Schooling Part 3: Knowing what to teach

 One of the main concerns people have voiced to me about home schooling is how will I know what to teach? First, there are state objectives for each grade level that can be found at the Colorado Department of Education. Second, when buying textbooks many if not all come with teacher's guides that contain, discussion points, activity's, worksheets, additional related resources, songs, etc... Some curriculum even includes step by step conversations to guide you for example: The Calender from Saxon Math 2

  
"Yesterday was the ______of (month)."
- Point to the date.
" What do you think today's date is?
"How will we write the _____th?"
- Write the date on the calender.
" What day of the week is it today?"
"Let's read the days of the week together."

  Thirdly, many young children love to learn. Many teaching cues can be taken from the child them self, for example, If your child comes to you and asks, "What comes after Tuesday?" You can then sit down and present a calender, pointing to the days while singing the days of the week song. Then continuing onto months, while again singing the months song. The child can then practice the above introduced concepts, by locating special holidays,their own birthday, family birthdays.

  I already am a firm believer of child inspired learning. By elaborating on subjects of interest they themselves present. When my son was suddenly interested in the army, we went to the library used computer skills to search for army books, learned how to find the books, exercised proper etiquette while waiting in line and checking out, we read about the army, googled the history of certain weapons that captivated him (AK-47), this turned into a discussion of war and why people fight (sociology/psychology) we referenced world war 2 and got out maps to locate Germany, Austria,Poland and Russia (geography). We discussed Hitler and even read a couple facts about WW2 (after all he's 5, this covered History).
  When my son and daughter want an item in the store (mom makes sure it's under $5 before saying yes) I talk with them about the numbers on the price tag and what amount that means. We then agree we can earn this item. At home when our sticker sheet is full, that child is then given that amount rounded up to the nearest dollar in a mixture of dollars and cents. I then help them identify the coins and the amounts they stand for (counting), we go to the store and see if we have enough money (greater than/less than). Often when doing this I can incorporate adding, subtracting, fractions into this.

  For us, I consulted the state grade objectives and goals, I read many educational and child development articles. I talked to other parents about what their kids were learning. I also talked to teachers and asked about their daily schedule, so then I could see just how much time was spent on each subject.. I then constructed a list of what I want my son to accomplish by the end of the 1st grade. I then developed this further into different subjects and using my goals searched for curriculum directly in line with my desires.