Sometimes, usually soon after you have started homeschooling you start having doubts and second guesses about your choices and decisions. Particularly, when you hear about other products that other families are enjoying – you start wondering if there isn’t something better out there.
There are also various camps within the homeschool community that use certain curricula and they will convince you that CURRICULUM X is the only one that will help your child to reach certain goals because of “this feature” or “that feature” of the programme.
Advice
1. Homeschooling is a JOURNEY. It doesn’t end the way it begins. As you grow in experience, you grow in confidence and knowledge about homeschooling and your needs and even your goals may change.
2. No decision is cast in stone, especially with respect to your curriculum. You can expect that you might change your curriculum a few times until you find the right fit for your family. Remember the story of the boots (link above)! Research shows that homeschoolers usually change curricula within about two years of starting.
3. Be aware of, and break any mindsets you may have about what homeschooling is when you start out. Most of us, especially us parents need some ‘deschooling‘ to change the way we see education. Most of us need to renew our minds to rid ourselves of the classroom and textbook style of learning that we were raised in for so many years of our education.
This is why this article focuses on an alternative to textbook style learning.
Textbooks are generally written by a panel and usually contain
- basic facts
- point form summaries
- snippets of information like names, dates or other highlights
Living books by contrast, are detailed accounts, written by experts in their field or people who are or were passionately involved in the topic of their writings.
- e.g. A textbook account of the life of Nelson Mandela would be very different to his autobiography or a biography of his life
- a textbook chapter about horses would be very different to a story about horses like Black Beauty or a book like My Friend Flicka
Which type of book would be more likely to feed the mind and spark an interest in the subject matter?
Why Reading to our Children is So Important
In this quick video, Wendy and Shirley chat about how reading aloud to children offers dozens of benefits for growing minds, filling gaps, developing critical thinking and building relationship.
More than 20 Benefits of Literature-based Learning
Research has shown that reading to children significantly raises their potential for academic and life-long success.
As you snuggle up to enjoy sharing a story with your children, you may be quite unaware of the host of benefits of reading that your children will enjoy that contributes to this success:
Click here to read over 20 Benefits of Reading with Children
If you are convinced of the benefits of a literature-based learning for you and your children, you can now find a good list of recommended books and head off to the library to start searching for them or you can INVEST IN YOUR CHILDREN and start building a home library of excellent literature.
We know that times are tough and many people are trying to homeschool for as little as possible. By definition most homeschool families survive on one income so money is tight, but sadly many don’t realise that money spent on their children’s education is an investment that will last for generations.
What we spend and sacrifice for good quality educational materials sends a message to our children. Be it books for a family library or other goods, it tells the children:
“Education is important to us and it is worth sacrificing other things for good educational materials. YOU and your education are worth it!”
There are also other benefits to investing in a carefully selected literature-based programme
1. Security for new homeschool parents
2. Quality resources provided – no need to sift out the twaddle or ‘junk-food’ for the mind!
3. Homeschool-friendly – many homeschool programmes are written by homeschoolers and are thus better suited to the homeschooling lifestyle than a school programme
4. Simplifies your life – all the ideas and planning has been done for you. Some even provide all the extra resources you might need.
5. Saves you time and research
6. Allows you to focus on your children instead of hours planning lessons
7. After-sales support from homeschool veterans/curriculum providers
8. Support groups with families using the same products
Footprints on our Land – Literature-based learning
Footprints on Our Land is a literature-based South African homeschool curriculum series in unit study format for multi-level learning.
