If you have decided to design your own homeschool curriculum, you will need some basic resources to ensure that you have all the tools to teach your homeschool students all that they need to know.
Textbooks
While some free wheeling homeschool teachers prefer not to be tied down to a specific text book, if you are starting out with homeschooling it may be a good idea to follow one to provide a basic structure to the subject course. You can always decide to skip some portion or study another section in more detail at a later stage.
Reference Books
A trip to the library will give you the option of a large number of reference books when you are setting up your lesson plans. You can pick out extra titbits of information to supplement what has been covered in the textbook or you can just read up for your own knowledge. Then surprise the kids with the extra stuff you know at a later date and become their brainy teacher!
Guides
Teacher guides can help you structure portions of your homeschool curriculum that you are not too familiar with. These guides also give you a good idea about what the essential skills that your child must pick up are, and what is the extra stuff that you may also consider running through if you wish to.
Worksheets
These are practice sheets that help your child to learn and solidify what has been taught. While you get all kinds of free worksheets online, you will have to vet them for grade level and relevance to your own homeschool classroom. At times a child will be able to go a grade or two higher in some subjects and may fall behind a bit in another. Do not worry too much about that.
Practical Activities and Experiments
Come up with your own activities and experiments based on what you find online. Remember each child is different and their learning styles will also be different. The homeschooling technique that worked so well on one may not be quite as effective on the second one, so do what suits your child the best.
