Moreover, I think I was several years out of school before I realized that there were books in the world which were not textbooks....and that many of them were worth reading.
Textbooks suck.
I agree.
We homeschooled, but I'm past those days and my son is doing just fine, he's a junior in college this year.
But if I would have done one thing differently, when I was homeschooling, it would have been using less packaged curriculum, even from the big homeschool publishers.
I'd still teach math from a textbook (we used Saxon and that prepared him well for his College Math.)
I'd still use a formal grammar text or workbook, because that's just something that has to be systematically taught.
But beyond that, I don't think I'd buy another "formal" textbook.
I'd just have him read, read, and read some more. Write compositions about what he was reading.
I'd take the Beautiful Feet approach to many more subjects and make those subjects literature based instead of textbook based.
And as long as I'm on a rant, I'd probably do less extra-curricular things, whether that be field trips or sports.
Of course, this is all in retrospect of a mom with an 18 year old and we did use dual credit, so his high school years were filled with college textbooks, and I'm looking purely at the "learning/teaching" aspect of 1st through 9th grade. But, IMHO, academic success is not the main reward of homeschooling. To me, the best reward of homeschooling was that the "kid" didn't grow up thinking it's weird to be friends with folks of all ages, even his parents, LOL. (he and his dad are out today depleting the fish supply in our area.) The absence of peer pressure makes for very pleasant and enjoyable teenage years.