routine is a general order that becomes habitual, but it is an order that can shift around changing schedules. As you build your learning environment keep this in mind. Here is my daily routine:
- Our day begins with religious study, prayer.
- Breakfast (homemade and nutritious) — sometimes we listen to books during breakfast.
- Morning chores (these are personal chores not family chores, room cleaning, bed making, showering & personal hygiene.)
- Independent School work & Direct instruction one on one. (If you have multiple kids homeschooling, this time rotates through the kids. You schedule needed one on one instruction with each kid by appointment throughout the morning, while the other kids use their time working on assigned work they can do independently, and other duties on their daily checklists. This is often done daily in a planning meeting at the end of your morning devotional.)
- Lunch
- Afternoon group subjects & activities: these are the subjects you do as a whole family. (If you have a high schooler who doesn’t do the group learning because they have higher level course work, they are doing their high school coursework)
- Return and Report: This is a wrap up activity where kids report their work and progress for the day. (Records are kept of this in my house)
- Family Chores, Free time, afternoon activities, outdoor play and work.
- Dinner
- Family time, evening activities, or free time if all work is done.
Finally, My Curriculum Recommendations:
This section is probably the least important section of this small book. If you have built your vision, educated yourself on methods, counseled with your family, collected ideas from those you know and trust, and begun to create a house of order then you are fully ready to search for the right curriculum and resources to meet your child’s needs and the objectives of your homeschool. So if you began this post asking the question, "what curriculum should I use?" You might not need to continue reading down through my list of favorites, you may already be realizing that your vision will lead you to your own treasure trove.
It is important for me to add a note here that my kids are dyslexic, and as such the curriculum I have chosen meets that need. However, I believe that these curriculums are solid options for any child. If you have any questions about dyslexia I have a few posts about that subject:
When an Otherwise Bright Child Struggles to Learn
My Recommendations for Parents Homeshooling their Dyslexic Child
It's important when choosing curriculum that you know your child's learning styles. Here are a list of some of the types of learning styles that will drive your curriculum search:
- Visual Learning
- Auditory Learning
- Reading & Writing
- Kinesthetic (hands-on)
- Verbal Learning
- Social and Interpersonal Learning
- Solitary and Intrapersonal Learning
- Self-Led Learning
- Interest Driven Learning
*For those of you who still want my curriculum treasure trove… here they are in links:
Get out the house often
Learn on the Go as much as you can
Make Learning Fun and Hands-on Whenever Possible
Have lots of real life learning and experiences
Travel with family
Make good friends!
Serve GOD and Others!
Be a Self Starter
Do Hard Things
Never, Never, Never Give UP!
In the end, life is always about what matters most! Plan your life around it, your home around it, your education around it. If you do this you can not fail!
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