Homeschool Curriculum – What We Chose and Why
When we decided to homeschool a big decision would be the homeschool curriculum to use and other related decisions about how we’d run things.
Homeschool Curriculum
We chose A Beka for homeschool curriculum for a few reasons.
1. Consistency
The school our boys were at used A Beka so they’re use to the format and styles. Also, if we go nuts at some point in the year and want them to go back to the same school, they’ll be right in line with the other kids.
We recognize there’s a good chance this thing is going to end in jail-time for one of us. When mom is in the big house, I’ll have to call the experiment over and they’ll go back to school.
2. Ease
At A Beka they put together the homeschool curriculum for you. You can buy the ‘history’ or ‘science’ or health homeschool curriculum or just the whole grade curriculum. That’s what we did – two whole packs. Done.
Actually, we bought a lot of it at a local used homeschool supply store and used on ebay. There’s some used homeschool supply specific sites, but ebay is just easier and probably the same price. We’re not looking to spend to much time or money – everyone is busy enough.
And I mean, come on, they’re just kids – who wants to spend a lot of time and money on their education. 😉
3. Independent
We didn’t plan on doing any co-ops with others. Those are great and a great help all around. However, we want to do a good bit of traveling so we didn’t want to be missing things all the time or cancelling/changing the trips. That’s that really ideal for the co-op or us.
Plus, co-ops have their way of doing things and I tend to think I know better. I tend to be shown painful how wrong I am. I’ll probably regret it and if we all make it through the year, maybe we’ll rethink things… everything.
So we wanted to something WE could teach and teach it anywhere. A Beka has some books that are electronic for the computer or iPad. However, there’s not too many (yet) and mostly they’re highschool level. As much as I don’t like paper (less portable, it can tear, get wet, etc.) and prefer a less “physical” copy, it’s also nice to not need batt
eries, be able to have different one laid out on the table, etc. Pros and cons.
That’s about it – those three reasons. Of course it’s good material and well planned. We got the parent/teacher kits too to help us plan the lessons (and know the answers).
Separately we got some Bible curriculum from PositiveAction, recorders (we also have guitars, ukuleles, didgeridoos and a trumpet but for learning music theory and reading I thought a simple instrument was best – plus I got 4 so the whole family can play!) and music books. But mostly it was A Beka.
