How to use this site
In the spirit of the shoe-string curriculum, I am creating this website myself, so I crave your indulgence for any oddities in how it is presented. In principle, this is how it is intended to work:
Pages headed with the titles of individual subjects offer a few thoughts on the subject, with suggestions for resources and a brief overview of a suggested schedule for ages 7-16 (or 4-16 where appropriate) for that particular subject. The drop down headings go into more detail about particular ages or areas.
The pages headed Preparatory, Primary, Middle and Secondary Level offer an overview of the particular characteristics of (and approach adopted towards) the specified age group. Then, for each year group within the general level, there is an overall schedule covering all subjects. In some cases you'll find further resources in a particular area (these are not presently available for all subjects and ages, but this is a work in progress and items are added as they are ready).
So, for example, if you want to see what is recommended for a 9-10 year old in history, you could read the page entitled History for a broad outline and general history schedule, then look at the sub-category Primary History.
To see how this fits in to the overall schedule for age 9-10, you might want to navigate to the 'Primary: age 7-11' page then finally, within the Primary section, you might want to go to the 9-10 page for an overview of all the subjects for this specific age.
A word about purchasing resources
Again in the spirit of the shoestring curriculum, many if not most of the books recommended here are either out of print or old editions of current books. There are various reasons for this: first, in a subject like religion, it is often the older books which are more reliable; second, older editions are almost always cheaper than new ones, yet there is often very little difference in content. I've checked the content of several books, comparing new and old editions and often it has barely changed - the new edition just has a glossier cover and more up to date fonts and illustrations (not always for the better). Where the text has changed, it is not always an improvement (for example, in some English textbooks the older editions contain more excerpts from 'classic' texts whereas the newer versions are more 'up to date' and contain a higher proportion of contemporary - but not usually better quality - literature).
With the advent of the internet (which we didn't have when we started home-educating), it has become possible to source many good books for no more than a penny (+P&P), books which with a little tinkering and imagination can combine to provide you with as decent a curriculum as you might buy from a homeschool resource supplier for hundreds of pounds. It's not always possible to do this - sometimes the best books are the new books: but if you can buy the bulk of your books cheaply second hand, you'll be able to afford to invest in the more expensive books as and when they are needed.
Generally speaking, I would say that your expenditure should start off very low in primary (when you can get most of what you need from libraries, online or in cheap old editions) and build up as you reach GCSE level (when you are likely to need to invest in more expensive textbooks for a variety of subjects and pay for exams). One parent I know put all the money she saved at primary level into an account so that when it was time to spend more on secondary textbooks she was already prepared. I wish I'd done that rather than buying expensive books to teach, say, reading, when I could have done this with a few home-made flashcards and a pen and paper! As my mother-in-law always says, 'We learned to read with nothing but a slate and a piece of chalk - how difficult can it be?' Expensive isn't always best!
In the spirit of the shoe-string curriculum, I am creating this website myself, so I crave your indulgence for any oddities in how it is presented. In principle, this is how it is intended to work:
Pages headed with the titles of individual subjects offer a few thoughts on the subject, with suggestions for resources and a brief overview of a suggested schedule for ages 7-16 (or 4-16 where appropriate) for that particular subject. The drop down headings go into more detail about particular ages or areas.
The pages headed Preparatory, Primary, Middle and Secondary Level offer an overview of the particular characteristics of (and approach adopted towards) the specified age group. Then, for each year group within the general level, there is an overall schedule covering all subjects. In some cases you'll find further resources in a particular area (these are not presently available for all subjects and ages, but this is a work in progress and items are added as they are ready).
So, for example, if you want to see what is recommended for a 9-10 year old in history, you could read the page entitled History for a broad outline and general history schedule, then look at the sub-category Primary History.
To see how this fits in to the overall schedule for age 9-10, you might want to navigate to the 'Primary: age 7-11' page then finally, within the Primary section, you might want to go to the 9-10 page for an overview of all the subjects for this specific age.
A word about purchasing resources
Again in the spirit of the shoestring curriculum, many if not most of the books recommended here are either out of print or old editions of current books. There are various reasons for this: first, in a subject like religion, it is often the older books which are more reliable; second, older editions are almost always cheaper than new ones, yet there is often very little difference in content. I've checked the content of several books, comparing new and old editions and often it has barely changed - the new edition just has a glossier cover and more up to date fonts and illustrations (not always for the better). Where the text has changed, it is not always an improvement (for example, in some English textbooks the older editions contain more excerpts from 'classic' texts whereas the newer versions are more 'up to date' and contain a higher proportion of contemporary - but not usually better quality - literature).
With the advent of the internet (which we didn't have when we started home-educating), it has become possible to source many good books for no more than a penny (+P&P), books which with a little tinkering and imagination can combine to provide you with as decent a curriculum as you might buy from a homeschool resource supplier for hundreds of pounds. It's not always possible to do this - sometimes the best books are the new books: but if you can buy the bulk of your books cheaply second hand, you'll be able to afford to invest in the more expensive books as and when they are needed.
Generally speaking, I would say that your expenditure should start off very low in primary (when you can get most of what you need from libraries, online or in cheap old editions) and build up as you reach GCSE level (when you are likely to need to invest in more expensive textbooks for a variety of subjects and pay for exams). One parent I know put all the money she saved at primary level into an account so that when it was time to spend more on secondary textbooks she was already prepared. I wish I'd done that rather than buying expensive books to teach, say, reading, when I could have done this with a few home-made flashcards and a pen and paper! As my mother-in-law always says, 'We learned to read with nothing but a slate and a piece of chalk - how difficult can it be?' Expensive isn't always best!