Home Learning Year by Year: How to Design a Homeschool Curriculum from Preschool Through High School

As a homeschooler, I felt I need a book to help guide me to make sure I wasn't leaving anything out of my kids education. This book covers a lot for each grade level. It's a great source of guidance and referrences. But, just because the book SAYS your child should know a certain thing by a certain grade, doesn't mean you HAVE to teach that. Overall, I like the book and continue to use it for reference but I don't live by it.

I am new to homeschooling and this seemed to be a good starting point for establishing what I need my child to cover in the school year. It does not tell you exactly what curriculum to choose for your child's learning style but it does guide you over all the areas children should be knowledgeable in. There are several out of print books that are recommended as well as websites that are not available. It also has some very good information in the appendixes. Overall, I would recommend this book as a great tool.

The main reason that I bought this book was that I am moving more and more toward the mindset of frugal homeschooling. However, using a library can be daunting, when one is not sure which skills and content areas need to be taught. However, with this book and a library card, you can pretty much teach your child for free. She does recommend math programs, but the ones she recommends range from 10.00 per year to expensive 110.00 programs. I believe she has made an excellent balance of skills that need to be covered, and general content areas, as well as a few curriculum tips. She is also open to the needs of different people. While she never taught her children spelling, she also recommends 3 or 4 different spelling programs. She also includes literature and fun books to teach content and skill areas, and in the end, how to prepare for college. This book is better than the Core Knowledge series for me because it's less expensive, goes all the way to 12th grade, and is written specifically for homeschoolers. However I still hope to purchase the What your __Needs to Know Series to use alongside this book.

Homeschooling is much more affordable, efficient and fun when one avoids curriculum, and this book is an excellent tool to make sure you are prepared, organized, and not missing anything important.

Do you want a parent-friendly guide to realistic educational goals for your child at each grade level? This is it. This is another must-have book for me in my venture through homeschooling. How do I know if what my child is learning is typical for their grade? Look it up in here. I did many searches online and kept coming up with grand pages written in dense "teacher-ese" about abstract geometry and linguistic comprehension... for kindergarteners. I need the easy to understand, quick version and this is presicely what I was looking for. There are also excellent resource suggestions listed in here.

I think this book could be helpful for those who have been homeschooling since day one, or are starting at day one, but I can't imagine it helping those who are removing their child from public school, as I am with my daughter. My daughter is half way through her 3rd grade year. I read through the 3rd grade chapter and was completely overwhelmed with everything my daughter did *not* know/had not been taught. And I couldn't believe some of the things the author said should be learned- in 3rd grade? So, for reference I went back to the 2nd grade chapter- almost as bad! And then I started to go to the 1st grade chapter but gave up. The fact is that this book will *not* tell you what children are learning in public schools, although the author does give links for that. It seems to me, from what I know, that this is the "Classical" approach to homeschool (this is never mentioned in the book description, and only very briefly mentioned in the introduction)- which is not what we're doing. I would think that any person pulling their child out of public school would feel as I did- completely overwhelmed & hopeless - there is just too much to "catch up" on! Each year builds upon knowledge from the previous year, and I would think that most private schools don't even measure up to the standards put forth in this book. I do give it two stars because it lists resources for teaching- books and websites mainly, and some curriculum, relating to topics listed. That is all the use this book will be of to me.