Methods and Curriculum

Teaching early childhood and being around homeschoolers I have noticed two things. Some home-schooled children are BRILLIANT. With out a doubt the one on one or small group instruction they received at home could not have been surpassed by formal schooling. On the other spectrum I have come to meet children who were done a disservice by their "homeschooling". Some where overly dependent on their mothers and others lacked the basic skills they needed to be successful in their grade. The latter could perhaps have been avoided if their has used a (strong) curriculum. As an elementary school teacher I am very comfortable using curriculum's. Although all curriculum's are limited in one way or another, they give me a sense of security. With that I will share with you the curriculum I have decided to use with my daughter as she reaches Pre-School age.

The Subjects are :

• Quran :Memorization 
• Arabic Writing
• English Writing
• Arabic Language Arts
• English Language Arts
• Science
• Islamic Studies Adab
• Math
• The Arts (Art, Music, Movement)
• Social Studies and Life skills

The curricula are:

• Child's Play Science 
• By: Singapore Math 
• Web Site: Here
• For: Science
• Get Set For School
• Handwriting Without Tears
• Website: Here  
• Writing, Literary, Math 

The Method:

If I had to decide my teaching method it would be traditional with a twist, also known as eclectic homeschooling.   I have chosen this style because although I have been formally trained in the traditional method,I am very interested in various teaching methods.  I believe education should be tailored to the child and other teaching methods lend themselves more to that then the traditional method.  In fact eclectic homeschooling may be defined as selecting parts of  various teaching styles to blend them into a studented centered curriculum.  Most eclectic homeshoolers have texrbooks that they use as a base, but then incorporate a variety of teaching methods.  You may read more about this method here and here.  Some of the methods I will borrow from are listed bellow.


Montessori Method 


Waldorf


Unschooling 


Holistic homeschooling


Charlotte Manson 


School at Home / The structured Homeschool approach