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Our Favorite homeschool curriculum is no curriculum.
Here’s what we do, why, and the homeschool curriculum we do use.
If you’re thinking about or in the beginning stages/years of home educating, and looking for tips on choosing homeschool curriculum, this post is for you. Maybe you’ve been doing it for a while, and are feeling overwhelmed or haven’t found your groove or love for this wild journey, this is for you too.
If you’re looking for a list of super great curriculums, this is not that… but maybe something here will resonate for you.
I’ll start with pointing out I’ve never claim to have all the answers but maybe you just need someone to remind you that homeschooling is meant to work FOR you. Not the other way around. I’ve needed that reminder consistently over the years. When it starts to feel like a drag and isn’t working for any of us, (us, as in me and the kids) I take a minute and reevaluate the things. Every year, we also re-ask ourselves if we keep going. For each kid. Life changes. Kids change and we have always said however we start the year, is how we’ll finish it, so I want to know in my knower that committing is the right thing each year.
I highly recommend and encourage you to commit 100% to the year or it’s too easy to waver. If you don’t, all the hard parts make it too easy to want to tap out. Too easy to convince yourself it’s not working. Cuz when those hard days come… because they will… you can go back to the beginning and hold tight to that knower feeling in your gut. Don’t make it optional, that only makes it more difficult. The kids will know and feed off it like the little vultures they are… cute vultures, but vultures.
Truthfully though, usually… like 99% of the time… it comes back to me. My heart, my attitude, my tone, excitement -or lack there of- towards lessons and learning that really make or break us. When I can bring -or at least fake😜- the razzle dazzle, it all goes better.
It’s an honorable job we’ve chosen. Mother, teacher, cook, manager, chauffeur… caretaker. So take heart friend and keep going.
Dug deep into the vault to find these, so you can see what I was working with when we got started.
That being said… A question I get asked regularly by moms thinking about homeschooling… and truthfully a question all homeschooling moms ask other moms is:
“What curriculum are you using”?
We’ll probably ask each other once a year because switching curriculums is easy –or at least talking about switching. Finding one that fits is the hard part. Or can be, I should really say.
The thing about curriculum is there’s SO many options. More than I want to list off. So much that it can make you feel so overwhelmed and you’ll want to quit before you even start. That’s how I felt anyway. Seven years ago.
Wholly molly does that feel weird to say. “I’ve been homeschooling for seven years”. When we started, I had a six year old in First grade, a five year old in Kindergarten, and a one year old still attached at the breast. We had just moved to a new state and barely knew anyone outside the church plant we were connected with.
That first year was brutal…
For me at least. I was trying to figure out how to homeschool. Had zero clue where to even start and a one year old who was obsessed with me and detested sleep.
I figured out pretty quickly that choosing the perfect homeschool curriculum was the least of our worries. I needed to find our groove. How we make this work for US. Was it even for us? We had done the public school thing for a semester and about a month into that we knew we wouldn’t be going back for another year. So it weighed heavy on me. Still does.
All summer I researched and tried to make sense of curriculums and types and what even is a co-op? I can’t try and think about that because I’m still confused at what the difference between ‘Unit Studies’ and ‘book work’ was. Who even was Charlotte Mason? What Montessori meant and how ‘unschooled’ fell under the ‘homeschool’ umbrella. And aren’t co-op’s where all the weird homeschoolers go anyway?
Eventually, I stopped trying to figure it all out, picked something that I kept circling back to and just bought the complete set for the year. And while that was the right decision at the time, we would never use that homeschool curriculum again. We mostly focused on adjusting to this new rhythm and being in it for the long haul. Plus, getting through the lessons with a Houdini toddler around was entertaining to say the least.
I will also say, knowing what doesn’t work, is just as important as knowing what does. It really helps weed out a lot things as you’re searching and narrowing down.
We learned a lot that first year.
I learned that lots of that ‘book work’ I was reading about, was not for us. Or even colorful, flashy, ‘fun’ looking pages. We needed plain and simple homeschool curriculum with preferably more hands on lessons.
We figured out that getting a whole school year done within the ‘school year’ was optional and taking it at a more slow and steady pace all year was where its at for us. Why rush when you don’t have to. Plus, getting back into the groove after a couple months off felt like starting all over again, again. And no one enjoyed that.
We learned it was pretty lonely when you didn’t have a good support system. Not just for the kids but for me, too. Don’t get me wrong. We socialized, made friends and got out, but doing it WITH people is not the same thing as play time.
Find mamas in the same season as you and ones a few years ahead. Being able to commiserate together and have someone laugh at you because they’re on the other side of your troubles is pivotal. Legit. Nothing more comforting than going to you friends worried, just for them to say, “I’ve been there. It’s fine. You’ll be fine. They’ll be fine. Everything is fine.” For all of life, really.
I also learned that if what we had just done for 6 months was the homeschool experience, it was not for me. Feeling so defeated and confused because I KNEW we were meant to homeschool our kids but this was a drag and there would be no long haul if it stayed the same.
I can remember ugly crying to Andrew telling him how much I hated it while he handed me tissues and asked what my dream idea for it all was. I rambled off some nonsense and we moved on… knowing at some point we’d have to figure out what to do for the next year.
About two weeks later
My sister Kelsey asked if I had ever heard of this particular curriculum that also had a co-op day. I knew nothing about homeschooling at that point, except that I hated it.
She goes on to explain what it is, how it’s a homeschool curriculum but theres one day a week they get to be in class with kids their age, how it covers the basics but it’s really left to the parents to scale it to their kids… you guys, I kid you not that everything she says is the same nonsense I made up to Andrew about my dream homeschooling situation. Or at least as close as it would get. I was basically convinced right then and there.
Here’s what we’re using right now:
All of them use Math-U-See and Ellie is doing some Spelling-U-See. We love everything we’ve gotten from this company and really appreciate that the math goes all the way through and the short videos that introduce the new lessons.
We use a lot of IEW stuff. LOVE it. Especially for that 10-12 age group. It really makes writing GOOD papers simple.
Co-op is Classical Conversations. This covers our core subjects, and in the first handful of years is very one-room school house-ish. Lots of memorization, lots of fun science from one of our amazing community moms, and music too. All communities are a little different and we are super fortunate to have found one that works so well for us. It’s full of all our favorite people and co-op day is our favorite day of the week.
Look how cute these three were on their first day ever of co-op?! (Insert teary eyed emoji).
The rest of that story will have to wait for another post cuz that’s not why we’re here but that was pertinent information to my point of “less is more”. Which is:
- Less is more because there’s not one way to homeschool. I did the hard core, lessons for hours on all the subjects -and maybe that’s for you which is also totally fine- but I realized that a lot of our love for home educating was outside of the work books. We get through our core subjects and leave lots of room for anything else. Playing, crafting, chores, meeting friends, cooking, baking, art, lying in the sun, making mud pies, cuddling the cat, etc., etc., etc. you get the point.
- Less is more because some seasons of life require it. And in those seasons, the biggest thing to make you want to give up, is a huge lesson load. Multiplied by however many kids you have. Catching up or doubling up is easy when the load is light. No one plans these seasons, but they come. If they haven’t yet, remember me when ish hits the fan and I’ll help you clean it up. Been there a few times.
- Less is more because making learning fun is way more important that ticking the box.
- Less is more because one kids version of ‘less’ is going to be different than another kid and I want to be able to scale that UP for them, not overwhelm them or try and fit them into the same box.
One of the best pieces of advice I’ve ever got was that the homeschool curriculum needs to work for me, just as much as it does for them. If I can’t teach it well, they won’t learn well, even if it is “the most perfect curriculum for them”.
At the end of the day, don’t break what doesn’t need fixing.
If you’ve found something you like and they like, keep going! But if you’re feeling paralyzed at where to start or what you’re using right now for homeschool curriculum or it’s just not going how you envisioned home educating to be, make some changes.
My advice is to leave room to dive deep on what’s exciting to them and to you. If it’s in books or the back yard. Less ‘have to do’ is more.
Truth be told, they are learning no matter what they are doing. They are so young that whether their noses are in those wonderful homeschool curriculum books you got or playing in the dirt, they’re advancing in knowledge and understanding. Make it building a fire, baking bread or how to crochet. Don’t underestimate life skills either. Have them cut the grass, do the dishes, wash their own clothes… plan a tea party or play date. Do extra lessons… un-train yourself on what school should look like.
Maybe that makes me a weirdo co-op attending, half-way unschooler… who loves the classical model of teaching with lots of structure and order with the freedom to blow it all to the wind for a day at the beach if we feel like it. But that’s the point right? Doing whatever we want because we get to choose the homeschool curriculum?!
So let go of that feeling that says you can’t figure this out, have to do more or should be doing more. It’s not enough or heaven forbid you’re thinking you’re not enough. No one has your kids best interests at heart the way you do. Just like you’re the most perfect mom for them, you’re also the most perfect teacher for them. Flaws and all. And if you ever need someone to remind you of that, just come ask me. I’ll be here cheering you on, while also worrying and double checking with my people I’m doing enough, too. Everything is fine.