Lesson 2: Choosing your Curriculum
Choosing your curriculum is perhaps the most exciting… and most frightening aspect of homeschooling.
Homeschooling Methods
There are so many ways to teach that it would be impossible for me to list them all. Since most people that have decided to homeschool have already formed very strong opinions about the "method" that they will use, I am just going to give a brief description of the most common.
Charlotte Mason Method
Charlotte Mason (1842-1923) was a British educator and an observant woman. As a teacher, she spent much of her life watching children learn, and drawing, from her observations, many of the same conclusions we home educators draw today as we watch our own children learn.
Classical Education Method
Dorothy Sayers well-known essay "The Lost Tools of Learning" is the basis of the new classical Christian education movement. Based on the trivium, classical education is language-focused; learning is accomplished through words, written and spoken, rather than through images.
Eclectic Homeschooling Method
An Eclectic Homeschooler is one who looks at the different approaches and methods of homeschooling and takes from each forming his own unique philosophy.
Montessori Method
Maria Montessori, born in 1870, was the first woman in Italy to receive a medical degree. She worked in the fields of psychiatry, education and anthropology. She believed that each child is born with a unique potential to be revealed, rather than as a "blank slate" waiting to be written upon.
According to Dr. Montessori, learning is a natural, self-directed process which follows certain fundamental laws of nature.
Traditional or School-at-Home Method
Traditional Homeschools would be set up public school style with a complete curriculum, traditional grading system and record keeping.
Unit Studies Approach
The Unit Studies Approach integrates all school subjects together into one theme or topic, which works to foster a multi-faceted depth of understanding in many children.
Unschooling or Natural Learning Method
Unschooling or Natural Learning is a philosophy of child-led learning. Unschoolers believe that the natural curiosity of a healthy child, given access to a rich environment, will lead the child to learn what he or she needs to know.
Waldorf Education Method
Waldorf education is based on the spiritual-scientific research of the Austrian scientist and thinker Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925). According to his philosophy, man is a threefold being of spirit, soul and body whose capacities unfold in three developmental stages.
