Methods

Next on the agenda is choosing a curriculum style for your child. Some families may choose a single homeschooling method for their child. Often times parents feel that mixing styles helps them tailor make a curriculum to fit their unique lifestyles and of course their child's educational needs. It is important to remember that choosing a method of learning is a learning process as well. Don’t be afraid to trying new styles and feel free to combine or eliminate the features of each method that don’t work for you. I found an article by Beverly S. Krueger from Eclectic Home school Association that summarizes some of the most popular home school styles. For more information on each, click on link in parentheses as I have provided further information on each.

• Traditional Textbook Those who are traditional textbook style homeschoolers may or may not be attempting to replicate the school classroom at home. Even those who are stout defenders of using a complete curriculum often do not attempt to do school at home. This style of homeschooling depends largely on teacher led learning with heavy use of traditional style textbooks and teacher’s manuals. Many homeschoolers start her knowing nothing else and quickly move on or begin altering their studies.
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  Unit Studies
http://www.angelfire.com/mo/sassafrassgrove/homeschool/unit_studies.html sample material)Unit studies are topic or theme based studies that incorporate as many of the academic subjects as possible into the study. Unit studies can be done together by all children of a family because they allow children to work at their own level on specific projects while covering the same topic as their siblings. Lesson preparation becomes easier because the homeschool parent doesn’t have to be current in more than one history or science subject. Johnny is not doing matter while Suzie is doing genetics. Language arts study is incorporated into the study through writing assignments and vocabulary and spelling words taken from the theme. The focus is less on covering a traditional scope and sequence than in developing learning skills that can be applied to any subject. Unit studies can be effectively used to cover even a high school course of study by covering sufficient topics in biology, chemistry or American history to grant credits for those subjects. Unit studiers are most likely to use additional math and language arts texts as supplements to their unit studies.

• Unschooling (frequently asked questions http://www.homeschool.com/advisors/McKee/default.asp ) Unschooling has been defined as child led learning or delight led learning. At its heart unschooling is sort of an inverse of traditional educational ideas. Unschoolers believe that children are naturally inclined to learn. They don’t need teachers or textbooks to learn because their own natural drive will lead them to discover and learn on their own. This means that they don’t believe in lessons, assignments, schedules, or tests. Unschoolers don’t plan their children’s learning but they do facilitate it. When an unschooled child desires to learn about Ancient Egypt, they may ask to visit the library or bookstore. They may need help doing an Internet search. The key is to nurture a child’s curiosity rather than squelch it. Answering questions about butterflies as they are asked during the annual Monarch migration not deciding that today, January 12, is the day we will learn about butterfly migration.

• Classical Homeschooling ( book suggestion: http://books.google.com/books?id=l-La1hCNOPYC&dq=classical+homeschool+curriculum&printsec=frontcover&source=in&hl=en&ei=X_JASs7YHpuGNdStlNUI&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=11 )Classical homeschooling is based on the Trivium. Classical homeschoolers believe that learning is divided into three stages based on a child’s cognitive development: concrete thinking during grade school or the Grammar stage, analytical thinking during middle school or the Logic stage, and abstract thinking during high school or the Rhetoric stage. The teaching methods used during each of these stages are designed to facilitate learning by maximizing the child’s learning strengths at that stage. For example, memorization as a learning technique is used extensively in the Grammar stage when children memorize easily. Studying Latin and Greek is desirable both as a means of understanding English grammar and for studying the texts long associated with study of the classics. Emphasis is placed on reading texts by Thucydides, Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Shakespeare, and other authors in the Great Books tradition.