The middle of your homeschool year is the perfect time to reassess your homeschool curriculum choices. Ask yourself these five questions.
Kids can change a lot over the course of a school year.
No joke, my boys each just landed in a third wardrobe this year. That’s right. Their shoes and clothing have been replaced three times since September. I could now wear my youngest’s clothing–and it would be big on me! <– I wrote that several years ago. Now, my boys are about to head off to college, and I’ve been looking up to them for a long time!
Not only do kids grow physically during the school year, they can change a lot academically and emotionally too. I bet yours do, too.
Reassess Your Homeschool Curriculum Choices Mid-Year
Whether you homeschool with a rigid schedule or you’re more casual about learning at home, mid-year can be a really good time to assess how your homeschool is doing. Here are five questions to ask yourself about your homeschool curriculum choices–and about what you are focusing on in your homeschool.
1) Am I Missing an Important Subject or Homeschool Curriculum?
A few years ago, during our mid-year homeschool assessment, I realized we needed to reintroduce penmanship. The boys had gotten a little sloppy with their work, and it was time to practice again. I quickly downloaded copies of Write Through the Bible (the cursive edition), stuck them in 3-ring binders, and got the boys working on handwriting that very day. It couldn’t have been easier. Thankfully, I can now read their writing again.
Ironically, I think we often miss the most important “subjects” in our homeschool. We can get so focused on math, spelling, and reading that we can miss sight of some of the reasons homeschooling is an awesome opportunity.
The Three Most Important Subjects for Your Homeschool
2) Do I Need to Schedule My Homeschool Days Better?
We’ve been homeschooling for eleven years now, and scheduling has always, always been an issue. When the boys were young, I scheduled school before and after lunch and that just wasn’t practical for little people.
When I cared for my toddler nieces, it was a challenge to schedule a read-aloud time with the boys and potty-train the girls at the same time.
As a work-at-home mom, it seems I need to examine my schedule frequently to make sure I’m making deadlines and using my time wisely without encroaching on our homeschool.
Midyear in your homeschool is a great time to examine the decisions you’re making. Do you need to get up earlier? Is it time for an older child to become a little more independent in his studies? Do your kids need to get some good exercise after breakfast before school starts? Maybe you need to plan your curriculum in bigger chunks of time and commit to sticking to a plan?
Why You Should Make a Homeschool Schedule for the Entire Year
3) Am I Caring for the Meals and the House?
I don’t know about you, but I can’t function well in a mess. My husband also seems to appreciate a home that isn’t destroyed. Keeping a clean house and feeding the troops can be a challenge when everyone’s home all day long. The best way to ensure that we live in a pleasant environment than to set a routine and get the kids involved. It’s good for the kids, too, to learn to clean and cook!
My boys get up two hours before school starts each morning. After breakfast, we work together on the chores. It’s a great way to ensure that everything gets done. After school we pick up. I start dinner at 4:30pm every day. If I can, I make a double batch and freeze half for a day when I’m not feeling well.
Meals and the environment of your home are an important part of your homeschool. Do you need to tweak how you’re caring for your family?
Loading the Dishwasher While Standing on Broken Glass (Or Children’s Chores)
4) Are Our Homeschool Curriculum Choices Working for Us?
We originally started our homeschool using Singapore Math. It’s a fabulous program, I researched it thoroughly, and I loved it. After a couple years, though, one of my young boys cried through math.
Every. Day.
At first I thought the math was too hard for him or he didn’t understand some crucial point. It turned out, he’s a naturally gifted math-whiz and the methodical, spiraling nature of the program was frustrating him. He needed something faster and harder–something that would allow him to set the pace for himself. I had chosen a wonderful math curriculum–it just wasn’t right for my child.
Midyear that year we switched to Life of Fred. It’s an unconventional, narrative, hilarious homeschool curriculum for math. I was nervous about taking the dive into such a novel way of learning math, but I found wonderful reviews by parents who were doctors and engineers so we tried it. Not only did the tears stop, my son began excelling at math, moving ahead quickly and researching college-level mathematics in his spare time. (We are now finishing up Life of Fred Calculus!)
The great thing about homeschooling is that you can tailor your homeschool curriculum to your children. If you have a teen that needs handwriting practice or a child that needs a faster or slower math program, you can make the change.
Christian Homeschool Resources We’ve Loved
5) Am I Training My Children in Scripture?
I can’t think of anything more important to study with my children than God’s Word. It seems like it’s the easiest subject to let slide, isn’t it? Don’t leave your child’s training in Scripture to happenstance or abdicate your responsibility to the church. Please make sure you’ve scheduled time to go through God’s Word together right into your homeschool day.
I’ve found that scheduling Bible Road Trip™ right after a meal–either breakfast or lunch–means it will get done. We’ll all be ready at the same time, and we devote the beginning of our day to reading the Bible, praying, and notebooking about Scripture.
Later in the day the kids can work on other aspects of the program like Scripture memory, special projects, literature, or crafts–but we read Scripture at the same time every day.
Do you need a program to help you go through Scripture with your kids in a scheduled, engaging way? Check out Bible Road Trip™ before you go!
Books Make Great Gifts!
Teach Your Kids the Bible with Bible Road Trip™
Bible Road Trip™ is a three-year Bible survey curriculum. Take your family through the Bible five times from preschool to high school.
To help you get the most out of your studies, Bible Road Trip™ has an array of coordinating weekly activities:
- Researching the section of the Bible you’re studying
- Reading and discussing the Bible
- Memorizing Scripture
- Notebooking about your studies
- Praying for the nations
- Suggestions for further study
- Crafting about what you’ve learned
- For your older students: A project to share what they’ve learned
- Bible Road Trip™ also has some great tools you can use along with it, such as:
- Notebooking Journals for grades 1-9. Want a structured notebooking journal for high school? Don’t hesitate to use the Dialectic journal (grades 7-9).
- Bible Memory Card Sets for all five levels of study, preschool to high school. These are available in both ESV and KJV.
Grab your Bible Road Trip™ Year One Sample Pack. You’ll get:
- The Bible Road Trip™ Parent / Teacher Guide.
- The first three weeks of the curriculum for all five learning levels. Week Three is where we really dive into the Bible and begin to our systematic study. Week Three will give you a good feel for the rest of the curriculum.
- The first three weeks of the Bible Memory Card sets for all five levels, in ESV and KJV.
- The first three weeks of each of the three leveled Notebooking Journals.
Grab the Sample Pack for FREE:
Disciple your kids by taking your family through the Bible together in a meaningful way!
The 2024 Practical Homeschooling® Reader Awards™ were announced in the Fall 2024 issue of Practical Homeschooling® magazine.
The Reader Awards have been a regular feature in the magazine since 1998.
Thousands of homeschoolers rank the curriculum they have used, and the products with the highest satisfaction ratings win.
Bible Road Trip™ Curriculum
Take a look inside the Bible Road Trip™ curriculum! Let me show you around:
Bible Resources for Your Kids
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