Designing a Home School Curriculum

By Ina Woolcott

Once deciding upon wanting to home school, you may wonder about how to go about setting up the curriculum and there may be many questions in your mind. Such as:

* Should we study continuously? And how often should we take a break?
* Should we take a long holiday or a number of short breaks?
* What about bank holidays?

The answers to these questions are straightforward - whatever suits you best is the best course of action for you and your family. This is one of the major, and most appealing benefits of home schooling. You are not under pressure to follow a strict timetable. There is no pressure to take a holiday or have fixed terms. Home schooling is very flexible.

People familiar with home education don't always have a definite curriculum to follow, lessons are a part of and integrated into their daily lives. With beginners this may not be the case and they may need to plan the curriculum ahead of time to start with. Then naturally, they will find hold and gain confidence in their abilities to home school.

Before planning the structures of lessons, there are some things you need to consider:

* What method of home schooling would you like to use?
* What will be your teaching and learning style?
* What are the work and play schedules?
* What are your holiday plans?

When it comes to holidays, some families plan 1 week holidays at various intervals during the year, others go away for a month or more. When travelling you are able to go at off peak, more inexpensive times of year. If you have a partner discuss this with him and decide what suits your family best. Following the traditional long summer holidays can have benefits for your child, mainly being off school when other kids are. They may have friends in the school and will be able to play with them all summer and attend summer activities such as pony clubs, swimming clubs and other fun activities. For older children summer jobs may be possible. Also both the parent(s) and the child(ren) get a long break too.The only drawback may be getting back into the swing of things after a long time off.

There are advantages to several short breaks. Such as dispelling boredom as other interests can be pursued in the meantime. Although as learning will be one on one, there will be more time anyway to pursue other activities, as what may take an hour to learn at a 'normal' school may take 10 minutes at home. There are no disruptive classmates and a lot more material can be covered in the time saved.

When it comes to home schooling, you and your family are in charge. The individual needs of your child are of paramount importance and should be the primary focus when deciding how to structure a home schooling curriculum. Once established you must reassess the curriculum from time to time. Set some realistic goals and see if you are able to fulfil them. The most important thing is to avoid burning the candle at both ends for you and your child.