Step 4 - How Our Family Investigates and Gets Curriculum
Read more about Step 4 - All About Curriculum HERE
Any family’s specific curriculum is a work in progress
and very personal. Below I talk you through how I chose our curriculum. The exact books and resources I used in different grades are available in my Personal Eclectic Curriculum Homeschooling Guide.
My intention is to give you ideas only!
Remember that it is a personal judgment of best books, selected per subject, for my own children. It may even not give you ideas.
It is not advisable to copy my curriculum in total as you will most likely be frustrated by it within a very short time. Look at it to learn, and then compile your own set of books and materials to use.
Each family is unique and each family has their own specific goal to achieve here on earth. Each family has to figure out for themselves what they need to do and not to do.
How Did We Do It?
Remember that:
- I had a vision already (Step1)
- I understood enough about different approaches to homeschool to know what I would prefer (Step2) and
- I had a personal course of study for our family (Step3).
This was all done before my oldest child was 6 years old. I must add though that this took 2 years – reading, thinking, reflecting and making decisions, as well as discussing with spouse and writing down what I was thinking about.
Do not despair if this takes a lot of time!
You may ask – will it not change?
The answer is YES it might…
But the more important thing to say at this point is that I am not afraid of missing some things. I am not afraid of adjusting or making changes or even scrapping things.
The fear has gone – and in its place there is peace. Remember that as a believer you can always ask for guidance and wisdom.
James 1:5-6 “If any of you is deficient in wisdom, let him ask of the giving God [Who gives] to everyone liberally and ungrudgingly, without reproaching or faultfinding, and it will be given him. Only it must be in faith..“
Another thing to remember when looking at our curriculum is that we have included lots of books since we had lots of books in our home already!
It does not concern me much in what specific grade the book will be read, it is not something you or your child will likely be questioned about.
I have included books on
- gardening,
- health,
- physical fitness,
- business, and
- spiritual growth
as part of ‘school curriculum’.
These are typically books that is on a bookshelf somewhere in your home already. If you continue doing somebody else’s curriculum it will most likely never be touched or read by your children.
This is the fact that I wanted to avoid. I wanted to save my children time…I wanted them to have been exposed to some wonderful literature they could learn from before they leave home.
I share all the details about our curriculum choices for different grades in my book....
Get the
Homeschooling Guide on a Personal Eclectic Curriculum
FREE to see how we have compiled our own curriculum over all these years!
For more information on the steps as we did it just click on the link:
Step3 Course of study personal
Step6 Measure and reward personal
Step7 Adapt to improve personal
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