Choosing a Homeschool Curriculum

Start by Learning about Homeschooling

Before you start comparing programmes or filling your shopping cart with programmes, take some time to learn about homeschooling itself.

Sign up for our free 7-part email series Tips for Starting Homeschooling, find out about the practicalities of home education, think about what you hope to achieve through homeschooling and, most importantly, begin to think about how your own children learn best.

These questions will influence your curriculum choices far more than somebody else’s list of the “best homeschool curricula”.

Once you have done that, choosing resources becomes much less daunting because you have some idea of what you are actually looking for and also what you want to avoid!

As we said, you are not choosing the curriculum for the next twelve years of your child’s education. You can review your choices at the end of the year (or sooner), keep what is working, replace what isn’t and try something completely different if your family’s needs have changed. This is normal!

After almost 30 years in home education, this is something that we, Wendy and Shirley, have seen many times. Most parents don’t really know exactly what will work best. They discover it gradually, by trying things, observing their children and making adjustments along the way. In different seasons and at different ages and stages, we tweak and change the resources we use.

So don’t make your curriculum choice into a decision that feels enormous and irreversible. It isn’t.

Don’t Bring the School Home

There is another trap that is particularly easy for new homeschoolers to fall into because school is what most of us know.

When you have spent your whole childhood in a classroom, it is natural to assume that successful homeschooling means recreating the classroom at home. You buy all the textbooks for a specific grade, work according to a timetable for every subject, sit at a desk for several hours a day, complete worksheets, mark work and try to make sure that your children are “keeping up”.

It seems sensible to follow the System, but after nearly three decades of homeschooling, what we have observed is that trying to replicate the school system at home is often the most stressful way to educate your children.

No one enjoys it!

We have heard the same story from parents again and again. They begin homeschooling determined to “do it properly”, buy a complete (online) curriculum package and try to work through every lesson exactly as instructed. Before long, they are spending their days trying to keep children on task, trying to get through the prescribed work and wondering why homeschooling has become such a slog.

The children aren’t enjoying it and neither is the parent. What they hoped would give them the tools and confidence to homeschool, ends up actually undermining that goal and makes them feel like they are failing!

At homeschool events around the country, we have had so many tearful mothers share this experience with us that we wrote about giving yourself permission to relax in our article Relaxed Homeschooling.

That doesn’t mean that structured curricula are necessarily bad. There are families who genuinely prefer them and some children thrive with a great deal of structure. If that is your family, there is absolutely nothing wrong with choosing a more structured approach. However, experience shows that most families blossom when they build flexibility into a lifestyle of learning at home, rather than trying to do school-at-home.

The important thing is to realise that you have choices.

You don’t have to recreate school simply because you are homeschooling. 

Don’t Just Leave School. Leave School Behind. 

You can’t homeschool differently with a school mindset. You have to mentally sail away and leave that massive institution behind.

Over the years we have heard from many parents who started out trying to reproduce school at home and eventually realised that they didn’t have to. They began amending their expectations about what learning was supposed to look like and discovered that their children could enjoy a rich and rigorous learning experience through “living books” and stories, conversations, nature study, practical activities, documentaries, games, projects and simply following their interests.

For many of these families, that change was transformative.

They tell us that their children became more interested in learning and that the parents themselves began to enjoy homeschooling much more. They discovered that there was a great deal of freedom in allowing learning to happen naturally rather than trying to squeeze every subject into a school timetable.

“Your curriculum has changed our lives and enabled us to have this lifestyle and know my kids are learning loads.” ~ Elanza le Roux

This is one of the reasons that we have always encouraged an eclectic approach to homeschooling.

The meaning of eclectic is composed of elements selected from a variety of sources. For homeschooling it means that you choose what works for your family. You don’t have to commit yourself to one educational philosophy or one curriculum company and use its products for every subject. You might use a particular programme for Maths, choose another resource for languages, use Footprints living books for history and science, spend a great deal of time outdoors and add practical projects whenever your children become interested in something.

You can pick and mix…and you can change your mind.

Our article School-at-Home vs Eclectic Homeschooling highlights the many differences and benefits of an eclectic, parent-led approach.

Where Footprints Fits in

Footprints grew out of our own experience of homeschooling our children in South Africa. After almost 30 years of home education, we know that families need flexibility, particularly when they are homeschooling several children at different ages.

Our programmes are therefore not designed to turn your home into a miniature school. They are designed to give families rich material to explore together, particularly through a combination of stories and non-fiction covering social studies, history, geography, nature and the heritage of South Africa.

This is also why Footprints works particularly well for families who want a Charlotte Mason-inspired or eclectic approach to homeschooling. Rather than asking you to follow a rigid daily timetable, our programmes give you material that can become part of the rich learning environment you are creating for your children.

You can use Footprints as a central part of your homeschool, combine it with other programmes or dip in and out of different resources as your family’s needs change.

Your Homeschooling Will Change

One of the lovely things about homeschooling is that you don’t have to have it all figured out at the beginning.

Your children will grow, their interests will change and you will become more experienced and more confident. Your family circumstances might also change. Something that suited you perfectly when your children were young may no longer be the best choice when they are teenagers.

Your homeschooling can change as your family matures.

You may start with a fairly structured approach because it gives you confidence, then gradually discover the freedom of a more eclectic style or you may start very relaxed and eventually decide that you need more structure. You may find that one child loves independent work while another learns best when you read aloud together.

There is no contradiction in any of this.

You are not failing at homeschooling when you change your approach. You are learning how to homeschool your particular children.

After more than 20 years of supporting homeschoolers, we would much rather see a family happily changing direction than struggling for years to make a curriculum work simply because they once decided it was “the right one”.

More Help With Choosing a Homeschool Curriculum

If you are still wondering where to start, these articles may help:

Starting Homeschooling
If you are new to homeschooling, start here before you start shopping for curriculum.

Choosing the Best Curriculum
Choosing a curriculum is a lot like choosing a family car. There is no one-size-fits-all answer.

Why “What’s the Best Curriculum?” is the Wrong Question
The better question is not which curriculum is best, but how your child learns best.

Curriculum Compliance
What does South African homeschooling law actually require?

Curriculum Approval
Does your homeschool curriculum need to be officially approved?

Footprints vs CAPS
See how Footprints meets and far exceeds the South African CAPS curriculum requirements.

Other Homeschool Curriculum Resources
Explore our tried-and-tested recommendations for subjects beyond the Footprints programmes.