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Homeschooling your children has many joys. You get to be around your children all the time, sleep in some school days, and ensure your children are learning what they need to learn. Although these are all wonderful parts of homeschooling your children, picking out a curriculum can be a little more annoying. Despite this, choosing the right curriculum is an important part of ensuring your children receive a quality education, making it a necessary task.

102 Top Picks for Homeschool Curriculum

When it comes to curriculum, there are a TON of choices. So, how do you know which one is right for you? Knowing how to choose a homeschool curriculum (without losing your mind) is skill that can be learned. It can also be sharpened over time. We’ve homeschooled for 8+ years know. The road to figuring out which homeschool curriculum is right for my family has had a few twists and turns. As our kids grow, their needs have changed, and with that, sometimes our curriculum changes, too.

How to Choose a Homeschool Curriculum

Find Out What Your Kids Need to Know

The first step is to find out what your children need to know.  It is pretty easy to discover age-appropriate learning objectives for your children. Once you know what your children need to know, you can do a little research to find a curriculum that makes those learning objectives a priority. Be sure to check your states homeschool laws and requirements. You may need to track days of attendance or track hours of instruction.

Ask For Recommendations

Your fellow homeschooling families are great resources when it comes to picking out a curriculum. Talk to other parents that homeschool their children to ask which curriculum they’ve used and what they’ve liked or not liked about it.  Talk to older homeschooled children to find out what curriculum they like and don’t like.  Once you have a few recommendations, you can do some research to help narrow your results.

Values and Learning Objectives

Anytime you’re trying to decide whether or not to use a curriculum, be sure to check both the learning objectives taught, as well as the values. One reason many parents choose to homeschool their children is because they feel like public schools do not align with their values. If this is one of the reasons you’ve chosen to homeschool your children, then you need to make sure you find a curriculum that teaches the values you hold dear. Look around for a curriculum that teaches both educational objectives and values, without compromising either of them.

Check for an Updated Curriculum

Curriculum products are updated every few years by the companies that produce them. The updated curriculum contains new information that has been deemed important, as well as different resources to use to help teach these learning objectives. If you’re thinking about purchasing a curriculum, check to see when it was last updated. If the newest version is relatively new, you can rest assured that it most likely contains what your children need to know; if not, do some research to find out when any updates are scheduled.

Of course, free resources for home education are always nice, but some free curriculum products don’t contain everything your children need to know. You can either use these free resources to help supplement your children’s education, or you can piecemeal several free curriculum products together to get what you need.  You may still need to invest some money into a high-quality curriculum. Any time you purchase a curriculum, calculate the total cost. This includes the cost of the teacher’s manual, any student books and worksheets, as well as any other resources needed to teach according to the curriculum. You might find that the “cheap” curriculum ends up being more expensive once you add in all these extra costs.

Homeschooling 101: A Guide to Getting Started

It can be difficult to find a homeschool curriculum that does this, but it is possible.  With a little research, you can find a homeschool curriculum that works for you family and still have your sanity intact… at least until the school year starts.  🙂

As you look at planning your new/next homeschool year, why not download this homeschool planner? It’s available in color (fun pink and blue colors as shown) or in ink friendly black and white.

Already a subscriber? Go HERE and enter the password found at the end of your most recent newsletter for even more free printable resources! Not a subscriber yet? Just use the form below to subscribe and you’ll receive an email with the password to the free resources library!

Not a subscriber yet? Just complete this form to get all the latest updates and access to the free resource library! I have several new resources I’ll be adding soon!

When Things Aren’t Working

Speaking of choosing homeschool curriculum… there may come a time when you realize the homeschool curriculum isn’t working out. Maybe you’ve used ith with your older child and it’s not working with this one. Maybe you’ve invested in it and the you don’t have the resources to invest in another one just because this one isn’t doing the trick. Don’t be afraid to utilize all of the free resources for home education that you can find! There are free reading resources and homeschool teacher discounts that can help take the sting out of the expense of homeschooling.

Don’t forget that their hobbies and extracurricular activities for homeschoolers count toward their learning time. There are even ways to save on extracurricular activities.

And some days you just need to find a video to fit your lesson plan or nurture creativity and call it a day.

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