Homeschool Curriculum

Posted by Joyce Wheeler | 0 comments

Recently I read a post about a family that homeschooled their children before we had all the freedoms we have now. He told about how the only way they knew if there were any other homeschoolers was when one was reported for truancy. The writer also wrote how there was nowhere to go for curriculum and the family would beg the local school to include an order for them. Times have changed in the homeschool community, and we now have homeschool support groups and find others of like mind easily. Now there are so many places online to purchase curriculum it will make your head spin. However, many of them are smaller companies which many homeschoolers know little or nothing about. Not to mention the new ones which are being established on an ongoing bases.

I have had the pleasure of recently getting to know more about one of these new little companies, Gentle Shepherd and the owner, Diane Hurst. A veteran homeschool mom to nine currently homeschooling her last student, she created an array of worksheets and has now put them together in PDF for others to purchase. I asked Diane what inspired her to create all these worksheets, here is what she wrote me.

“There are several things that have inspired me to make some curriculum materials. First, when our oldest children were young, our income was much more limited than it is now. So if I wanted to have any curriculum at all, I often had to make something to use. So, financial lack was one inspiration!

But I don’t think that would have happened unless I already had some ideas and enjoyed designing learning materials. This has been an interest for most of my life; when I was in high school looking at future careers, I wanted to do something with art, writing, music, or any/all of these and my question at that time was, “Can you learn how to write books for school?”

I didn’t go on to college– instead, I got married and started having children . . . and very soon we were homeschooling them. And my previous interest in developing curriculum started fitting in nicely with home teaching.

Many times I would get ideas for materials that would make our learning go more smoothly, or be easier to manage. With nine children, I needed to have things the kids could do independently. I have a whole line of math work pages (that will eventually be ready to put on our website– I need to do some revisions first) that came about because we couldn’t find a good fit with the math curriculum for younger kids that was available– I didn’t have time to help the younger kids constantly, so I designed some pages that they could easily do on their own.

The art/writing work pages are also materials that children can do independently. Because I’m an arts-oriented person, I like to include creativity in the curriculum materials whenever possible, and the writing pages are very open-ended; it is easy for the writer to follow his own interests and ideas in completing them.”

Diane then decided to go off on a self publishing adventure to market the many worksheets she had compiled. At first she tried to create tear off pages using her printer. With little knowledge on how to market her product locally the homemade curriculum sat in the Hurst garage. She decided to give them away instead of having them take up the room. The discovery of print on demand gave her more hope and she set up a store front on Lulu, a self publishing web site. There she was able to create some hard back copies of her worksheets along with some e-books.

In January 2011 Diane had her own web site and her curriculum had a place to call home. Currently the products available are geared towards the early learners up to the middle school learners. All the products are e-books and range in price from $3.00 to $8.00, samples are available on the Gentle Shepherd web site.

I viewed the Preschool Beginning Notebook Set 1, and I loved how Diane discusses briefly what a note book is, great for those new to notebooking. She also explains how to use each of the pages, along with suggestions of pages you can add on your own. This e-book consists of fifteen pages and costs only $4.00.

The other product that really caught my attention was her typing curriculum. I was totally impressed to see that Diane had created not one, but two curricula for typing. Type Write Touch Tip is the first book and includes a syllabus, 85 pages is $8.00 and take up to ninety days to complete. Your students will learn all the basics they need to become great typists. This book reminds of the book I used when I started typing very well done and less expensive than others.

Typing Practice Pages is the second book and includes stories which are broken up into sentences. I love this because not only are students building their typing skills they are learning as well. Some topics pertain to science, while others are about animals. There are also some rhymes, poetry and riddles. Ninety three lessons are included, as well as  pages to check off assignments as completed. Like its counterpart is a ninety day program with the same price attached. Both programs make up a full year of typing which high school students can use as an elective.

Due to the fact that Diane created these pages with love and care for own children, you can be sure you are getting a quality product. Plus she also has a blog, useful links, freebies, articles and more.

Joyce Wheeler is the mother of three and has been homeschooling since 1997. She has one daughter, already graduated, a son she is homeschooling through high school, and the other is a junior high student. Currently she is re-organizing her nonprofit organization, Education Jump-Off. Her mission is to aid in the education of the world’s greatest natural resource, the children, and “never stop learning” is her personal motto. A blogger and free lance writer you can find her at Homeschooling High School and Baton Rouge Homeschool Examiner