The Vine Homeschooling Co-op

Helps in choosing Curriculum for your student:

When we decided to homeschool our daughter, I had no idea of where to start, so I bought curriculum from a well known homeschool supplier.  Much to my suprise and shock, I received a large box of curriculum to begin homeschooling our kindergardner.  Was I overwhelmed? Absolutely!  Fortunately through the years I became a little wiser and more independent.  Having more than one child to homeschool, you will discover that they all have their own bend and learning style. 

My daughter to this day loves to sing, and she loved Sing, Spell, Read & Write! She picked up reading quickly.  She also enjoyed workbooks.  Wow, such a difference from my son.  He literally hated the Sing, Spell, Read & Write curriculum and he hated workbooks! Actually he hated anything that came in the form of "School".  But, school he must, so I set about trying to find his bend so that our homeschool days were not spent with "weeping and knashing of teeth".  I'm not sure who cried the loudest.

Yes, you've all seen those wonderful covers of the homeschool catalogs.  They have the home sparkling clean, with a mother and her child sitting at the table (with fresh flowers no less) smiling as they work on their school work.  No wonder I get frantic calls from new and old homeschooling moms who wonder where they've gone wrong!  "Little Johnnie or little Sally Sue don't want to do their school work". Can you imagine?

Remember the old rules, such as, "Never wake a sleeping baby", "If it ain't broke, don't fix it",etc.  Well the same rule goes for choosing curriculum.  If your student/child isn't having a problem and seems to be doing well with the curriculum that you've chosen, then my advise to you is to stick with it.

If, on the otherhand, you are experiencing quite the opposite, then you need to get with something else.  Sell what isn't working at the next curriculum sale, or Amazon.com.  Check out books on your child's learning style.  Below are a few tips that I have learned along the way:

Some math curriculums are more intense than others.  While some students thrive on this, others may get overwhelmed and give up.  While at a homeschooling Seminar, I sat under Joyce Herzog, and she changed my life.  She brought up this very same problem, which we were experiencing.  What we were using was a fast paced curriculum that was crammed with problems on the page.  She suggested that if you can not afford to drop that curriculum and buy another, to take the lesson for that day, and blow it up to 150% on the copier.  This will probably give you two pages of work, but it will allow the student to actually do the work on the page (which helps prevent transposing numbers) and seems less intimidating.  She suggested getting a math curriculum that the student can actually do the work on the page. 

If you have a visual child, get curriculums that have pictures, graphs, charts, and lots of examples that they can see.  Let them color the parts of the human body, or the States. Talking is futile to them. They want to see it!

Auditory learners love audio tapes.  There are some wonderful teaching tapes that you can get.  Our daughter learned her States and Capitals from one of them, as well as the names of the Presidents.  Sometimes I would allow my children to color while I read biographies to them.  They loved it and they actually listened!  Don't scold a child for doodling while you are teaching.  This is actually how they listen better.

Kinesthetic and Tactile learners need lots of hands-on materials.  They have to touch it, taste it, and smell it in order to understand it.  Personally, someone can tell me how to do things until they are blue in the face, but until I get the object in my hands and do it for myself, I've not learned a thing.

Please, please, don't try to teach by lecturing a young child.  It might be impressive to you, but not to anyone else.  They need to "experience" it in order to understand it.

If you have a wiggler, then allow them to hold something in their hands while they listen.  Playdough, a small ball,etc.

There are lots of learning style information on the internet.  I would suggest even finding out your own learning style.  This is probably the way you teach.  If your child learns a different way than you teach, then you have to learn to teach in a different way.

Here are some good websites that may help you:  http://agelesslearner.com/assess/learningstyle.html

http://www.usd.edu/trio/tut/ts/style.html

http://www.trcc.commnet.edu/Ed_Resources/TASC/Training/Learning_Styles.htm