If you’re a natural researcher and you love digging in and sorting through all the options, you might not need this post at all.

Choose curriculum you’ll actually use! Remember, a curriculum might look great, but if it takes up too much time and energy on your part, you’ll soon find yourself procrastinating by putting off the lessons. There will always be new curriculum to try, and a thousand different philosophies on teaching. Curriculum-in-use. The formal curriculum (written or overt) comprises those things in textbooks, and content and concepts in the district curriculum guides. However, those 'formal' elements are frequently not taught. The curriculum-in-use is the actual curriculum that is delivered and presented by each teacher. Homeschooling help and encouragement from experienced homeschoolers - find out how homeschooling works and how to start, get tips & ideas for when things need adjusting, read curriculum reviews before buying, learn how online schools work, gain confidence about homeschooling high school, and more.

But if the plethora of options has you feeling unsure where to start, you might find these tips helpful.

Of course, everyone’s approach to decision making is different. So please don’t think of this as much as a step-by-step process as helpful diving-in points that fit your style.

Cathy Duffy’s curriculum reviews are a great place to start. One of the most comprehensive collections of homeschool curriculum reviews out there, her website has all kinds of great search features that let you drill down to what you’re looking for.

Before you dive in, you may want to have your child’s learning preference, your teaching style, educational philosophy, and your child’s educational goals handy.

• Teaching a teen? You'll also want to have their high school plan nearby.
• Teaching a child who might have or has been diagnosed with special needs? You may want to set up a Student Education Plan for them and check out some specific resources for children who learn differently.

On Cathy’s site you can filter by age, grade level, learning preference or style, educational philosophy, and more!

As you see curriculum that looks like a good fit or intriguing, you can pop it into your list or Pinterest board. This helps you organize your options and start to refine your choices.

Now that you have a list and options, you might want to dig deeper by getting some hands-on access and some real-life testimonials. Here are some good sources for that!

• Talk to homeschool moms you know (One of them might have tried it with one of her kids and can tell you how it works. Take into account her child’s learning preferences. She may even have some of her curriculum left over that she could lend you so you could spend time looking at it.)
• Crowd-source your questions on Facebook.
• Go to homeschool conferences with curriculum exhibit halls where you can see and touch the curriculum and talk to the publishers.
• If you’re an HSLDA member, call our educational consultants.
• Find reviews on YouTube and blogs by homeschool parents
• Find reviews at online retailers like Amazon and Christianbook.

You may have noticed that curriculum comes in many shapes and sizes. Sometimes it covers every subject, sometimes it covers just one subject—like English or math. It might be textbook-based or completely online. It might be highly structured, even providing lesson plans—or allow you total freedom in planning out your year.

There’s a style to fit every child. You can even go eclectic—mixing and matching parts of different types of curriculum.

You get to choose your own adventure—have fun!

How much does curriculum cost? Read on: Part 2—Homeschooling on a Budget . . .or No Budget?

Suppose you have just graduated from high school and don’t know what to do next. You feel a little overwhelmed by all the information and advice that good-tempered people give you, which only adds to your anxiety and uncertainty.

Unfortunately, we can’t decide for you which course you should study, but we can review some important points and offer you some advice, all in the hope of making your life easier. So, how can you find the right course?

Do a little introspection – Where are you going?

We understand that trying to understand what you like and what you’re good at is probably the most difficult thing you’ll ever have to do in your life.

Of course, there may be some people who were born knowing what they want to be, and others who just don’t care and just follow the money, but for the rest of us, it would probably be better to take a breath and think.

First of all, you can consider the most popular fields of study today, such as :

Civil Engineering and Construction

Environmental Sciences

Human Medicine

International relations

Second, if this doesn’t work, you may ask yourself: what do you do best in your group of friends? Are you the one taking pictures of the gang? Are you the one who makes sure everyone is safe at home after a party? Do you like to organize trips?

Follow what you like to do in your spare time and find a curriculum that will help you develop. Don’t complicate your life and don’t overthink things: usually your first instinct is right, so follow it and don’t look back.

You can always start with a well-paying career

Choose Your Countryeffective Curriculum Ideas 4th Grade

If you are not involved in any discipline or field, and do not feel pulled in any direction, you must follow the money.

I know we may sound like Jerry McGuire, yelling on the phone about the money, but listen to us. Why get stuck in an area that you don’t feel you have to study or feel like you’re wasting your time? If you want to study, why not follow the smell of money and jobs?

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From what we have gathered, you will find the most popular and profitable careers in fields such as :

Computer Science and Information Technology

Law

Industrial Engineer

Business Administration

Choose a country that gets you out of the house every night.

Today’s world is great! Ok, no, not really, but, technologically speaking, it’s the best! You can look for all kinds of bachelor’s degrees in all countries, and you will surely find one especially for you.

You can check all our countries for Bachelor’s degrees, or you can check the most popular destinations, like :

Choose Your Countryeffective Curriculum Ideas Activities

Australia

United Kingdom

Ireland

Germany

The Netherlands

And you should definitely go!

Life is too short to stay in just one city and get to know one culture or one type of cuisine. Go travel, visit, eat, pray, love (sorry, I couldn’t help myself), study and learn about and experience things you could never get home to.

Ask around and find students who have already studied abroad

You are not the only student considering studying abroad and hopefully you won’t be the last.

If you don’t know who to ask or you don’t know what the experience will be like, you should definitely check out the experiences of other international students.

Studying further away from home does not mean that you will lose contact

Whatever you decide to study, never forget to install Skype, Slack, WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat or any other social networking application you can think of, because your life won’t stop once you leave your country to study.

We won’t lie to you: the first week in a new place can be lonely, but there’s nothing wrong with being a little uncertain. You’ll see: once you arrive and see that your phone is still working and you can spend hours talking to your old friends about your new friends, things will seem like child’s play.

Make sure you make a list of the best options

Choose Your Countryeffective Curriculum Ideas Preschool

Take a pen and paper, sit down, put on a good fight song and start writing. And never underestimate a good fight song!

Honestly, the best decisions are made with the right soundtrack in the background, and this will make your decision making time more enjoyable and epic, with pros and cons taking on different meanings and forms.

And you should make this list with several columns, with each university and its degree program, and take into consideration the language in which it will teach, tuition fees, university rankings, security of the country, and so on. These will help you settle things faster and can make the difference between two seemingly perfect options.

Never forget to have fun

Listen, whatever decision you make: if it’s a question of studying abroad, or following a course in a certain field, never be too hard on yourself.

Give yourself time to adjust to the move and the decision, have fun with the people you meet, take lazy Sundays if that’s what you really want to do, and so on.

Nevertheless, don’t neglect your studies: attend your classes, work on your projects, read everything that is recommended to you and, in the end, always strive to be the best in your field. And I’m not talking about grades here: just know things, okay?