In light of the COVID, and uncertainty as to the reopening of schools next academic year, I thought I’ll do a series of posts in getting ready for the new school year. Hopefully this will benefit those already homeschooling, and those considering homeschooling over online public schooling.
With homeschooling, parents get to provide their own kids education. You get to decide what they learn, how they learn and when they learn. With online public schooling, even though the child may be home, the schools still decide what curriculum to follow. With homeschooling, parents are in the driver seat. You the parent, gets to determine what’s best for your children.
A lot of homeschoolers use boxed curriculum that is already planned out, from different curriculum providers. But majority of homeschoolers including myself, use an eclectic approach, where we research and put together a syllabus, from different sources and fairly customize according to the needs of the family.
As I put together my own curriculum and try to fairly customize for each child, I usually start homeschool planning way in advance of the new year, as early as February. This year, with the coming of our 9th baby, and with the ‘Quarantine slump’ I’ve been experiencing, I am only halfway there. 😔 (Like I had mentioned in an earlier post, I perform way more efficiently when I am running at 100% . But like I also mentioned, I did need this break to recharge and refuel, and possibly even slow down a bit.😇 )
Homeschooling is a blessed experience. But I am not at all saying that it is an easy ride. It is more than a full time job! There is lots of planning involved, and daily grace that is super essential. Before planning however, it is very important to let God lead us and provide us His inspirations, by asking for His help. He knows exactly what we need and what we should do or not do. What we perceive as a mountain before us is just a speck of dust for Him. If we surrender to His plan, we are sure to have a smooth year!
I am hoping through the next 4 posts to explain the steps I take to get the new school year set up.
In this post, I hope to elaborate the steps I take while planning curriculum.
1)I first start off with vision. For this, I look into our Homeschool mission statement. Every homeschooler should be having a Homeschool Mission Statement, which basically is a paragraph or two explaining what you are hoping to achieve through homeschooling. It helps to keep us on track of why we went down the route of homeschooling in the first place. It can be as simple as “ Raising warriors for Christ”, “Raising lifelong learners” etc, to a whole paragraph or two. In the context of our homeschool mission, I prayerfully develop a vision for each child. What do I hope to see my child achieve by the time I sent him off to college? This includes everything from faith to lifeskills to academic pursuits. I calculate the number of years left to achieve these and jot down the inspirations that God provides.
2)Next is setting goals, both long term and short term goals. The long term goal will most likely be what’s listed in the mission statement. Some of the keywords from our statement includes ‘grounded in faith, skillful, knowledgeable, passion for learning, good virtues, academic excellence, light to the community and world’. Short term goals will be what I hope to work on the coming year. Examples include working on personal prayer habits, providing more opportunities for a passion to grow to the next level, working on writing skills etc. I also ask kids individually if they have any specific things they want to learn the coming year. I list them down.
3)Next I explore resources that will help us achieve those goals, like looking into strong writing courses, looking into areas of interest etc. I assess if there is a need to look for professional/outside help. I also jot down anything I need to do from my side to make that goal possible. Example, as I am not strong in literature and literary analysis, I write down what I can do to prepare myself to teach and evaluate.
4)I next go through curriculum options. I use Cathy Duffy Reviews for getting a review of curriculum. I also go through all the resources we already have, both physical and digital books, and note down the ones I am inspired to use next year for that child. I also take into account the family dynamics. I brainstorm what all subjects can be taught together for close age groups. I tend to choose curriculum that several ages can learn the same topic. Example, the History curriculum we use, the kids learn the same time period, but at different levels. This will be easier when it comes to field trips, projects, assignments or even for me to provide input.
5)I then brainstorm any extracurricular activities that tie in with our goal, vision, or passion of the child. I also go through any random opportunities that we are aware of, even if it doesn’t tie in, and ask God to lead us in making the choice.
6)Even though I do start most of the planning way ahead of summer, I do finalize everything only a month into summer. This is so that I can also see what worked and didn’t work for the past year. A lot of years, I had found that I had zealously written a lot of things to do with the children together, but ended up not being able to. So I try to note down why I wasn’t able to- maybe it doesn’t fit my teaching style, maybe I had it on the list to do at a time of the day that didn’t fit the workflow, maybe I was waiting on ‘all’ kids to be present and not able to gather everyone as they all are working on individual schedules, etc. If it’s something I really want to try again the coming year, I try to find a solution to overcome it, and make the necessary changes while structuring the day.
7) I then list down the things I plan to do for each subject and put together the curriculum. If I see that it looks too overwhelming, I try to be realistic and cut down some unnecessary work. For example, if a child is not a very hands-on type child, I will tweak the curriculum to suit the child by taking out any hands on projects/crafts. Instead, I may have him do more writing related to the topic. On the other hand, if a child is more a craftsy type person, I will let him do more crafts related to the subject. Same thing with worksheets. Some kids love worksheets while others don’t. Even notebooking or lapbooking. And don’t be afraid to alter curriculum to meet your needs. You are in charge of the curriculum. The curriculum should not be enslaving you. It is very ok to use the curriculum as a basic spine and add or take away according to the needs of your family.
I type up my final curriculum, lesson plans and checklists in google docs or google excel. Years ago, I typed everything on my desktop. One day it crashed, and everything was gone! So I learned my valuable lesson.🤩 It also helps as I can add in anything on the go whenever I remember about it, even from my phone, if I cannot access my laptop at that time. I also do a lot of the planning phase in Trello for the same reason.
8)I go ahead and order curriculum as and when I am 100% sure that’s what Im leaning on, as well as when an appropriate sale comes, which is also why I start planning early.
Next, I do my homeschool room cleanout to make space for the new year! I will address that in my next post.
Check out the other posts in this series, as well as previous relevant posts:(Links will become available as and when a post is published. )
Getting Ready for the New School Year Series 1- Planning Curriculum
Getting Ready for the New School Year Series 2- Homeschool Room Clean out
Getting Ready for the New School Year Series 3- Lesson Planning
Getting Ready for the New School Year Series 4- Setting up a Homeschool Organization System
A look at the Different Homeschool Methods and Educational Philosophies
Deciding if Homeschooling is Right for you and a Basic Roadmap for Getting Started
Chechi , at what age do you start to formalize curriculums like this
Surya, I usually put together a more formal curriculum only by 1st or 2nd grade. Even those ages, if I see they are not interested in what I am ‘forcing’ them to learn, I pull back and follow their interests. I usually follow the passions of the children early age onwards, even 2 years or so. I had one 2-3 year old who loved to make history puppets and learned a bit through that. I don’t enforce learning or over- academize at a very young age; only if they initiate. At that age, they learn a lot through hearing and observing siblings, and through playing.
But if we don’t give them something to do when they approach us with interest, later that fire can dwindle down. So it is important to keep them challenged and occupied when they show interest. For the younger ages, I usually keep a stash of worksheets and other craft printables to hand over on request. I also print letter formation sheets and keep in sheet protectors, that they can keep reusing with dry erase markers.
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