Guidelines for Choosing Homeschool Curriculum

Choosing Homeschool Curriculum will now be easier for you since you have written down your curriculum goals in each specific area. You now have a broad overview of where you are heading.

Oops!! We haven't got the curriculum goals in our heads or on paper, as yet... We'll need to .. Set our family goals!

This exercise was an extremely important thing for my husband and me to do. It allowed us (as husband and wife) to decide what was important for our family and allowed us to narrow our focus on our priorities.

Setting Goals- Is it really important?

Having done this, we can see the big picture. Although, we aim for these goals, I don’t believe we will tick each box as having fulfilled them completely. These goals give us direction and focus, but they are ideals. Yet, as we look at them in the overall big picture, we realize that we can spread these goals out over many years of concentrated learning, and also into the future, because, of course, learning never ends.


So, the next step is choosing homeschool curriculum that will help us fulfill these goals. The materials that may help us can be varied. We initially think of books- textbooks and curricula. They will have their place in certain areas. But some goals will be fulfilled by employing a music teacher/ attending a gym class/ joining a soccer club/ completing an internet course/ doing further studies via TAFE or OTEN or a University online.

How do we make decisions when choosing Homeschool Curriculum Materials?
Here are some guidelines:

1. Remember that when you are choosing your homeschool curriculum, you are the master and the curriculum you buy will always be the slave. You will need to remember to use it to suit your family. It needs to be a guide and help to you. Take from it what is useful and supportive of your goals. Leave the rest.
2. Will you buy from secular or Christian authors/ publishers? We have to think of worldview bias; quality of product; direction; information contained in the text, but also the information the author is deliberate in leaving out.
3. Will the material you purchase fulfill your family goal?
4. Can I fulfill my goals by buying a selection of books rather than an all-in-one curricula?
5. Will the material you buy fit the approach of your family?- See on-line quiz and Approaches overview.
6. Will the material suit the learning styles of your children or can it be adapted?
7. Check out the materials that other similar homeschoolers use.
8. Read reviews. Read some descriptions of curriculum and add a review for other homeschoolers to read.
9. Cost. Can I do this in a simpler, more cost effective way?

Looking for a great tool to help you choose: Try “Choose It.”

However, before you choose a curriculum, have you studied approaches, where you fit in, and how you can design your own unique educational approach?

Go to Step Four: Homeschooling Approaches

Go to Step Five: Design YOUR Homeschooling Approach

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