What curriculum/books should I follow to teach 2 students one in the 7th grade and one in 8th grade that are homeschooling?

March 17, 2010 8:04 PM

What curriculum/books should I follow to teach 2 students one in the 7th grade and one in 8th grade that are homeschooling?

What curriculum/books should I follow to teach 2 students one in the 7th grade and one in 8th grade that are homeschooling?

Should I just go to a school and pick up any books that they utilize for 8th grade? Or should I go to Barnes and Noble and buy a book.

I will teach them Math and English. What other subjects are mandatory.

Do they just take the terra nova exam and thats it?

posted by minsid to Education (14 answers total)

Aren't there state guidelines or at least suggestions here?
posted by sallybrown at 8:06 PM on March 17, 2010

Requirements differ by state. There are tons of resources online to provide you with further information and curriculum. Did you google before asking this question?
posted by amro at 8:10 PM on March 17, 2010

You should definitely teach them science and history as well. a foreign language would also probably be good.

Honestly, the fact that you're asking which subjects are mandatory and what books to use suggests that you're not at all ready to home school kids. I would reconsider this decision.
posted by kylej at 8:31 PM on March 17, 2010 [5 favorites]

Response by poster: I am ready to teach... just need to know what is the bare minimum
posted by minsid at 8:32 PM on March 17, 2010

Is there a reason that you are only willing to teach the bare minimum to these kids? That's not really the point of education.
posted by kylej at 8:37 PM on March 17, 2010 [2 favorites]

Being ready to teach and ready to homeschool aren't the same thing. I also think if you have to ask so basic a question, you're not ready to undertake homeschooling.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 8:37 PM on March 17, 2010 [1 favorite]

You need to hook up with some real info before you pull the kids out and insist on doing this yourself. Metafilter isn't specialized for this and you aren't giving us any background - state (NJ?), reason, particular problems if any. This is more a resource for particular problems (can't find a good science module, for example) versus what you've given us. Find out what your state requires of homeschooling if you don't want to use a pre-existing/pre-made program. That you haven't done that, echoing above posters, is scary. Teaching != homeschooling. I also, during my period as a tutor, did work with some homeschooler groups and found it wasn't worth it for my mental health - and that was three hours a week. It isn't just a financial / quality of education decision. Part of it is examining yourself and finding out if this is *best* for your children. It's a lifestyle, not just 6 hours a day. Meeting minimums is not best for them. It's not even a good stop-gap.
posted by Weighted Companion Cube at 8:49 PM on March 17, 2010

The "bare minimum" attitude and failure to even google (let alone do heavier research) for this information, plus some of your past questions make me worry about your readiness to teach, honestly, especially at a 7th and 8th grade level. You don't seem all that informed about the world or knowledgeable about how to answer your own questions (other than by asking people). Teaching isn't about just reading straight from a textbook--it's about using the information you have (and are given by the textbook) and shaping it so your students can understand. They're going to be asking you questions and you need to be able to answer those without coming here.

Sorry if this seems jerkish.
posted by sallybrown at 8:56 PM on March 17, 2010 [2 favorites]

I hate to come across as snarky and superior, but I'm not sure you're ready to teach 7th and 8th grade English based just on your writing style in this question. Now, perhaps you just use a casual style when writing on the internet, but you make some pretty obvious grammatical errors and the style of your writing is a little awkward. I know the saying is if you can't do, teach, but you still have to be doing better than your students.
posted by MadamM at 9:01 PM on March 17, 2010 [1 favorite]

More info will be helpful. Why have you decided to homeschool? Have you truly considered the pros and cons of what this will mean for the kids, but also, for you? It's not all sitting-around-in-jammies-reading.

But....every state has curriculum standards. Look at your state's education department and print out the standards for Literacy, Math, Science, Technology and Social Studies. You will need to address those standards.

Then investigate local homeschooling networks. Dedicated parents do this everywhere and I would try to take advantage of their group wisdom. They can tell you about the curriculum they use.
posted by dzaz at 2:45 AM on March 18, 2010

The bare minimum depends on your state and the kind of homeschooling you want to do. For instance, where I live no testing is required, and I'm a very relaxed, unschooly kind of homeschooler and we do very little structured "lessons" and don't use a curriculum, but build stuff around our interests. If you want to find out more, you might start with a basic introductory book on homeschooling--there are a million out there now that talk about how to find out what the laws are, the different ways people homeschool (so you can make that decision about what you think is important for you and your kids), and even review curricula. There are even Homeschooling for Dummies-type books that really break it down.

You might want to look at:

The First Year of Homeschooling Your Child

Home Learning Year-by-Year

The Homeschooling Handbook

The Ultimate Book of Homeschooling Ideas

100 Top Picks for Homeschool Curriculum

Also:

Homeschool Laws State-by-State

You do need to educate yourself about homeschooling before you can homeschool your kids. I wouldn't have checked your posting history, but that you have asked several questions that could have been answered with basic research like a google search suggests that information-finding is not one of your strengths. There are probably hundreds of books about homeschooling in print now, and an overwhelming array of curricula from every perspective from classical (learn your Latin and Greek!) to literature-based to unit studies (building a unit covering a variety of subject areas around one topic). You're asking like there's one answer to your question and there is not.
posted by not that girl at 6:36 AM on March 18, 2010 [3 favorites]

Oops, bad link there: 100 Top Picks for Homeschool Curriculum

And an addition: Homeschooling: The Middle Years.
posted by not that girl at 6:39 AM on March 18, 2010

The Saxon math textbooks are really good. I was homeschooled, and used these books.

Math and English are very very important, but don't neglect the other subjects! I'd say a basic knowledge of science is crucial - Physics, chemistry, biology, etc. Also psychology, government, social studies, and history shouldn't be ignored. All of these subjects are typically taught in public high schools.
posted by Vorteks at 6:47 AM on March 18, 2010

Probably your best bet is to go to your local library and ask the librarian to show you where they keep the homeschooling curriculum books. The librarians are hired to help with exactly this kind of question, and if you're going to be homeschooling, you can make great use of the free resources available at the library (for example you can try out different textbooks without paying anything before you decide which is best).
posted by LobsterMitten at 12:13 PM on March 18, 2010