Does this curriculum fit this child and this home?

Ten questions. Fill one sheet per curriculum you are considering, then put them side by side — the comparison is the point, and it is very hard to do from memory in a browser tab.

Curriculum

For which child

Reviewed on

What does it teach?

What must already be known?

The most expensive mistake in homeschool maths is a good curriculum bought one level above where the child actually is.

Who explains a stuck problem?

Be specific. A video that repeats the same explanation more slowly is not a second explanation.

How much parent time is assumed?

What is graded?

What records are produced?

Can pace change?

Can we inspect a real lesson?

Not a sample page, not a scope-and-sequence chart. A whole lesson, the way the child would meet it. If the answer is no, that is an answer.

What happens after a failed check?

This is the question that separates a course from a workbook. Something has to happen next, and “repeat the unit” is not always it.

What will this cost in money and time?

Cost	Per year	How you worked it out
Purchase or subscription
Books, kits, consumables
Parent hours per week
Parent hours per year
Those hours, valued at your rate
Working total

Put a number on your own hours even if you would never charge for them. It is the only way to compare a cheap curriculum that needs you every day with an expensive one that does not. The workload calculator does this arithmetic for you.

Then answer the question the sheet is really asking. Not “is this good?” — most of them are. It is: which parts of the teaching does this take off me, and which does it hand back? A curriculum that hands back explanation, grading and records is a workbook with a nice cover, and it will cost you more Tuesdays than its price suggests.

Decision, and the date we will review it