Overwhelmed with Planning?
Planning a school year can be intimidating for new and seasoned homeschoolers. It seems that everyone has an opinion. When you add in different learning styles and teaching styles, a person is left spinning. You could go broke or end up spending hours upon hours researching the elusive perfect curriculum. In the beginning, I went on a research overhaul. I can tell you that the crazy number of hours of research honestly left me more confused and with more questions. What I have learned over the years is to pray and lean into faith to trust what works best for your life.
A “Perfect” Curriculum
I have tried many “perfect” curriculums and left unhappy or defeated because I couldn’t make it work. I can’t stress more what may work perfectly for one family could be an absolute flop for your family. The best option is, before you even look at the curriculum, take time to evaluate your family and how you naturally learn.
Maybe you are in a season of life that you want a completely open-and-go curriculum with check boxes and a daily list. Maybe that sounds suffocating and you want more of an outline or guide. Maybe you want to focus on unit studies with the whole family and add in individual core subjects. If you are new to homeschool, you could have no idea what you want and that is completely okay.
Slow Down and Set Intentions
Before each school year, it is important to take time to set your intentions for the year. Then observe your kids and really think about your children’s learning styles. This doesn’t mean go read tons of books and stress about which style they are, but just set out some fun activities they are interested in and observe. If they need to figure something out, do they reach for a book or go straight to YouTube videos? Do they enjoy cuddling up and reading, or do they need to keep their hands busy while listening to audiobooks? When you try to show your kids how to do something, do they like it explained, then want space to investigate on their own, or do you need to stay with them to really get one on one? Sometimes different subjects need different parent involvement. These clues will help guide you in the best way to teach your kids.
Let your Children Lead
My son is very hands-on and a lot of times believes he knows a better way… honestly, many times he does have his own way that works better for him. Giving him the lead in an area of interest is when he thrives the most in learning. Who am I to tell him how he learns best? This is something that took me a while to realize and I truly wish I would have let go a bit earlier. I remember seeing a video on social media where multiple people explained how they mentally solved an equation. Some of the ways completely baffled me, but this was their normal.
This took hold in the early years teaching Math to my son. I would do programs where he would be prompted to follow a step-by-step procedure and you could see his skin was crawling. He already knew the answer but I was forcing a way that seemed absurd to him. I was trying to follow the curriculum but was losing him, and his love of math was fading. This is when it really hit me, the importance of including children in their learning journey. I talked with my son about ways he would teach me Math if he could. It was surprising how many wonderful ideas this small child had and gave me an idea of how he wanted to learn.
Embrace Wonder
When we school very young children, we embrace wonder and incorporate learning into life. As the kids get older, parents have a tendency to want to buckle down and the wonder of learning gets stifled. We as homeschoolers have the amazing ability to keep the love of learning going throughout our kid’s education.