If you decide to home school your child, you can decide on the curriculum according to the methods that you choose to employ in the home schooling process. If the instructions are imparted at home under the supervision of correspondence schools, that too is referred to as home schooling or home education and the curriculum is provided by the supervising school. The term un-schooling refers to a system of study that is curriculum free and the child learns as per his own preferences.

In home schooling, if you choose to employ the classical education method, it would be similar to modern education, as understood in the western world today. In one phase the student learns grammar, logic and rhetoric. Grammar consists of language skills to acquire the maximum possible words, concepts and effective usage. Logic develops the art of proper reasoning in the child. Rhetoric is geared towards criticizing your own work and being able to influence others. In the other phase the student learns maths, music and other subjects.

In home school unit study the curriculum requires the child to learn a number of subjects, to be periodically evaluated through tests for the level of knowledge he has acquired. In this system, the interests of the child are determined and then the subjects to be taught are selected. Once this is done, the parents need to use innovative means and methods to make the learning process more interesting and comprehensible to the child. There are many ready-made unit study curriculums available, but parents can create their own study model, which they think is best suited to enable the child to learn better. The uniqueness of this model is that all subjects are taught via any one subject.

Generally, the subjects included in a model study unit comprise of the art of effective language usage that in turn helps to develop skills in reading, writing and comprehension. The study of mathematics is essential to first assess the level of understanding of the child and then give him lessons to develop problems solving skills. Geography or the social sciences are also included to acquaint the child with location, time periods and inventions. The child learns science to cover his understanding of plants, animals and the input on other related topics. To give a boost to the creativity of the learner, he is exposed to drawing, designing, acting and painting too. The child is taught music and through the music he is able to learn about the cultural backgrounds of places to which the music is associated. History is taught too and can be used to establish a relationship with other subjects. Physical education is another subject that would require the parents to introduce the child to an exercise regime and then try to connect other subjects to the discipline. For example, the child can be introduced to Olympic history through effective physical education training.

Home schooling in the un-schooling model is curriculum free. However, even when informal, parents need to design a curriculum that is flexible. It would vary from one student to the other, depending on the individual requirement, interest and learning ability. It can be modified any time during the period of learning, if found to be in the best interest of the child.

Kris Koonar
http://www.articlesbase.com/homeschooling-articles/curriculum-for-homeschooling-86852.html

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