I have been taking the last several months to expand on the ideas developed in a previous blog post titled 5 Things that Changed our Homeschool for the Better. We have discussed Building a Reading Foundation, Year-Round Homeschooling, and Combining Subjects for Your Kiddos. We will examine how to make the curriculum work for you and not against you.
A lot of other people will jump on the bandwagon of not using a curriculum at all, start unschooling their children, and be very successful. But there are some of us out there that still need assistance. Some of us don’t have the time or the patience to plan every lesson and detail. Others never actually have any learning happen because our attempts at unschooling turn into a free for all circus without a plan of some sort. This blog post is for those who need some guidance but are confident enough to make the necessary changes to what they have purchased, to make their homeschooling experience. I fully applaud those that can lesson plan well or that can unschool. While I love making lesson plans, I do not like the time it takes away from my family and other outside hobbies and interests. I prefer to lesson plan for the extras and supplements we use (hence the printables I have made and are now making available).
If you are anything like me, you love to peruse and ponder the homeschool catalogs that come out every spring. You agonize and analyze every subject and carefully select what you will use each year. You then purchase it and await its arrival. You are so excited when it arrives and can’t wait to start using it. Some of you may even be so enthusiastic that you begin your school year early to start using it. Then, a week or two, maybe even a month or more. All the shiny newness has worn off, and you either have to abandon the curriculum completely or begrudgingly continue it (because you don’t want to waste your money). Well, STOP! Now take a breath and realize that the curriculum needs to work for you, not against you.
There are three things you need to consider and think about when you find yourself overwhelmed by your curriculum.
1. What do you want your homeschool to look like for you?
Consider your purpose and reason for homeschooling and what you envisioned homeschooling to look like for you and your family. For us, our motivation was to travel with my husband’s job. My vision of homeschooling was lots and lots of reading infused with conversations. I knew I also didn’t want mess and clutter (tons of worksheets and projects to keep track of and take over our limited camper space). I also enjoyed our day not being ruled by a clock.
2. Why did you initially choose this particular curriculum?
Think about why you fell in love with this curriculum and how you envisioned it aligning with how you wanted your homeschool to look. For us, I tend to choose a curriculum that is literature based, doesn’t require worksheets (or has limited worksheets). Space is a factor, so I also look for things that offer a digital component or DVD/mp3 files.
3. What about the curriculum that isn’t currently working for you?
Does it have too much planned in a day, or not enough? Do the hands-on components not match up with the lesson? It could be any reason, but decide what the problem is because then you can go about tiring to fix it. If rewriting the whole curriculum is the problem, then I think you need to abandon that particular curriculum (and that’s ok).
Here are a few suggestions for adapting your curriculum and making it work.
1. Don’t follow the daily lesson plans. Use the plans instead as an extensive checklist.
2. Don’t set timers. Instead, set reasonable and obtainable daily goals for each subject.
3. Look for online experiments or examples instead of doing them yourself.
4. Outsource subjects (when or if you can) or have your spouse/partner take over a section.
5. Ask comprehension questions orally instead of using worksheets
6. Scribe for your student instead of making them write.
Start tweaking small things in the curriculum as you need to. Realize that it may take a few times to get the right tweak to work and that there may still be a few bumps in the road. Set up checkpoints to evaluate and reexamine how things are going.
If you need some further help and how to adapt curriculum,you can take a look a these past blog post where I talk about how we changed each of these curriculums to suit our needs. (How We Make All About Reading/Spelling Work for Us, How We Make Math U See Work for us, and How We Make Sonlight Work for Us).
As always, keep following our journey on our Facebook Page or Instagram. If you want more in-depth conversations, check out our Facebook Parent Group.