Before you dive into curriculum, I'd recommend that you do some research about 1) the regulations for home schooling in your state, and 2) what kind of home schooling you want to practice. The first is a legal necessity, at least by the time your son is 6. The second is a practical matter to help you choose from the astonishing amount of material that's out there. There are LOTS of types of home schooling! Personally, I'm going with the "eclectic" approach because it pretty much means we can do whatever DS6 and I want to do in whatever form works best.
I like Singapore Math (
www.singaporemath.com) and the "What Your Xth Grader Needs to Know" series by E.D. Hirsch, Jr. (I bought several years' worth, just to be sure I covered all the basics, but really, checking them out of the library would probably have been enough...) For pretty much all the other subjects besides math, we raid the library and follow DS's interests wherever they take us. (Our library even lets home schoolers get an "educator" card, so we can keep the books for a lot longer without fines.) And BTW, we don't try to do every subject every day, or even once per week. I figure we just need to hit all the major subjects by the end of the year and it will all balance out. And after all, the danger isn't that our kids will go too slowly or fall behind, really, is it? Mainly I'm having trouble keeping enough material on hand because he's going through it so fast!
I've found GREAT help and reassurance in "Creative Home Schooling: A Resource Guide for Smart Families" by Lisa Rivero. That one is worth buying, in my opinion!
Otherwise, probably the two best pieces of advice anyone gave me were to find an active home schoolers association and not to buy a bunch of curriculum right away. The benefits of joining a group are probably self-evident--social connections, field trips, contacts you couldn't find alone, classes like art, P.E., foreign languages, etc. As for the curriculum, much of what you'd buy at first is going to be wrong for your child, and you can waste a lot of money! Ease into it. Use the library. Figure out what suits you both. Then plunk down the cash as necessary.
I hope this helps!
