CINDY: Yes, I tried the structured approach in the beginning. Within two months, however, I knew something had to change because all I was doing was re-creating the same problems at home that my child had had in school! After talking with Dorothy Moore (author of Home Grown Kids), I put my structured curriculum in a closet and used an “unschooling” approach for a few years. We read together, did projects together, went places, and learned from the world around us. Gradually, we added back curriculum as needed until, by the time they were in junior high school, they were teaching themselves from a variety of resources, both traditional and nontraditional.

TOS: Tell our readers a little about what The Checklist contains and how it is to be used.

CINDY: In 1994, after my own children had graduated from high school, I began to help other moms with their home education programs. Most of these teachermoms were struggling with traditional curriculum and found that after spending hours “filling in the blanks,” neither they nor their children had the desire or the energy to pursue other desires and interests. I began to encourage them to put aside their traditional curriculum, which was developed for a classroom setting, and select materials that met the specific needs of each of their children. I encouraged them to use more “real” books, add some multi-level unit studies, and make textbooks their servants instead of the other way around. Many of them were afraid that by doing this they wouldn’t cover everything that was required by the state, their children wouldn’t be able to get into college, or their children’s education would somehow be inadequate.
I realized that parents using this nontraditional approach would need a tool that would help them plan their children’s educational program and keep track of what has been covered. That’s why I began working on The Checklist. I arranged it into outline form based on Luke 2:52 (“And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, in favor with God and with man”) and placed each learning topic into one of four categories: Wisdom, Stature, In Favor with God, and In Favor with Man. (See sample pages for more information: www.oklahomahomeschool.com/checklist.html.)
My goals in creating The Checklist [were] to help parents identify their child’s reading, writing, and math skills (assessment); discover any “holes” in their child’s learning (assessment); plan what their child needs to cover each year (scheduling, lesson-planning, scope and sequence); keep track of what their child has covered each year (recordkeeping); and prepare unit studies, if desired, by theme, timeline era, geographic location, or by using biographies; all in the context of the Word of God.

TOS: The unit studies and other information on your site are fabulous! Can you tell us a little about what else we will find there?

CINDY: My website is [everything] I ever knew about homeschooling, plus what I am continuing to learn. I’ve included information on how to get started in home- schooling (including some “assessments” for potential homeschool parents!), how to choose curriculum based on learning styles, how to teach multi-level, tips on how to teach the basic subjects, information on teaching high school and preparing transcripts, homeschool forms that I’ve created, free unit studies, Oklahoma history teaching resources, and local information for Oklahoma homeschoolers.

Cindy Downes is a veteran homeschool mom of two. She maintains the Oklahoma Homeschool website, teaches workshops, and writes curriculum including The Checklist and Oklahoma History Online. When she is not writing, she enjoys reading, cooking, biking, traveling with her husband, and volunteering at church and for a local hospice. Contact her at cindy@oklahomahomeschool.com.