Next Year's Curriculum is so SHINY!

This spring marks the end of our family's first "official" homeschool year. Our state does not consider kindergarten compulsory, so the 2017-2018 year was our first experience with the paperwork side of educating at home. We haven't yet submitted our end of year proof of progress- that comes in about a month- but I'm already looking ahead to next year. The past few weeks, I've been searching out new curriculum for the coming year. We have learned a lot on our journey so far, and I thought it was a good time to sit down and reflect on the past eight months, and share a bit about our upcoming academic year.


When I started planning for Grade One, I found a wonderful, literature based curriculum that was affordable for our family and encompassed a lot of the values we want to teach our children. It was very loosely held together, basically a large book list and a lot of general ideas for creating units around books. By using the suggested books and creating a "study theme" for each month, I was able to create a fairly solid structure with book-based unit studies for the year. We had a load of first grade worksheets and workbooks, so we supplemented in language learning with those, and used them for most of our math concepts. For several months, the system worked very well.

As E approached Grade Two, and little e became more independent in her work, it was harder to stay organized with worksheets and books and heavy-prep immersion projects. They both consumed more sheets than I prepare daily, and I was often left scrambling to try to piece together more activities to offer them. Our day to day wasn't working anymore. With all my other responsibilities, I didn't have an hour each evening to prepare the next day, and I felt like I never had time to plan out a whole week at a time. It was leaving the kids without structure, and in need of more substance. It was leaving me frazzled from trying to come up with more offerings on the spot, and then facing needing to do more planning for the next day too.

I began searching the Homeschooler's Buy/Sell/Trade pages in search of a better plan for Grade Two. Quite by kismet, I stumbled upon a science curriculum that looked interesting, and that lead to a history program that seemed right up our alley. The science was hands-on, adaptable for our age differences, and engaging to me. The history was driven by storytelling, and included a lot of immersion activities. I quickly downloaded the sample files for both, and knew almost instantly that it would be a good fit. We worked through the first lesson of the history program, and I dove in head first. I was able to find the supplemental books on Amazon, used. I bought both downloads, and we started in the very next week. E loves both subjects even more now, and often tries to trade his math for more history and science!

I was so inspired, I decided to go searching for a language arts program for next year. E struggles with handwriting, so I wanted something that would work on that without doing repetitive, boring drills. I value phonics and good spelling skills, and E has outgrown the simplistic stories that we frequently come across in early readers. I spent several days scouring the pages, Pinterest, and various blogs, and more than once I came very close to making a purchase, but always talked myself down. Finally, one morning, I found what seemed to be perfect - a program built by writers for writers, starting at kindergarten. Unlike many other plans, this works all the language arts pieces into one program - each week we learn phonics, spelling, grammar, content and context, critical review, and handwriting. We are two weeks into the program and loving it so already, so much so that I've already purchased the next level.

So, what about math? Well... I really want to hunt down a narrative driven, comprehensive math program that aligns with our family values, so far I haven't had much luck. We recently switched to a an internet-based curriculum with supplemental worksheets, and E really enjoys doing his math on the computer. It's not my favorite, but it's working much better for him, and math is not his favorite subject, so I'm respecting what he wants to use. That said, we have been adding in "living books" and hands-on activities to go alongside the game and worksheet based program we are using for now.

It's been fun to explore modes of learning and change how we school based on what my children need. When we started this adventure, I was sure "unschooling" would be our path, but it turns out our family benefits from structure, guidance, and predictability. We are still finding lessons in our day to day as well, but the kids really benefit from knowing that today is going to be laid out pretty similar to yesterday and tomorrow. They love the narrative-driven curriculum we've been using, and I've really enjoyed not handing them a stack of worksheets.

My biggest lesson so far on our schooling journey is to be open to change. Being adaptable means that I saw my children suffering because of my lack of time or desire to plan with appropriate depth, and I did my best to fix it. Now they are both getting their fill in a variety of subjects, and we aren't scrambling or sitting around staring at one another, in that "well, what next?" kind of way.

In the next few weeks, I will try to do a more thorough review of the programs we have chosen, more about what our "preK" plan looks like for little e, and also a post about what our daily rhythm looks like now.

Comments

Popular Posts