Looking for ways to simplify, speed up, and sharpen your child’s educational experience? Two curriculum ideas that have helped me…
- Look for curriculum that combines subject areas.
- Look for curriculum that provides life-long educational tools.
Why educational tools? It’s the same concept as “Give a man a fish and feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and feed him for a lifetime.” An example: In middle school, I had an amazing teacher who taught me and fellow classmates how to take notes in outline method. He then taught us how to write research papers based on those notes. I used these particular tools, note-taking and writing from notes, throughout my formal education and continue to use them today when writing and/or speaking publicly. This teacher not only taught me how to write a paper for his class, with his specific requirements, he provided a tool that has allowed me to take notes, write, and speak for the duration of my lifetime.
Finding such curriculum, which combines subjects and provides life-long tools can take time and energy so here are some examples and my current personal favorites. (Yes, my favorites have and will continue to change as I grow and develop along my educational journey):
Phonics: When teaching a child to read, focus on a phonetic approach. While sight-word method teaches one word at a time, Phonics provides tools for reading all words.
Latin Roots: When teaching a child vocabulary, use a curriculum that focuses on Latin roots. Rote memorization of individual word definitions teaches one word at a time. Rote memorization of Latin Roots teaches the meaning of parts of many words at the same time. This leads to exponential learning.
IEW Fix-It Grammar: Supports writing. This curriculum teaching the life-long skill of self-editing.
Saxon Math: Combines math with concepts of money, science, cooking, engineering, etc. Saxon encourages the life-long tool of quick recall of math facts that, as an adult, I use on a daily basis.
The Story of the World: This History program, in combination with their activity books, teaches History, Literature, Art, Geography, etc. The tools of reading comprehension, note-taking, and information about a wide variety of cultures/beliefs/governments are provided.
In Conclusion, the more time you save through consolidating information and teaching life-long tools, the more time you have to focus on the "fun stuff" - allowing children to apply knowledge and tools to individual interests.
Finding such curriculum, which combines subjects and provides life-long tools can take time and energy so here are some examples and my current personal favorites. (Yes, my favorites have and will continue to change as I grow and develop along my educational journey):
Phonics: When teaching a child to read, focus on a phonetic approach. While sight-word method teaches one word at a time, Phonics provides tools for reading all words.
Latin Roots: When teaching a child vocabulary, use a curriculum that focuses on Latin roots. Rote memorization of individual word definitions teaches one word at a time. Rote memorization of Latin Roots teaches the meaning of parts of many words at the same time. This leads to exponential learning.
IEW Fix-It Grammar: Supports writing. This curriculum teaching the life-long skill of self-editing.
Saxon Math: Combines math with concepts of money, science, cooking, engineering, etc. Saxon encourages the life-long tool of quick recall of math facts that, as an adult, I use on a daily basis.
The Story of the World: This History program, in combination with their activity books, teaches History, Literature, Art, Geography, etc. The tools of reading comprehension, note-taking, and information about a wide variety of cultures/beliefs/governments are provided.
In Conclusion, the more time you save through consolidating information and teaching life-long tools, the more time you have to focus on the "fun stuff" - allowing children to apply knowledge and tools to individual interests.
Don't be discouraged if this takes some time. That's natural. After all, are we not sill in the process of learning? The more home-education experience we acquire, the better able we are to take the best of curriculum and ideas and combine them to help our kids
- develop an understanding of connections subjects,
- acquire tools for all future learning and associations,
- attain a life-long love of learning…which, in my opinion, is the most important tool of all.
