I’ve confessed in previous posts about my strong desire to homeschool. My husband and I have been in discussion about it more recently and he seems a little more open to it than before. Over the past five years I’ve been researching and learning more about it. I’ve talked to a number of homeschooling parents and read books both by those who do it for biblical reasons and those who do for purely educational reasons.

Lately I’ve been researching about the various curriculum choices and have come up with more than I ever thought possible. It seems that a parent has to first determine their “style” of homeschooling before selecting curriculum. By “style” I mean mode and method and philosophy of homeschooling. There are a few main styles I’ve come across. There’s the traditional style where homeschooling is set up exactly like that at a school but done by the parent. There are textbooks for each subject and the day is spent going through each subject, completing work sheets and other things one might expect from a regular school. There’s also a classical view of homeschooling that is traditional in nature but emphasizes logic, reasoning, latin and greek and encourages a lot of memorization. There’s the Charlotte Mason method which is holistic in nature and emphasizes learning through literature and nature. And then there’s unschooling. There seems to be a variety of ways to “unschool” but most of what I’ve read focuses on learning through life experiences. There may not be any curriculum used. Math is learned through shopping or cooking for example. There also seems to be an emphasis on following the child’s interest in learning. If the child shows an interest in bugs, then their days would be used by investigating and researching that topic.

I have more of a moderate personality, I kind of prefer flexible structure. There is a curriculum that seems to have some connection to the Charlotte Mason method where learning is done through unit studies. A topic or theme is chosen and reading, spelling, grammer, social science, math and science are incorporated into that theme. Unit studies are actually what the gifted teacher uses in Ethan’s weekly gifted class. They are “traveling the world” this year and learning about geography, history, culture, studying fairy tales from different cultures, doing research on the computer, and even incorporating math. It’s the one day a week where he is excited to share what he has learned. The other day on the way home from school he related a story they had read about a man who had gone mountain climbing in Pakistan (3 Cups of Tea). It’s a true story and he remembered every detail and I could hear the fascination and excitement in his voice as he recounted it. Most days of school when I ask him what they did he can’t remember.

I’ve found some interesting resources on unit studies. I’ve found homeschooling curriculum developed especially for gifted learners. I really liked it but think I’d rather use curriculum that is based on scripture. After all, that’s the main reason I want to homeschool-to help my kids see all of life from the perspective of the Creator and Sustainer of all things. Here’s a neat one I’d like to do this summer on geology that is from a Christian perspective.

Here are a few more interesting links:

Homeschooling and testing

Why homeschool a gifted learner?

Pros and Cons to homeschooling from Ann Voskamp