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How to Choose the Best Homeschool Books for Your Kids

By: Kayley Kenzie Believe it or not, you don't have to spend a ton of money on either homeschool curriculum or homeschool books. If you just take the time to do some research, you'll discover many resources that will help you create your own curriculum without leaving you broke.

In my opinion, it is better to create your own curriculum because you can quickly change or adapt a lesson to fit the needs of your child. If you find something at the last minute that works better for you and your child, you can incorporate it very easily.

One of the first things we do as a family is choose literature selections for the semester. We like to try and finish five to seven books per semester. We don't have to buy specialized homeschool books for spelling or vocabulary. We use the literature that we have chosen to do this.

For instance, my kids will work on words and definitions by writing them in a notebook. Next week, these will also be their spelling words.

When we do history lessons, we study the time period of the classic literature we've been reading. Similarly, science lessons become an extension of the literature study when we review scientific discoveries of the period.

By tailoring our homeschooling lessons this way, we often end up having great discussions at mealtime.

Depending on your child's interest, you have the freedom to study a work of literature in-depth, or you can just cover the most important facts. Unlike the rigid outline of homeschool books, you have the freedom to do this when you build your own curriculum.

One thing we do use regular homeschool books is for math. However, we try to turn the standard math worksheets into something more interesting that will help the children incorporate the math skills into everyday life. For example, when we work on fractions, we do a lot of cooking.

It's important to understand your child's interests and needs, since this is a key component in creating curriculum for your child. When you build your own curriculum, you are better able to help your child in ways that the public school system couldn't.

There is no need to spend a lot of money on homeschool books. You can use great literature as building blocks to create curriculum that fits your family's needs.