by Monica Tunnell

Created on: November 21, 2008

Homeschooling is a very personal experience. There is no right or wrong curriculum to use, and the decision is different for every family. Unfortunately, the best way to choose what will be most effective for your family is to use what you are considering. Many curriculum packages look great in the box, have enticing reviews, and appeal to some quality that might be lacking in our homeschool personna. Many have purchased these packages hoping they would be the be-all, end-all, and much to their dismay, the package would lose its luster upon the first week of use. As children differ immensely, the curriculum that is most effective for each will differ as well. But isn't this part of the reason why we homeschool? To tailor the most effective learning experience to our children?

I will never forget the first year I homeschooled my son. I wanted to make sure that I missed nothing. I wanted to create the most positive, fulfillng learning experience I could. I read every book on curriculum, purchased a subsciption to all the homeschooling magazines I could find, joined a support group of more experienced families, read all reviews, and asked questions galore. Having taught in schools, and not wanting to duplicate the experience for my son, I went in the opposite direction of creating "school at home". Yet, as we progressed through the year, I found myself falling back on this many times. I would try a program, it would not be effective, and I would fall back on what I knew until I found another. I justified the expense of purchasing so many materials as less than what I had spent the previous year on private school. As long as I stayed below this number, no alarms went off in my head.

Having taught in schools, it was difficult to realize that I had the autonomy to create whatever learning environment I chose. For the first time, I was able to choose a learning environment that would be most effective for my student. Only this time, the student was my son. What a gift that was for me! I realized that I needed to listen to my son, that meeting his educational needs without his input was a futile effort. So, I sat down with him, asked him some questions, and we made a plan. I would give him a chance to choose which method of learning was most appealing to him, and we would try this for at least one school year. If he flourished, then we would try it again the next year, and if he did not do as well as he had hoped, he would have the opportunity to choose a different style

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