Homeschooling is not a race to the finish line. It is a journey that one should savor and enjoy. It is exploration not a raid on a new land. It is self discovery not artificial intelligence. It is education not schooling. Education takes time and patience. Schooling is rushing through a curriculum to advance to the next grade. Homeschooling frees you of grade levels, systems, and mediocre expectations. There is no need to get through Lessons 1 through 5 today when you can explore nature and spend time visiting the Hundred Acre Wood with Pooh and friends.
When you are feeling overwhelmed and like the weight of the curriculum is cracking your aching back remember you are not a slave to books. You are training up individuals with individual needs. Take your time to go through the laws of physics, the great literature of Charles Dickens, and the French Revolution. Walk through the past at a steady pace. Indulge yourself on Walden’s Pond for a time. You determine the path your children will walk. Your homeschool is on your timeframe.
We all want our children to hit certain markers. It is not wrong to have a scope and sequence to guide you through the educational rites of passage. What is wrong is teaching to the scope and sequence and not the child. If you have a child who is excelling let him fly to the moon. If you have a child struggling allow him to land in a soft place for a time. Take your time educating, loving, living and exploring. You will never regret the time spent discovering the world alongside your child. Feel no pressure to complete a curriculum to advance to another grade. Break free from the constraints used by a system. You are not a system you are a home.