Curriculum as a first year homeschooler: trial and error the cheaper way

July 29, 12:11 PMDenver Homeschooling Newbie ExaminerMelissa Caddell

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I haven’t picked curriculum for our first year of homeschooling and it has suddenly occurred to me that we’re supposed to start on September 1^st.   Realizing how quickly that date is approaching has sent me into a bit of a panic.  Someone had better make some decisions.  Um, yeah, that would be me. 

Where do you begin?  The 3 R's  I’d love to teach my kids Latin.  And do a world tour using music, art, and food as cultural touch points.  And work towards full literacy in Spanish.  But how am I supposed to do all of that in the first year?  While still having time to brush my teeth occasionally?

I can’t.  Some of the best advice I heard at the homeschool conference was to begin my new school with the basics—reading, writing and math--and then to add other subjects in one at a time once we hit our stride.  Homeschool law in Colorado says that you must teach: “communication skills of reading, writing and speaking, mathematics, history, civics, literature, science and the Constitution of the United States.”  However, it does NOT say that you have to teach all those subjects every year.  So if we somehow manage to never touch any info on the Constitution before Christmas, or even this year, we can pick it up again later.  Remember, you’ll cover a lot more material then schools will.  Eventually.  Cut yourself some slack this first year.

Concentrating on just the basic subject areas has saved my sanity as I pour over curriculum catalogs and websites.  It turns out, choosing the right curriculum takes trial and error to figure out the best fit.  As I began to add up how much all this trial and error could cost, I started looking for cheaper ways to experiment and discovered the wonderful world of used homeschool curriculum.

(Note: it is possible to homeschool your child for free or very, very cheap.  Do an Internet search for “free homeschool” and you’ll be amazed at the resources.  It takes a pretty organized parent to put together a standard curriculum, but it might be just the thing if you have more of an unschooling approach, or just have more time then money.) 

Try out curriculum--used!   I found the math program we are going to start with and the unit study curriculum we want to try used on the following websites:

www.theswap.com          www.homeschoolclassifieds.com

There appear to be about a million sites for used homeschool curriculum.  You can even try used book retailers like Amazon or Ebay.  I do not begrudge any companies with great curriculum my full-retail dollars.  I’d just like to learn on the cheaper end of the curve if I can.  I promise to spend more wantonly at a later date.

Just try something, even if it’s an older edition.  It will give you enough of a taste of it to decide if it works for your child.  If your child doesn’t seem to be thriving with a particular program, try something new.  Borrow from one of your new homeschool support group friends.  You have to start somewhere.  Don’t stress yourself out over every single choice.  It is very likely you will pick the wrong curriculum at first.  Let it go, really.  Just start.

For a great resource on choosing curriculum, try Cathy Duffy's book.