One of the best pieces of advice a new homeschooler can heed is this: buy as little as possible during your first year. There are so very many books, methods, supplies and curricula out there for a homeschooler, and most of us are inclined to buy too much, too soon. A lot of the things bought this way can end up sitting on a shelf, unused.

If you really want to invest in something during that first year, here are my recommendations:

1. A library card, and a good sturdy book bag - if your local library is well stocked, you may be able to rely on these for most of your homeschool materials;
2. Internet access (for parents - kids’ access depends on your feelings about computers in education) and a reliable printer with ample ink and paper - some materials you’ll want to print out, especially math sheets and books that are available in public domain but you can’t find locally;
3. Access to supplies and/or instruction (at home or through your YMCA, for example) for artistic & physical pursuits - sewing, knitting, wood working, playing an instrument, dancing, bird watching, swimming, martial arts, whatever your child is keen on.

*****

If you are beginning with a child who is in preschool or first grade keep things simple. There are a great deal of free resources on the internet. Teaching reading, writing & arithmetic at this age doesn’t require any fancy materials, so relax and don’t buy anything until you have a better idea of how your child best learns & how you want to teach. Once you have a handle on that you’ll be better equipped to choose the right materials for your homeschool.

If you are taking your child out of public or private school you may feel you must have all the textbooks, workbooks, book reports, social studies projects, etc. your child was working with in school. This is simply not true! Homeschooling is vastly different from the classroom setting. The tools and methods you will use are also different. So don’t give in to the temptation to buy the same math book, reader, spelling book, etc.

In fact, you may want to take some time to “de-school” while you let it sink in that you are, indeed, homeschooling. Many homeschoolers recommend a transition period of one month (or more) for every year your child was in a classroom setting. During this time the best thing is to supply your child with books and to spend time each day talking about them. You may want to take walks in nature, go on educational field trips, or perhaps even supplement the books with educational software or television shows. Go about life without feeling you have to hold yourselves to any schedules that are imposed by people or institutions outside your family. Use everyday events such as chores, writing letters to a family member, grocery shopping, etc. to teach your children. You’ll very quickly see that the “teachable moments” are plentiful, and that your children will lead you down many, many “rabbit trails” fueled only by their natural curiosity.

If your provincial or state laws require you to submit an educational program right away when you begin to homeschool, what follows will be helpful to you. Be aware that local school or school board/district policies are not synonymous with law. That is, your local school officials may ask you to sign papers and agree to conditions that make things easier for them but that are not required by law. Educate yourself! know what the law requires of you & be sure to fulfill your legal obligations. Anything that is not legally required should be negotiable. If you aren’t sure what is required and what is not, consult with a local homeschool support group. I’ll try to get some links posted for those soon.

*****

Complete Homeschool Programs Free of Charge

Because some folks are required by law to submit an educational program, I am supplying links to two literature-based programs that teach subjects like science and social studies through reading high quality, high interest books instead of textbooks.

The programs are available online free of charge, and a good many of the “living books” they use are also available free of charge because they are in the public domain. You can print out the list of texts to be used for each subject, as well as 36- or 40-week schedules for the readings. You may need to tweak things a bit in order to cover your local requirements, but you will find both programs are quite well balanced.

If you are not required to submit an educational program but feel the need to begin right away, try selecting one or two texts from one of these programs. I recommend you begin with texts available free online, and either read from your computer or listen to free audio recordings, until you are sure you want to invest in printing or purchasing a copy.

You will need to add the following:

• Math - the Old Fashioned Education offers two free options, plus check my pages on math above (Math 1, Math 2)
• Penmanship or copywork - there are many free resources for both of these as well
• Phonics, or grammar for older students - Old Fashioned Education does supply these
• Spelling - not a requirement with the Charlotte Mason approach, but if you want it the Old Fashioned Education provides it

*****

Old Fashioned Education
This is my preferred curriculum of the two. It relies much more on free materials, even including free options for math and phonics. It is loosely based on a blending of classical and Charlotte Mason approaches, and so is heavy on the literature. Unlike the Ambleside curriculum, however, it uses such things as graded readers, and it offers links to two free math resources. It also offers texts for phonics, spelling, grammar, etc.

Choose between a 40-week schedule (for those who want it all mapped out for them) and a curriculum page which lists readings for the grade(s) you need according to subject. Miss Maggie has added a few little extras like library skills, character education, and civics. The book lists direct families to select as many or as few of the readings for each subject as suits them. If other resources are needed, Miss Maggie has also got quite a list of books by subject area. There must be hundreds of excellent resources on her pages! Every year from Kindergarten through grade 12 has a detailed reading list, and years K-11 have a 40-week schedule. Year 12 is coming!

Ambleside Online
This site aims to be more true to the methods of Charlotte Mason, and so here you will find all her original homeschool writings and many of the articles from the Parents Review journals too. In keeping with Ms Mason’s methods, the site offers both artist and composer study (one individual or group for each of the three terms in a year.) There is a pretty well developed section on nature study, as Ms Mason was an advocate not only of observing nature but also of long periods of physical activity outside. Most families who follow this curriculum find it difficult to schedule these in, but do try to do nature walks and to be outside as often as they can. Similarly, most try to do handicrafts. Plutarch & Shakespeare are scheduled at one biography or play per term, for students in the fourth and subsequent years.

Ambleside Online (AO) offers booklists and 36-week schedules for years 1-12, with a special pre-4 year and a pre-7 book list for those who are beginning later. There are more books on the AO curriculum that have to be purchased, but they do try hard to keep to the best texts available at low cost. For those on a budget, each year’s booklist is also available in a bare-bones format containing the books that really should not be missed for that year. AO does not offer a schedule for Kindergarten, but does have instead a list of books to read with pre-schoolers (Year 0.) There is no schedule associated with this list.

*****

Both these curricula are Christian in nature, and so offer such subjects as Bible Study, church history or devotions. If your family is not Christian it is pretty easy to replace these books with those you feel reflect your spiritual or ethical background.

A few things that you will want to be aware of when using either of these curricula are:

1) Charlotte Mason (CM) recommended short learning periods - as short as 5-10 minutes for the younger kids, up to a maximum of 40 minutes for older students. She also recommended to alternate between more active and more passive activities.

2) CM placed value on learning foreign languages. She thought it was important to hear a native speaker of the language in natural conversation every day, and to learn about 6 new words each day. CM recommended beginning foreign language instruction by 4th grade.

3) The CM approach steers away from workbooks and dry textbooks, in favour of what Ms Mason called living books. Students narrate a reading, or tell back in their own words what they think was important about it. Later this evolves into writing about the books, but in the first years it is important to focus on the ability to express oneself orally.

4) There is also copywork, memory work and dictation used in CM - to improve penmanship, spelling, grammar and listening skills, among other things. As with living books, it is also a matter of giving students a rich, inspiring example of English literature after which they can model their own future writings.

This work was created by Ruby of Freehold 2, and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Canada License.

Excerpts copyright quoted authors. Please visit their sites to read more, and respect the terms of their copyrights. Thanks!