Positively Daunted

Jill's Journal: Score for book #2 in preparing for this undertaking. I just finished “Top 100 Picks for Homeschool Curriculum” by Cathy Duffy. Several pages in, I was completely overwhelmed. I had no idea there were so many different options, methods, etc. for homeschooling. Literally.thousands.of.choices. Ooooy.

One must take into account everything from learning methods to philosophy of teaching to education/style approaches. And if you can narrow all that down to one particular route or a combination of approaches, you’ve got another kazillion categories with another trillion subcategories under those – and then you get to search for one of the curriculums that might compliment it IF you choose to go with a pre-packaged curriculum as opposed to designing your own curriculum. Again, it’s all just overwhelming. Positively daunting.

But, I plodded through the book and am actually feeling quite encouraged. Fired up, even! I think an “umbrella program” is probably the best way for us to go, at least starting out. It’s where you find a pre-packaged program (and believe me, there are hundreds and hundreds to sort through) you agree with that basically provides an entire year’s study for you as opposed to choosing a different one for each subject (the latter of course provides the very best, custom-designed fit for each student).

Apparently experienced homeschoolers think that pre-packaged curricula is for wusses, but I’m okay with that – I’m not here to please them and just want to do the very best for my family. There’s not as much flexibility in umbrella programs in comparison to other homeschooling methods, but that’s actually good for us since we do plan to return to conventional schooling after our venture and I don’t want to stray too far from traditional methods. Plus, I’m not overly creative and I like the security of it all being laid out for me to follow.

This is a huge decision and really a very big step to have made this much progress. Good thing I’m starting early! Narrowing it down this far is actually quite monumental! Now to sort through the bazillion umbrella programs out there…I’m going to be researching until the cows come home.