10 tips for choosing curriculum - HisLifeLearner.com

It’s that time of year again. When one school year winds down, it’s time to start planning for the next one. Which means, it’s curriculum picking time (it’s seasonal, like fruit)! Choosing curriculum can either be enjoyable (for curriculum junkies like me), or angst inducing. I understand it can be a daunting task. To help aid you in your process, I have my top 10 tips for choosing curriculum.

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I remember walking into the curriculum hall at my first homeschool convention. Even after three years of private school teaching, I was like a deer caught in the headlights. There were so many vendors, and so, so, so many books that were calling my name.

After 17 years of homeschooling, I go through a mental checklist when I start my curriculum quest. I’ve taken it from my brain and created a printable checklist of my top 10 tips for choosing curriculum, which is free for you to download. The list is a summation of the points I’ll go into more detail below.

Tip #1 Is it secular or faith based curriculum?

Decide if you want secular or faith based curriculum, or if it matters to you. You might determine that it’ll depend on the subject matter. For instance, you may want your science to be faith based, whereas with math, worldview may not matter so much.

Tip #2 Will this curriculum fit your child’s learning style?

Think about how the curriculum would or would not fit your child’s learning style. Is your child an auditory learner? If so, then a curriculum heavy on seat work may not be a good fit. If you’re looking for a math curriculum and you have a kinesthetic learner, you’ll probably want a program with manipulatives.

Are you not sure what learning style your child favors? Happy Healthy Kids has a short video which describes the different styles. Don’t worry if you can’t “box” your child into one particular mode of learning. I think many of us employ several types. Go with your instinct, you know best how your child learns.

Tip #3 How much are you willing to spend?

Determine how much you are willing to spend. Perhaps you’re willing to make a big investment in a curriculum that you plan to use with subsequent children. Or maybe you’re needing to tighten the budget for this year. Remember that you can also find free curriculum online. Please do not equate cost with effectiveness.

Another quick tip when it comes to purchasing a packaged curriculum, check to see if some of the components can be bought used. For example, you might choose a lovely language arts curriculum package that comes with a teacher’s manual plus all the books you’ll need for that level. Most of the time you can buy the teacher’s manual and then buy the books used to save money. In this post I talk about my favorite place to buy used books.

Alternatively, make sure you use the library. You might be able to find many of your required books there at no cost to you.

Tip #4 How much prep time does this curriculum require?

Look to see how much prep time the lessons will require. Is it open and go, or does it require a good amount of prep time? If this matters to you, you will want to get a good estimate of prep time before purchasing.

Tip #5 Is this curriculum teacher intensive?

Along the same lines, see if the curriculum is teacher intensive, or is it something your child can do independently, or with minimal teacher help. If you have young kids, pretty much all your curriculum is pretty teacher intensive. Still, you can combine those materials with others that your child can complete without as much help.

I’ll give you an example from my own experience. . The program “All About Reading” is very teacher intensive (not a criticism). It doesn’t work without the teacher/student interaction. However, you could use “All About Reading” in conjunction with another program, such as “Explode the Code” (a workbook your kids can do independently).

Tip #6 Are you excited about the curriculum?

Evaluate if, as a teacher, you are excited about the curriculum. I’m not saying every homeschool day has to be unicorns and roses, but you have to like what you’re teaching your kids. It will not be difficult for your kids to pick up on your lack of enthusiasm. Granted, there are some subjects that are just “we have to do them,” but it doesn’t have to be drudgery. You can be excited about what your child will learn through the curriculum.

Tip #7 Can you get a thorough look at the curriculum?

Get your hands on the curriculum to view if it’s possible. It used to be easy to do that at homeschool conventions. Unfortunately, because of the pandemic, most of those have been cancelled. Still, you can get a good look at the materials in other ways.

If you belong to a local support group, reach out to other moms asking if one of them has the curriculum you’re interested in. See if you can borrow it to peruse.
Go to the publisher’s website and see if you can download a sample or “look in the book.” Evan Moor is a great example of a site that allows you to flip through entire books. You can also receive a free sample of any level of their books.
Online sellers are also helpful in viewing samples of curriculum. Christian Book Distributors and Rainbow Resource are two of my favorites.

Tip #8 Are you able to read or watch a review about the curriculum?

Read or watch reviews of the curriculum you’re thinking of buying. You Tube has a plethora of review videos. “Flip through” videos, in which moms literally flip through books, are helpful so you can see the curriculum. Remember when watching them, however, the channel creator is giving her own opinion about how she likes the curriculum and how it is working (or not working) for her family.

A helpful website to peruse is Cathy Duffy’s reviews. Cathy Duffy has been in the curriculum game for quite a while, since 1984, and keeps her site up to date. I have consulted it many times when looking for curriculum. She also has a wonderful book that you can use for reference. It’s called “100 Top Picks for Homeschool Curriculum.”

Now, keep in mind that there is such a thing as too much research. What I mean is that you can spend hours doing your research and still not make a decision. Then you get anxious because you still have not chosen anything. At some point you have to commit.

With that said, expect to have buyer’s remorse at some point in your homeschooling journey. You can conduct all the research about a program, flip through it, listen to scores of reviews about it, purchase it, and then spend months using it only to discover that it’s not working for you. That shouldn’t concern you. That should help you give grace to yourself if you have to switch curriculum midstream.

Tip #9 Is this curriculum doable at this season in life?

Ask yourself if you can effectively implement the curriculum. Is it doable for where you are in life? I have a friend that purchased a very expensive literature based curriculum that required her to read chapter books to her kids. With her oldest of four being a six-year-old, she discovered pretty quickly that the program was not working for her at this point in time. Save yourself time and money by being honest with yourself about what you can and cannot do.

Realize that the curriculum needs to serve you, not vice versa. You are not a slave to your curriculum.

I listened to a You Tube mom review a handwriting program her first grader was using. She made the comment that she was “anxious” because she might not finish the program before the end of the year. Whaaaat???? There is no urgency in making sure every page in a workbook gets completed.

I address this in my post “The Homeschool Mom’s ‘To Don’t List’,” but please recognize that you do not need to finish your curriculum by the end of the school year. It’s really okay to either move on to the next level the next year, or take a break and pick up where you left off the next school year. I assure you, the curriculum police will not come after you for not completing a program!

Tip #10 Do I need to tweak this curriculum to fit the needs of my child?

Realize that every curriculum is tweakable! Give yourself the freedom to change things around to make a program work for you.

For example, my kids use a few of the Evan Moor “daily practice” books, like this Daily Reading Comprehension book.

These books are structured for the student to complete every day for five days. That’s groovy, but we don’t always school five days a week. Therefore, my kids got used to completing “Lesson 5 Day 5” on a Monday or any other day. We just moved through the books at our own pace.

Similarly, we have doubled up on lessons with some programs if they were moving slower than we wanted. Or we’ve skipped lessons altogether if it worked better for us.

Bonus tip: Shop your home first before buying anything new

If you’re just starting out, this tip may not apply to you. For homeschool vets who are curriculum junkies however (and you know who you are), you may have materials you purchased for one child and then shelved because it didn’t suit your needs at the time. Before you buy anything new, shop your home first to see if you can recycle any curriculum you’ve used in the past. Trust me on this, it’s worth it.

Yes, I can speak from experience. I have reused curriculum I put on the shelf years before. Most recently, I went back to a curriculum I tried to give away and no one wanted. It’s a grammar program I used with my three oldest kids and then ditched for my next five.

You see, I wanted to try something new and take a “gentler” approach to grammar. I soon found out that what we were using was too gentle for my taste. When the oldest of the five couldn’t identify an adjective in a sentence, I knew I wanted to make a change. I tried a few other books and then realized I had to go back to the OG of grammar. (You want to know what it was, don’t you?) I dusted off my good ol’ Shurley English books and put them to use. To my surprise, my kids really liked it! I’ve modified the way I used it in the past, so I was excited to use it and so were my kids. Win win all around.

There you have my top 10 tips for choosing curriculum. I’m sure you’ve heard people say that there is no such thing as a perfect curriculum. It may be cliche, but it is very true. Have confidence that whatever you select, you are making the most informed decision you can based on the information you have at the time. Then give yourself mega grace, mom. You got this!