Writing your own Christian Homeschool Curriculum is not as daunting as it may sound.
Christian parents choose to homeschool for many reasons, including a lack of confidence in the public school system and a belief that their children would have a better quality education at home. Some parents choose to write their own curriculum for their children. Writing a Christian homeschool curriculum does not involve authoring a textbook for each subject and for each child. It's a simple matter of organizing the resources that already exist.
Instructions
1. Find the benchmarks for your state to determine what your Christian homeschool curriculum must include. Benchmarks are the expected academic goals that a public school student must reach before being promoted into the next grade. These goals can be found on the website of your local school district, or on your state's education website. These benchmarks are usually listed by grade level and will include the expected standards of competency in each grade. Long ago school curriculum incorporated Christian theology within not only the history classes but also within the math, sciences and literature classes. Math books used Biblical examples for word problems, science curriculum acknowledged the early scientists who were in large part Christians. Literature curriculum used inherently Christian novels, "Pilgrim's Progress" and "Chronicles of Narnia" being just two examples.
The state standards involve a level of skill. Maintaining a Christian worldview in the creation of homeschool curriculum means offering your children the same, or better, level of education available in public schools. A curriculum on Ancient History can integrate the events in Scripture with what is typically taught in secular schools. The teaching of the Bible within a school system has been upheld by the Supreme Court as long as the Bible is taught as literature. State standards can be met in your Christian curriculum through a similar integration into each subject.
2. Gather grade-appropriate materials from curriculum companies, libraries and other homeschooling families. It isn't necessary to write an entire history book in order to create your own Christian homeschool curriculum for history. Find used materials written by a Christian curriculum company you trust. Using the benchmarks for your state, find the assignments and subjects the state deems necessary and pattern your lessons over those within the previously written materials.
There are a number of beneficial websites that allow you to create grade-appropriate worksheets, tests and answer sheets for the basic skills of math, reading comprehension, history and the sciences. Do your best to adhere to the benchmarks expected by the state. If need be, overcompensate by requiring more of your children than the state does.
3. Create the curriculum spreadsheet. A curriculum spreadsheet contains a schedule of lessons, chapters and tests to be covered in each class session for each class day. This spreadsheet helps organize the progression of each session to it's conclusion. Examples of these types of spreadsheets are available from curriculum companies. You may use them to pattern for your spreadsheet. Some Christian homeschooling parents use a large calendar book instead of a spreadsheet to accomplish the same task. This will be one of the items that will be requested if the state education board ever audits your progress.
4. Teach out of the overflow. When writing Christian homeschool curriculum, you have to take the time to study a subject for the purpose of writing a lesson on that subject. Make sure you have more than you need (overflow) to complete the lesson. A history lesson read straight from the text is just that. It can bore a student quickly. A history lesson compiled from the text combined with perhaps scenes from a historical movie about that time period and a hands-on project can help drive home the lesson you wish the child to learn.
The A Beka Book history curriculum is a terrific resource as the writers have a great deal of respect for the Christian heritage of America and are not afraid to integrate that worldview into the lessons.
There are a number of good resources for this type of lesson at the Christian Home Schoolers website. There are question sheets, assignments and links to extra help in just about every subject taught.
5. Prepare for unfamiliar subjects. Not everyone can write lessons for every subject for their home-schooled student. Use available resources like umbrella schools to help you out. Umbrella schools are made up of groups of families who are homeschooling their children. Typically these groups are Christian-based organizations. These groups will sometimes share the responsibilities of teaching difficult subjects, like algebra and geometry. Since each student will come in with a different set of curriculum being used, these group lessons are often written by the individual teaching the class. Becoming a part of one of these groups can expose you to several different kinds of Christian homeschool curriculum and the opinions of those who are using them.
Tags: Christian homeschool, homeschool curriculum, their children, your Christian, your state, benchmarks your, benchmarks your state