Complete Home School Curriculum

A complete home school curriculum, or textbook curriculum, is what many people envision when they think of homeschooling.

These programs are sometimes criticized for being inflexible, time consuming, and bringing the school environment into the home. However, I've found that they are great for new homeschoolers who have yet to figure out their teaching method, or more experienced families who prefer a structured teaching style.

School at Home

Textbook curricula are most familiar to those of us who went to traditional schools. They are fact oriented, teacher directed, and involve use of workbooks and exams. These programs come with instructor’s manuals that tell parents exactly what to do and say during lessons, and make it easy to schedule, track progress and keep records.

Some providers also offer home school video curriculum in which students watch DVDs of traditional classroom teaching. DVD programs can work well for single subjects during the middle school or high school years, but may be tedious when used for an entire course of study, and can detract from some of the benefits to homeschooling.

Disadvantages

Because they are modeled after traditional classroom teaching methods, textbook programs may not meet the needs of all learning styles. In addition, uninspiring texts, drills and a focus on memorization can reduce a child’s love of learning.

The key to successfully using textbooks is to avoid serving the curriculum, and have the curriculum serve you. Your child doesn’t have to answer every question that appears in his workbook. Tailor the program by limiting unnecessary drill and classroom activities. Let your child do every other problem, and move forward when he has learned the material well.

Supplement your child’s studies with biographies, historical fiction, documentaries and homeschooling field trips that relate to the subject you are covering. When using a text book curriculum, it is still possible to make learning fun.

Homeschool Curricula

There are too many complete home school curriculum providers for me to list here, but I've seen the following recommended consistently: