by Shelly Campbell-Harley

Created on: August 06, 2009   Last Updated: August 09, 2009

Homeschooling itself consists of many facets: conventional (with an accredited homeschool), homeschooling with a couple of purchased resource packs, individualized curriculum according to what the parents want to use/homemade resources, and unschooling (totally child centered and relaxed). Focusing on curriculum schools and programs, there are many great ones out there. What one uses is dependent upon what style you're going to do and how you want to teach.

For example, a very popular and highly recommended program that has been around for years is Sonlight. They are well-known for their customer-friendly service, bible curriculum, uniqueness, character building program, social studies, literature, and science curriculum. They recently received the 2008 Excellence in Education award from The Old Schoolhouse magazine (magazine for homeschooling families). Rainbow Resource is another good, unique company. Their resource book contains an enormous selection of materials for the homeschooling family. For those families that enjoy unit study programs, KONOS has been around for years as well and is an excellent program to use. They are famous for their curriculum in a box advertisements.

A newcomer to the unit study group is Hands of a Child. They have wonderful and creative resources. Apologia is a long-standing company with a great reputation in the area of creation science. They recently added new management to their team and are looking to expand their curriculum area to include history and other facets of instruction. In specific curriculum areas, there are a wide assortment of companies. In Classical education, Veritas Press and Tapestry of Grace are two very well-known and wonderful resources, as are the Charlotte Mason method and Peace Hill Press. For special needs, a popular company is Timberdoodle. They have been supplying homeschooling families for ages! AVKO Educational Research Foundation is another good resource.

A BEKA has a wonderful phonics and handwriting program. Math-U-See is excellent for ease and knowledgeability. The Rosetta Stone program for language learning has been highly rated for the last few years. For those homeschoolers that like to use online curriculums, Alpha Omega's Switched-On Schoolhouse is a great choice, as is Teaching Textbooks. Of course we can't leave art and music out. How Great Thou Art and Artistic Pursuits have been shown to be excellent resources for art curriculums. Alfred Publishing and Simply Music are also wonderful resources to use in the area of music. Homeschoolers have a wide variety of companies and choices available out there, it is simply a matter of deciding whether to go with a whole curriculum package, part of one and part of another, with a school, or do your own thing and unschool! Whatever you decide to do, these choices will give you some options to think about.

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