Christian Homeschooling » Curriculum

Christian Homeschooling Benefits

Home school mom — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 16:29:17 +0000

Many people ask me about the benefits of Christian homeschooling. The reality is that these conversations usually turn into addressing people’s trepidation about the idea of ‘Christian’ homeschooling. What people need to remember is that Christian homeschooling is one of the greatest manifestations of liberty and freedom in the US. That means that whatever Christian homeschooling means to you, then that is what you implement. You are not under any strict rubric to determine the level of religiosity in your teaching. Clearly, this is one of the greatest benefits of homeschooling. It gives you the opportunity to direct your child’s learning based on your own family’s values, not the values of the local school board or government. That’s not a swipe at my own local school board, but merely a recognition that I am the best person to share my values with my children.

Christian Homeschool Curriculum: Summer Work

Home school mom — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 16:39:41 +0000

Summer is summer for a variety of reasons. It should be time for your children to find balance in their lives. I know many families that continue school work through the summer and do a good job with it. Personally, I feel as if the summer is more of a time for personal growth and experimentation for children. It’s a time to allow them to develop their interests. Read what they want to read, play what they want to play, create games and activities on their own as opposed to being directed.

Personally, I use the summer to work on christian homeschooling curriculum. This is nice because things with my kids are slower and I am not always worrying about this or that lesson. It’s time to do some real theoretical thinking on my curriculum and goals for the next year.

Christian Homeschooling Curriculum Planning Begins Now

Home school mom — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 01:13:43 +0000

If you haven’t started planning your 2009-2010 curriculum, I suggest doing so immediately. Many ambitious homeschooling teachers will start making their entire curriculum before the summer, to truly have a great summer vacation. Online homeschool curriculum also, however, may be able to make things easier for you. No longer do we have to come up with everything on our own, but a good mix of online curriculum sources and our own innovativeness can make a robust curriculum.

Snow Days in Homeschool

Home school mom — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 16:08:16 +0000

One of the great parts about homeschooling is that you don’t really have to worry about snow days. Everyone loves snow days, but they can really interrupt the flow of your curriculum. That said, snow days can provide a really important opportunity to add ‘balance’ to your child’s life. Especially, so for high school students who are working really hard.

That said, you may not want to interrupt your curriculum. I found what works best is a compromise. Don’t think that your child won’t know that the public school kids are out for the day. What I learned worked best was offering the student the morning off. Sleep, play games, read, do whatever. During that time I took 30 minutes to 1 hour to come up with a very interactive or ‘fun’ lesson that supplemented the curriculum that we were already working on. I didn’t simply go into the existing curriculum, but did something more hands on and interactive.

Teaching History: Don’t Forget the Narrative

Home school mom — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 17:45:32 +0000

Teaching history in your Christian homeschool setting can be difficult. Some of the best activities in history class necessitate group learning. The sheer amount of facts that come into play, especially with the advanced curriculum in history (high school, AP), can be daunting to teacher and student alike. One of the ways that I have overcome this problem is through the use of narrative. Historical narrative, or stories, can be extremely instrutive when teaching concepts. Moreover, it provides a depth of knowledge that purely analytical learning cannot. This does not necessarily take away from learning dates, facts, and figures, but can help improve your student’s cognition of these more rote items. Coming into a unit with a good basis of knowledge, using a story to underscore a concept, can be incredibly impactful. I suggest you give it a try.

I will give one example here. There was a great story in the Wall Street Journal about the inauguration of President Andrew Jackson. One of the main themes of this presidency was the ‘Jacksonian democracy’ and the emergence of new people into the democratic process. This is best expemplified in a narrative format by discussing Jackson’s racous inauguration party that included all members of society, even those rough a tumble type who had stayed away from politics previously.

Home School Science – from blah to yah!

Home school mom — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 17:45:29 +0000

Teaching Science in homeschool can be one of the most appealing subjects for both parents and their children. Often, however, many homeschool teachers feel intimidated by Science in the higher levels of school. I was reminded of this when I was reading a post called Gross Mold Update on another homeschool blog. It reminded me that the solution to science at all levels is practical experimentation. The goal of your science curriculum should, in my opinion, be largesly about investigative inquiry and research. Facts are facts, but learning how to address a problem, hypothisize a solution, and act on it are priceless and valuable in many aspects of life. Anyway, in the above posting the teacher cultivated mold spores with her students and found out the one that grew the best came from her own mouth – – a classic! It keeps the kids interested though and they will likely never forget the principles. This idea is valid at any grade level.

On Alpha Omega Christian Home School Resources

Home school mom — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 14:46:58 +0000

I did get some feedback yesterday on some of my postings on Alpha Omega. The main feedback was the cost of the programs and books. This is definitely a prohibitive aspect of looking into their program. There are definitely alternatives out there and I am building a list of some ideas there. Also, Alpha Omega does have some free resources for Christian homeschooling. If you look at both quality and price, I still think this is one of the better resources out there. If price alone is your consideration, you will be able to find alternatives, definitely. Good luck!

Classical Christian Homeschooling

Home school mom — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 21:22:23 +0000

Many people talk about ‘classical homeschool’, but few actually know what it means. Classical Christian homeschooling generally occurs in three stages: 1) the grammar stage (grades 1-6); 2) the dialectic stage (grades 7-9); the rhetoric stage (grades 10-12). The grammar stage corresponds to the development of the brain that is soaking up as much information about ‘what is’ – very little interpretation takes place in this stage, because the mind is phisologically not developed for this cognitive area of learning. The ‘what is’ part of the homeschool curriculum can be used as a base for future learning. The ‘why’ and ‘how’ stage of classical homeschool education should occur during the 7-9th grades, but may be useful for advanced students in the 5th grade. The final rhetoric stages includes in-depth learning of a variety of subjects, usually limited to: Arts, Literature, History, Language, Math, Oratory, Science, Philosophy, Writing, and Bible.

Teaching US History in Christian Homeschool

Home school mom — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 18:15:28 +0000

One of the most frustrating things for me when I got to the US History part of my Christian homeschool curriculum was the terrible resources available. The current trajectory of the dicipline of history is left-leaning historians writing revisionist history that goes too far in attacking Christianity’s role in the making of the United States. I am not looking for a glossy portrayl of the situation, but every single textbook that I picked up was a little over the top in its condemnation or even worse subtle reproach of the role of Christianity in the making of the United States. I didn’t want an entirely Christian view of the topic either, but something more balanced. What I learned is that this was largely impossible. This is one of the frustrating things of teaching Christian homeschool. I am not looking to indoctrinate my children, but the unfortunately reality is that there are so few balanced curriculum sets for US History out there. I eventually went with the Alpha Omega Curriculum
edition, just because of my luck with their works in other areas. I cannot say that I was disappointed, but the whole experience made me want to develop my own history curriculum for Christian homeschools that provided a nice balanced approach.

Alpha Omega LIFEPAC review

Home school mom — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 16:29:33 +0000

I’ve been using Alpha Omega Publications’ LIFEPAC mathematics curriculum for some time. I figured I should give it an honest review on the blog first, since it was one of my first ‘purchases’ of their curriculum. I especially like how the curriculum is set-up to include repetition, drill, and application. I know that drill is somewhat passe, but from my experience a simple ‘application’ curriculum that avoids rote drill totally trulys affects the depth of knowledge of my students (my kids ). The curriculum is set-up to allow both guided and independent learning. This was the key for me. I am never looking to fill up my child’s time with ‘busy work’, but independent learning is one of the best parts of homeschooling and you need a curriculum that supports that. I also found that the early chapters do a good job mixing a seemingly ‘play’ mentality into education, which ‘tricks’ the students into learning (was good for my son with ADD). This may be a difficult curriculum in the upper grades for parents who are totally clueless as to Algebra as the teacher’s edition certainly isn’t for the novice, but any parent with a working knowledge (even at the basic level) will have no problem wading through this curriculum