First Grade Homeschool Curriculum for a struggling starter

August 13, 2018Tracy

My first grader is an active guy who loves nature study and the outdoors. And while he loves listening to a story, reading on his own has been quite a struggle. Remembering letter sounds and sequencing those sounds has been a challenge, and his writing skills were such a painful struggle last year. In the back of my mind, I’m wondering about dyslexia and/or dysgraphia, since it runs in our family. But I’m waiting to see how much is just developmental. After all, even if I knew for sure, there wouldn’t be anything in my current approach that I would change.

I’m customizing his reading and writing curriculum to match his struggle. I’m using the resources and strategies that helped his sister with her dyslexia challenges, and I’m making adjustments to fit his needs and his pace rather than strictly adhering to grade level. All the screenings for him have indicated an elevated risk for dyslexia but not profoundly so. It’s going to be a year of just doing the next thing and seeing what happens. Our first grade homeschool curriculum choices reflect this struggling start and the tension between his strengths and his weaknesses.

Our Top 5 Homeschool Curriculum Favorites of 2017-18

June 4, 2018Tracy

Do you ever feel as though you’ve hit a wall in your homeschool? Have you ever had to go back to the drawing board on just about every homeschool curriculum decision you’ve made? This past year has been one of those years for me. Even long-standing favorites that I’ve used forever ground to a shocking halt. Over and over again, I found myself back to the drawing board to research new homeschool curriculum. But all of those homeschool challenges and upsets led us to several of our new homeschool curriculum favorites, resources that both my kids and I have loved.

Our Top 5 Homeschool Curriculum Favorites for 2017-18 school year

When is it time to change your homeschool curriculum? 5 ways to know

April 23, 2018Tracy

For six years, I’ve used the same core homeschool curriculum with my three kids. For six years, I’ve loved it, promoted it, recommended it, and blogged about it. Then this year, we hit a wall. Navigating my daughter’s dyslexia, increasing demands on my time, adding another child to the mix of homeschooling multiple ages, graduating my son to a higher level of learning within that curriculum—there was a perfect storm of reasons. But bottom line, what has worked for so long absolutely wasn’t working any longer. I dreaded even opening the lesson plans, much less planning the weekly assignments. My son was in tears over the reading. I was constantly overhauling the curriculum to make it work. And we were all tired.

I’m extremely loyal by nature, so leaving a homeschool curriculum I had used for so long felt a little bit like betrayal, like giving up on a relationship. Even looking at other curriculum options felt a little bit like cheating. Saying goodbye was bitter sweet.

But when I finally made the leap, closed that curriculum for the final time, and made the next purchase, there was a huge sense of relief. For all of us! I hadn’t realized just how heavy and burdened we’d all felt by plodding through a curriculum that was no longer working. The difference was night and day. My kids enthusiasm spiked, and my relief quickly converted into increased energy and enthusiasm as well. As hard as it was to break up with our homeschool curriculum, it was definitely time.

5 ways to know it’s time to change your homeschool curriculum

When the homeschool curriculum is failing you—even after adjustments

It’s not uncommon to run into some issues with even the best curriculum. Making regular adjustments is a part of the normal homeschool routine. But when you can’t find success, no matter how many adjustments you’ve made, it’s probably time to look for a new homeschool curriculum. I’ve made adjustments with our curriculum before and found a method we had all loved. But this year, no matter how many times I made adjustments, there just was no good solution.

When planning and using the homeschool curriculum fills you with dread

Homeschooling is hard. There’s no way around that reality. It’s hard work. It’s a full-time job. And just like any other job, there are going to be days and maybe even weeks when you just don’t feel like doing it. That’s normal. But when opening up that curriculum becomes something you hate and dread day in and day out, when it robs you of your joy and enthusiasm for learning and teaching your children, it’s time for something different. We cannot inspire our kids to love learning if we hate it. And our kids will ultimately pick up on our sour attitudes if we continue with something we hate. That doesn’t even mean that there is something wrong with the curriculum, but different methods and curriculum options work better with certain personalities and at certain stages of life. Find something that gets you excited about learning again.

When everyone begins to hate learning

We can all get into a rut. Especially around January and February, there is a period of homeschooling blues we all tend to go through. But when you and your child(ren) both hate and dread each day, it’s time for a change. Maybe it’s just time for a change of scenery or pace, but sometimes it’s time for drastic changes. What does this look like? When something you’ve loved becomes something you hate, it might be time to change homeschool curriculum. For instance, when my son, who is an avid reader, was coming to me in tears about the content of what he was reading, I knew something needed to change. When planning (something I usually enjoy) was becoming something I dreaded each week, I knew something needed to change. When we all dreaded the start of a new week, I knew something was wrong. I’d tried my usual tactics of making minor changes, but in my gut I knew we needed to say good-bye to our homeschool curriculum and try something new.

When you constantly feel like you are failing

I think we all battle “failure syndrome” to some extent. Life is hard. Parenting is hard. Homeschooling is hard. It’s not unusual to feel like I’m failing at something. But when I feel this way, I’ve learned to take a step back and ask: is there a tool I’m using right now that’s failing me? If I’m preparing a meal and I can’t get the knife to cut through my meat, I don’t instantly assume I’m terrible at cutting meat; I sharpen my knife. As a homeschool parent, we have to approach this feeling of failure the same way. I feel like I’m failing because this curriculum is setting me up to fail. For me, that feeling of failure came because I could no longer devote the hours of prep work it took to make the curriculum a success. Because I didn’t have the time to do it right, there was this constant feeling that I was missing things and leaving things out (because I was). I just couldn’t navigate the 50-80 pages of teacher notes each week to pull things together properly. It was time for a change.

When your homeschool curriculum no longer helps you to achieve your goals

Knowing what you are wanting to accomplish with your homeschooling, what your ultimate goals are, helps you to evaluate when something is no longer moving you toward that goal. If your overall goal is to inspire a love for learning—and your kids are hating school—it’s time for a change. If your overall goal is to build character and values through each subject—and your curriculum is presenting a worldview that doesn’t support your own—it’s time for a change. If your overall homeschool goal is college and career—and your child is scoring poorly on assessments—it might be time for a change. We all have different goals, and our goals may change. But the tools that we use within our homeschool should be moving us toward the goals we have set. Curriculum is a tool, not a master. If your homeschool curriculum tool is no longer working, it’s time for a change.

Breaking up with our Homeschool Curriculum

I love Tapestry of Grace and the years of fond memories we’ve had using this curriculum. But for us, it was time for a change. Over the last few weeks, we’ve been using Heart of Dakota as a family, and it’s been such a relief. We love our guides. I love the Charlotte Mason style, the Christian values, and the clear lesson plans already laid out for me. My kids love the books, the projects, and having all the directions included in their daily assignments. Opening our guides each week to discover what’s next is a joy, and I’m no longer spending all my free time trying to plan the next lesson. Deciding to change our homeschool curriculum wasn’t easy, but using a tool that was no longer working wasn’t easy either.

Sometimes, breaking up with your homeschool curriculum can be the best thing you do for your homeschool.

Our Homeschool Curriculum for 6th Grade

June 26, 2017Tracy

We’re delving into “middle school” this year for the first time. My oldest is so excited for this milestone. He’s my Flint Lockwood (from Cloudy and a Chance of Meatballs), my absent-minded, super-dramatic, techy science guy. So putting together his curriculum is always a lot of fun. For the most part, we are classical homeschoolers, making a few adjustments here and there for our rampant ADHD. To accommodate for personality and attention-span, we include lots of variety with short lessons. None of our subjects extend beyond 20-30 minutes at a time, but I serve up a variety each day to keep all his firing cylinders on task. In classical terms, he will be in the logic or dialectic stage this year, learning to think critically and make deeper connections with what he is learning in his homeschool curriculum for 6th grade.

Tips for Shopping Homeschool Curriculum online

June 22, 2017Tracy

There is nothing that beats being able to hold a curriculum and flip through its pages when you are trying to decide what to buy, but that’s not always possible. Whether you simply can’t make it to a homeschool convention, or the curriculum you are interested in isn’t anywhere to be seen, shopping homeschool curriculum online can be done. Even though it’s not quite the same as seeing a book “in person,” you can still get a good idea of what a curriculum is like with a few simple tips.

Tips for Shopping Homeschool Curriculum online

Homeschool planning a new year

May 29, 2017Tracy

As we are wrapping up the last of our subjects, I’m in the throes of homeschool planning for the new school year. My decisions are all made, my online carts are empty, and the boxes of curriculum are beginning to roll in. In my routine, May and June are my intense planning months. I like to get all my homeschool planning out of the way so that I can truly take a break. Nothing homeschool related is swirling around in my brain come July and August; it’s done, on the shelf, and just waiting for us.

I plan the new year while the struggles of this year are fresh on my mind. I map out my solutions to all of our homeschool problems, from learning struggles to organization-fails, and then give it all a rest. My kids salivate over the new folders and books they are dying to read, and I dangle next year in front of them—my proverbial carrot—tantalizing their appetite for next year’s menu. It’s fun. We all love this time of year.

So since homeschool planning is consuming all my mind and energy right now, I thought I’d share with you the method to my madness, my steps to mapping out our next year. And over the next couple of weeks, I’ll go into more detail.

My steps to homeschool planning:

Planning our core curriculum: Tapestry of Grace

I’ll just give you a brief summary here, but just know this one step is getting a complete post of it’s own. For one, 60% of my homeschool planning is tied into Tapestry of Grace. It’s a huge undertaking, and when it’s finally done, I feel like I’ve scaled Mt. Everest. When I plan Tapestry, I’m not just planning our history studies; I’m planning our reading list, literature skills, Bible study, writing assignments, arts and crafts, and geography—for all three kids! This year, I will be teaching Tapestry of Grace on three of the four different levels that the curriculum provides: lower grammar, upper grammar, and dialectic. I combine as much as I can, and have my upper grammar student practicing her reading-aloud skills by reading the lower grammar book choices to my kindergartener. A lot of the writing, arts, crafts, and even Bible we will be doing together. The key to teaching multiple ages and keeping your sanity is to combine as much as you possibly can so that you can maximize your time. Tapestry of Grace is wonderful for this.

Gathering our other curriculum.

I have to see what I have to be able to plan. I can’t visualize anything on my own. Whether my husband is discussing house renovations or I’m planning math, I just can’t imagine what something is going to look like until I have it in front of me. Thus, the next step for me is to lay it all out where I can see what I’m working with. I’m also a sucker for the downloadable, print-your-own curriculum. I have a decent printer that uses inexpensive ink, and I shop paper prices and buy it in bulk by the case. So, in order to see what I have, I usually have a ton of printing to finish. Once everyone’s curriculum has been printed or has arrived in the mail, then I’ll take a look at one child’s complete curriculum at a time.

Mapping out the weekly/daily schedule.

In order to make sure I’m not biting off more than we can all chew in a reasonable amount of time, I sketch out a rough daily schedule for each child. It’s not a precise schedule. I simply jot done each child subject’s, the days of the week they will work on that subject, and how much time I anticipate them spending on that subject. I’ll also jot down how much time I expect to work one-on-one with each child. This way, if I’ve planned for a subject to take 15 min. each day, then I need to be sure I don’t assign more than 15 minutes worth of work. If I’ve decided that a total of one and a half hours of independent work is appropriate for one child, than I need to be sure I don’t assign him more than that. If I have only 45 minute with each child, than I need to be sure that I don’t assign more work than we can get through in that amount of time. A rough-draft of our schedule provides boundaries for me as I plan the assignments.

Tackling the master plan.

Some subjects require more planning than others. But in general I usually keep this as simple as possible. I divide our year into three 12 week terms. Some resources I use for just one term, to add some variety to our year. For the subjects that we will be doing through out the year, I schedule out how many lessons we need to accomplish each term or how many page numbers we need to get through. Some subjects, like math, require nothing more than that. Other subjects, like science or writing, I need to think through more specific assignments. Because I’m a little OCD about my planning, I plan on “scrap paper”; I actually have a notebook of grid paper that is specifically for these rough draft plans. Then, when I’ve sketched it all out the way I like it and I’m finished making all my mistakes and alterations, I’ll copy it into a finalized plan for my planner. (I’m an editor at heart, even more than a writer, so everything I do has to have at least a few rough drafts and revisions—even my text messages.)

Organizing the resources.

This is not necessarily a final step. Usually, I’m organizing resources throughout the whole process. And this year, I’m totally overhauling my system of organization. We had a major “loose-paper and missing-supplies” crisis this year. As a result, I reworked and revised how I’ve doing everything. Where will books go, where will loose paper go, what folders will go with what subject, how will each subject be organized, how will the kids recognize their own supplies, what supplies will be shared, how will I be able to quickly and efficiently double-check to make sure books and supplies get back where they belong—I’m serious! I rethought everything. (And I’ll be sharing the final results when it’s finished.)

Bonus: Accommodating ADHD and Dyslexia

There is a difference between coddling a child and accommodating learning struggles. If one of my kids has an attitude or behavioral issue that does not necessarily stem from their difficulties, I will not coddle that behavior; I allow my kids to experience consequences of bad decisions. However, I do believe in accommodating if there are legitimate struggles. I my kids have some legitimate issues. For instance, we have always accommodated ADHD with short bursts of learning. I keep most subjects limited to about 15 minutes each. For my fourth grader, her longest subject is scheduled for 20 minutes. That means on a good day, when her attitude is right, she has no problem completing the assigned work in 20 minutes. On a bad day—well, yes, we have bad days that require further adjustments and natural consequences. For my sixth grader, 30 minutes is a good average for his major subjects. I arrange my schedule according to which children will need me most. This next year, that will be my kindergartener and dyslexic daughter. My oldest is not suffering from this arrangement; he’s old enough for the responsibility and, in my opinion, it’s part of his learning process to need less of me. My daughter, though fourth grade, requires more hand-holding than my other two; it’s a combination of her dyslexia and ADHD. She’s my “Dory,” and she needs some accommodations for her short-term memory struggles. (I also make accommodations to fill in her learning gaps.)

So yeah, that’s what I’ve been up to and what I’ll be wrapping up next month as well. By July, I hope to be posting pictures of me on the beach with not a single homeschool planning thought in the world!

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Surviving Homeschool Curriculum Overwhelm

May 22, 2017Tracy

I recently got to venture to a large homeschool conference with a homeschool vendor hall of over 120 exhibitors. That’s a lot of books and a lot of options. As we visited with one vendor, just 30 minutes after the event opened, the vendor mentioned having a tearful conversation with a new homeschool mom who was already overwhelmed. As fun as all those options can be, it’s also a whole lot to take in. If that’s you, tearfully surveying all those options and feeling completely lost, here are a few tips for surviving homeschool curriculum overwhelm.

Surviving Homeschool Curriculum Overwhelm

Realize it’s trial and error, not pass or fail. Our success does not depend on our choices in the vendor hall or in our online shopping cart. We don’t need all of this to succeed, and we won’t fail if we make the wrong choice. Even an experienced homeschooler makes choices that don’t work out as well as they’d hope. It’s just part of the process, constantly making adjustments. But you have time to find your stride, and you won’t ruin your child’s education in a day, or a month, or a year. There are plenty of free resources to fill any gaps or rough edges you may discover as the year rolls on.

Remember it takes time to educate a child (as in 12 years!) It was comical to walk the aisles of the vendor hall and see all the promises the different products made: master multiplication in 10 days, learn a new language in a month, teach grammar in 15 minutes—you get the idea. Educating our kids can seem urgent, and in our frustration it’s easy to want a quick fix to our struggles. But the reality is, it takes time to teach our kids. I’m not saying these tools aren’t helpful and even amazing, but we set ourselves up for burnout and frustration if we plan our year according to these promises. Even with a great curriculum, it may take you longer than 10 days to master multiplication, and that’s okay.

Recognize that books and lesson plans are just tools. I’ve made a meal in someone else’s kitchen before, without my go-to tools and favorite appliances. It’s possible, not always convenient and maybe a little frustrating, but definitely possible. Homeschooling is the same way. Any of these tools will work to get the job done. Some of them may not end up being your favorite go-to item, but the real curriculum we teach from is life itself. There are so many hours and opportunities to teach what your child needs to know, and so much of it will happen when and where you least expect it. Maybe it will be from that shiny, new exciting publication you picked up from the vendor hall, and maybe it will come from the walk in the park this summer.

I remember the days when there weren’t as many choices and options, when my mom did the best she could with what she had and improvised. And a lot of the options and resources we have today are because of those brave moms who innovated and improvised. I’m so thankful for them! I’m thankful for the richness their ideas have brought to my kids’ education. Surviving the homeschool curriculum overwhelm begins with seeing these as what they are—options, a wide range of good options. Start somewhere; and in one sense, it doesn’t matter exactly where.