Bright Horizons Academy

Curriculum is sometimes the hardest choice to make when home educating your child.  Here, we hope to help you discover the different methods of homeschooling and some options for curriculum types and websites.

METHODS 

(THE FOLLOWING TEXT WAS TAKEN FROM A TO Z'S HOME'S COOL HOMESCHOOLING)

 Charlotte Mason Method
This approach advocates reading good books from original sources and spending lots of time in nature. It is based on core subjects and incorporates the fine arts.

Classical (Christian) / Trivium
Many Christians and other families prefer a liberal arts education for their children, including lessons in Greek and Latin, as well as formal instruction in logic. The Trivium contains three areas:  1. Grammer, or skill in comprehending the facts.; 2. Logic, or skill in reasoning out relationships between these facts and 3. Rhetoric, or skill in wise, effective expression and application of the facts and their relationships.

Distance Learning
Companies and schools that provide teaching assistance as well as learning materials. These schools vary widely in their choice of method, let alone formality.  Also considered, "online schooling".

Eclectic Homeschooling
Eclectic means "selecting and using what seems best from various sources, systems or schools of thought".  Some like to pick and choose among various methods, enjoying the flexibility it affords.  This is not to say that eclectic home schoolers are erratic.  Instead, they use material chosen to further the educational goals they have for their children. 

Enki Education Method
Enki is it's own wonderful thing. Besides drawing from the best of Waldorf, Enki also draws from Montessori, the United Nations International School, Theme Studies and even the discovery learning of John Holt.

Montessori Method

Maria Montessori advocates observing your child, removing obstacles to learning and providing children with real, scaled-to-size tools to use. The three Montessori principles are Observation, Individual Liberty and Preparation of the Environment. These principles guide the teacher to control the environment, not the child and to look at the child as an "unknown entity" and allow the child's true nature to freely emerge.

Unit Studies

Doing Unit Studies means to integrate all of the normal "subjects" that come to mind when we think of school, into a single "theme".  Unit Studies are designed for multi level teaching.  That means, the same topics are taught to all of the children at once, regardless of age or grade.  There are many prepared unit studies available, or you can create your own and are generally based around different themes, such as character building studies, history based studies, literature based studies and science based studies.

Unschooling
Natural learning is letting your child lead the way. Unschooling is taking the process of "education" out of learning, allowing learning to occur in a natural way, led by interest, passion, need, want, desire, to satisfy some immediate demand or long term goal.  Child-led or interest-led learning.

Waldorf Method
This method emphasizes arts and crafts, music and movement. The aim of this method of schooling is to educate the whole child; head, heart and hands.  It fosters imagination and fantasy.  It is of the belief that children learn through imitation and play. The Waldorf Method do not focus on competition with others; grades and sports are de-emphasized.

No specific curriculum herein is the chosen curriculum for Bright Horizons Academy. 

We offer information on available curriculum and tools to help you find what may work for your child and his/her learning style.

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A grade by grade, subject by subject guideline can be found here: