Tips for Choosing the Right Homeschool Books
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Many people think they have to spend a lot of money just to get worthwhile homeschool books and homeschool curriculum, but that isn’t so. Just by researching on your own, you can locate plenty of resources to help you custom-make your own curriculum without losing all your money.
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.
Choosing literature selections for the semester is one of the first things we do as a family. We make a goal to finish five to seven books per semester. When it comes to spelling or vocabulary, we don’t need to buy specialized homeschool books; we just use the literature we already have.
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.
By tailoring our homeschooling lessons this way, we often end up having great discussions at mealtime.
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.
