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Making Curriculum Work for You

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Making Curriculum Work for You

It can be easy to allow yourself to become a slave to your homeschool curriculum or to waste time and money trying to find the perfect curriculum.  The truth is, though, there isn’t that one piece of perfect curriculum that’s going to meet all the needs of every homeschooling family.  There is very little on our school shelf that we use exactly as it is presented.

Rather than seeking the illusive perfect curriculum, it’s usually much simpler to find the best – not perfect – fit and and make it work for you.  So, how do you go about making curriculum work for you?

1.  Throw out what doesn’t work.  I really love the way the History Odyssey books are laid out, but some of the research and writing projects are really complex for my dyslexic daughter.  Then there is the fact that we’re using Institute for Excellence in Writing and having two writing assignments from two different sources would probably be enough to send her completely over the edge.

So, while we use History Odyssey, I rarely have Brianna do the writing assignments, but she does nearly all of the map work, outlines, reading, and other assignments directly related to the study of history, making the most out of the curriculum without allowing it to become a source of drudgery.

2.  Use it as a spine or guide.  Maybe you need some direction in a certain subject, knowing what to cover and in what general order, but you don’t like the details of a certain curriculum’s lesson plans.  If the information is solid, you can still use the curriculum as your guide, while teaching the information in the way that best suits your family.

Let’s say that you’re teaching math to your Kindergartener and you’d rather not use a workbook approach.  You could still follow the order of ideas presented in the workbook of a solid math program, but teach the concepts in more low-key, hands-on ways, such as counting beans together or sorting buttons.

3.  Don’t do all of the problems.  You’re the teaching parent.  You get to decide what constitutes an assignment.  Nothing says that your child has to do every single problem or fill in every single blank on a page.  Remember high school math?  You may have been assigned all the odd problems or all the even, but I rarely remember having to actually do every single problem…thank goodness!

Though we’re currently using Teaching Textbooks, we used and loved Horizons math for many years.  The only thing I didn’t like about it was that there were frequently a lot of problems on a page.  Unless it was a new concept, my kids knew they only had to do half the problems.  If it was clear from those problems that they understood the concept, they were done.  If they were struggling, we’d use the other half of the problems as extra practice that I would usually do with them.

4.  Modify it to meet your child’s learning needs.  Do you like everything about a certain curriculum except that it has so much written work that it overwhelms your child?  Do the work orally or together on the white board.  Not enough reading for your voracious reader?  Supplement with books related to the topic. Got a kid that wants to know all the how’s and why’s?  Add in some research projects.

Often a curriculum choice will meet your basic needs, so it may only take a few simple tweaks to make it the perfect fit for your family.  Don’t be afraid to experiment and make the curriculum your own.

5.  Make it more hands-on.  You know I’m a big fan of hands-on projects.  I know that not everyone is, but if you are, it’s easy to make most homeschool curriculum more hands-on. You can add in a baking project (always fun because you don’t have to find a place to store your completed project) or a craft, put on a puppet show or assemble a presentation for Dad.

You can even write the answers to math fact on a separate sheet of paper, cut the sheets with the answers and the problems into squares and let your child match them up.  You can also turn just about anything into a bingo or board game.

What are some of the modifications your family has made to make your homeschool curriculum work for you?

photo credit horiavarlan on flickr

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Kris Bales is a newly-retired homeschool mom and the quirky, Christ-following, painfully honest founder (and former owner) of Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers. She has a pretty serious addiction to sweet tea and Words with Friends. Kris and her husband of over 30 years are parents to three amazing homeschool grads. They share their home with three dogs, two cats, a ball python, a bearded dragon, and seven birds.

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20 Comments

  1. Great suggestions – I have done, or am doing now, all of these things. For many homeschoolers, part of the reason we're doing this is that we don't want 'somebody else' telling us what/when/how to teach our kids. So we shouldn't feel obligated to follow the curriculum exactly either – use it the way it will work best for our child!

  2. Great Post Kris!

    I'm using the spelling rules and review games from Spell to Write and Read, but I'm not doing spelling dictation with my youngest son.

  3. Love this post. I am still fairly new to homeschool (my oldest is 6) and articles like this really help me.

  4. Just bought Horizions Math for my first grader.

    Your post is really good. I just pick and chose what I want to use. I am always looking for freebies on the internet. That way it supplements what I have and gives me other options.

  5. Outstanding article, Kris. Too many homeschoolers end up slaves to their curriculum. Your suggestions are super practical—and really freeing!

  6. And I meant for *UTILIZING* curriculum.

    Trying to do too much is one of the worst things for a homeschooler. 😀

  7. This is a great reminder! Sometimes I get a little bent out of shape thinking that we should be doing something a certain, perfect, prescribed way. That is just not the case. There are lots of ways to do this home educating thing well. Thanks for calming me down a bit, Kris!

  8. We are unschoolers, so the world is our curriculum. We definitely follow what works for our family and leave what doesn't. I know this is a hard thing for a lot of my traditional schooling friends.

  9. Kris, that is so true and it is my 'mantra' to HSing moms that I have the pleasure of meeting or getting to know. There is so much freedom in realizing you are not a slave to a curriculum, but rather, it can be a joyful servant to you and your family!

  10. Thank you for the suggetions. I was starting to get nervous that we did not finish all the worksheets in every single book. Do you have a post on lesson planning tips?

  11. Thanks for the suggestions, Chris! I'll be honest and say that it's very hard for me not to do every problem, every activity, every page when it comes to the curriculum we use! I have to remind myself that we can miss SOMETHING or come back to it if needed/wanted.

    Jessy

  12. Great post!! I do know so many homeschoolers who are always on the lookout to purchase that new better curriculum and don't stick to any one thing. I find that what I have usually works if I find a way to tweak it to meet our needs. There are always the exceptions when something just needs to be tossed!

  13. What a great reminder.

    Throw out what doesn't work: We also use History Odyssey and I really like it, but with the boys taking two writing classes (one fiction, one non-fiction), I have decided to cut back. We do the map work, reading, timelines and supplement with other reading or videos. The writing instructor works with the boys to tie their non-fiction writing to what we are studying in history, so I have decided to cut back on the specific writing assignments in HO.

    Don't do all the problems: We started homeschooling 4 years ago and we use Saxon for math. My SIL suggested that I not make the kids do all the problems. Saxon provides a lot of review in each lesson, so I don't think they are missing much. If they get stuck in an area, we focus on those types of problems.

    Modify to meet your child's learning needs: The white board has been a great tool. We have a grammar program that I feel covers what we need, but could be a bit repetitive and tedious when the boys filled out the workbook pages. Now, I explain the lesson and they take turns at the white board. It works for us!

    Make it more hands-on: This is really where I need to do some work and I appreciate your reminder. My youngest one especially likes to use his hands and I need to make this a priority!

    Thanks so much for this great post!

    Sarah

  14. Perfect! I know all these things about which your wrote, but I often need to be reminded that I am not married to our curriculum. We've been using My Father's World for a few yrs now, and I'm not feeling like it's a great fit anymore. I've been tweaking it so much this year that it might not be worth the cost anymore, but there are things that I love about it at the same time. Today, I decided to completely change the order of the science units to make more sense (Plants in spring make more sense than January). Sometimes, I feel like I need permission from someone to do this kind of thing, but, I don't. I'm working very hard to follow the Lord's leading in our homeschool rather than to concern myself with the expectations of men…and curriculum authors. 😉

  15. I love this and am thrilled to realize that much of this we have already done. 🙂

    I am using Susan Wise Bauer's Story of the World with my 2, 4 and 6 yr olds. (GASP!! I know the HORROR of me using upper elementary curriculum with such littles!!!) I read it like a read aloud and when we find something fun we dig in. Ancient Egypt (with Ms Frizzle's help) was A BLAST!

    Who says you have to save world history, civics and scientific method science for later grades!!! 🙂

    And kudos to the suggestion of not tying one's self to doing EVERYTHING in a curriculum. 🙂 I love my freedom to be able to pick and choose what my kids need.

  16. Thanks Kris for sharing. On a semi regular basis, I find that I try to convince myself not to feel guilty that we have *never* actually completed a curriculum of any sort. We've used bits and pieces from lots of curriculum sources, but have never done one start to finish. Instead we just take what works for us and leave the rest. While I believe it pretty much works for us, I sometimes feel like a bit of a slacker homeschooling mom when I see the families that are whipping out worksheets. That you for your assurance that I'm just tailoring to what works best for my family.

  17. I love when other homeschooling parents remind us that it is OK to not follow "rules"!
    I agree with another commentor, I have or am doing now all of these things! We use 1 main curriculum and then add in all the fun stuff! I love doing hands-on things for homeschooling!
    Great post!

    Katrina
    Crazy Online Homeschooling Mom of 2, Daycare Mom of 4, Chicken Mom of 15, 1 Puppy, 1 Psycho Cat and possibly a Partridge in our pear tree!

  18. Amen to all of this! This is a fabulous write up, Kris, and something I need to remind myself of more often.

    Oh, I totally agree about Horizon's math. I loved it, but we almost always would cut some of it out. It was just so much review and my boys would get glassy eyed looking at it.

    Thanks for the great post!

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