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How to Choose the Best Homeschool Books for Your Kids

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Home & Family - Parenting

Written by Kayley Kenzie

Thursday, 13 March 2008

Believe it or not, you don't have to spend a ton of money on either homeschool curriculum or homeschool books. If you just take the time to do some research, you'll discover many resources that will help you create your own curriculum without leaving you broke.

by KayleyKenzie

In my opinion it is so much better to make your own curriculum. That way, it won't be so hard to make last minute changes that suit the needs of your child. If you discover a method that works better for you and your child, you can easily add it.

We get together as a family to choose literature for the semester. We make it a goal to try and finish five to seven books in each semester. We don't go out of our way to buy specialized homeschool books for vocabulary or spelling. We just use the literature we've chosen for this.

Just as an example, my kids will keep notebooks where they write down words and definitions they're working on. These same words will be their spelling words for the following week.

When we do history lessons, we study the time period of the classic literature we've been reading. Similarly, science lessons become an extension of the literature study when we review scientific discoveries of the period.

When we format our homeschooling like this, it leads to some fascinating discussions at mealtimes.

Based on your child's interest, you have the flexibility to study a literature unit in-depth, or just scratch the surface by learning the important facts. Unlike rigid homeschool books, you have the flexibility to do this when you create your own curriculum.

When we study math, we do use homeschool books. However, we go to extra effort to turn the math worksheets into something more interesting: We try to make it so that the kids are applying math skills in real life situations. We do lots of cooking when we're working with fractions, for example.

One of the key factors to creating your own curriculum is to understand your child's interests and needs. Creating your own curriculum can help your child in ways that a public education couldn't.

You don't have to fork out a lot of money on homeschool books. You can work around great literature to fit your family's needs.

About the Author:

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