School is about to begin again for those following a traditional school year. It’s time to go through all your teacher’s manuals and plan out your year. As you begin to go through your teacher’s manuals, textbooks, literature books, and workbooks do you ever get overwhelmed with how much curriculum you purchased? During the high of school shopping and the desire to educate your children with only the best did you buy too many workbooks or textbooks to cover in a year? One year I could not decide between three grammar workbooks. To solve my dilemma I did what any reasonable homeschool mom would do. I purchased all three grammar workbooks. I figured I would take the best out of each and combine them to make one perfect workbook. It was a failed attempt.
Let’s just face the facts that you cannot buy every workbook or textbook on the market. Let’s face another fact you cannot possibly teach everything in one year. If your bookshelves are filled with workbooks that you love but never had the time for then start clearing the shelves. If you visit all the educational sites online you will find a vast array of wonderful teaching materials that beg for you to purchase them. Don’t fall for the lure of the sirens that come in the form of colorful workbooks that claim it can teach your child a valuable life lesson he will learn nowhere else.
You need to make a list of priorities and core subjects. Stay the course and invest primarily in core curriculum such as math, science and English. When shopping for these subjects be realistic about your goals for that school year. If you do not have set goals for the year you may fall into the trap of buying too much. Streamline your curriculum by settling on one curriculum for all subjects or one for each subject. Mixing and matching curriculum for one subject can get confusing and overwhelming. Yes, it can be done but not without knowing exactly what you are looking for and setting goals.
Once you purchase the core curriculum then decide carefully what extracurricular subjects you want to teach. Let’s say you decide that you want to teach art, music, and French but feel overwhelmed on fitting it all in one year. This is when you have to decide how you will breakdown your year. For instance, you can breakdown the typical 28 weeks of school into three terms or two semesters or four quarters. If you decide to break it down into four quarters then teach art one quarter, music the next and French the next two quarters. Do the same with assigning literature books, reports, special projects and field trips. You will be amazed by how much you can fit in your year by careful scheduling. You will also be happy that you did not buy every workbook in town but only those pertaining to your school year.
Let’s break this down:
1. Write down your goals for the school year.
2. Make out a list of priorities and core subjects.
3. Make out a list of extracurricular subjects you want to teach.
4. Purchase for each subject giving priority to core subjects without distraction. Meaning do not get sidetracked and decide to teach too many subjects or unit studies in one year.
5. Plug your subjects into a skeleton outline of your school year. Remember not all subjects need to be taught every term, semester or quarter nor do they need to be taught every day.
Related Articles:
So Much Curriculum, So Little Time
Homeschool Curriculum Glossary Index