Freedom in Curriculum

As soon as I began talking with other moms about home schooling, they started asking me what curriculum I was going to use.  Yikes.  When I select curriculum for the school where I work (a task for which I have only recently become worthy), I spend months pouring over samples from different companies, digging around on their websites, consulting with other teachers, and so on. And that’s just to pick books for math for one or two grades.  When I taught AP Literature, I had to write my own curriculum, a task which took me almost a year before I was really happy with it.  Even then, I continued making adjustments the whole time I was teaching the course.

Choosing a home schooling curriculum — a choice that will shape my children’s whole academic career — seems pretty momentous.  Of course, I have begun by doing what I always do: I’ve gone to the books.  I’ve read Charlotte Mason’s “Home Education” (vol. 1) and “The Well-Trained Mind.”  I think some Montessori will be next.  There are certainly a lot of choices out there.

Over the next few weeks, I will be dedicating my blog posts to exploring some of my favorite aspects of different home schooling curricula and styles.

Where did you begin when choosing a curriculum (or creating your own) for your home school?  Have you tried a variety of methods, or did you choose one and stick with it?