Children grow up to be the adults who mould and shape both our societies and our Countries. That being said, it is the job of the parents to mould the child in to being an educated and responsible adult. Children are little individuals, with strong personalities, strengths and weaknesses. If you are planning on home schooling your children, the first step one should take is to find or design a program that best fits your child learning ability.
There are three main learning styles, which are sight, smell and touch. Traditionally, in more scientific terms, they are known as visual auditory and kinesthetic learning modalities. By creating a program that best suits your child/children, you not only help out your children but yourself as well. How? - By reducing your own frustration, when you see your children grasping concepts quickly and increase your chance of success at laying great foundation for them.
Keep in mind that home schooling is nothing like a traditional classroom education. There are handful of different home school methods, theories and philosophies. After you have recognized the ability of your child to absorb knowledge and learn, start thinking about how you want to start with the teaching process.
Before anything else, keep in mind your family lifestyle. See how many kids you plan on teaching, the availability of time, If your schedule a structured one or is it fairly flexible, what do your children prefer, working independently or working alone? When looking at different home schooling methods, keep in mind what your family desires.
When deciding a curriculum, it should be designed for the entire year. This way, it would not be a hassle for you to keep restructuring and redesigning the curriculum time. A whole year is more than enough to calculate the educational goal of your child. You should always include academic goals, for example reading, writing and arithmetic and non-academic goals like life skills and character building.
Jot down all the subjects that you want to teach your children in separate lists (depending on the children). Each child should have its own list and yearly planner. Always keep in mind that, along with a bookish education, your children need to enhance their natural learning abilities as well.
If your child or children have the opportunity to be homeschooled and get more attention from their teacher (you) then they would normally get in a proper classroom, making their learning experience fun and out of the box instead of boring and tedious.
Never be scared to give your curriculum a tweak here and there to make it work just for you. The flow of the curriculum should suit you and your child the best; speed it up or slow it down if necessary. Always take out pointless activities that are just a waste of time instead of a valuable lesson for your child. As said before, if you are using a textbook curriculum, add textbooks, activities and projects that make the lesson more fun.
Do not let the curriculum enslave you. If after all the tweaking and changing the program is still not good enough, you can always ditch it and try something new and better.