Homeschooling Plans and Curriculum

I like to plan things... clearly.

But I've learned that all my plans need to be flexible or I go a little crazy because the plan isn't working.

Our homeschool plan has to account for last minuet work opportunities, nice days spent outside working the garden, animals and yes, enjoying it, sickness that never seems to end and a myriad of other things that make being a single parent, homesteading, homeschooling family rather interesting.

First of all, curriculum.

I had big dreams of finally buying the Rod and Staff curriculum I so greatly adore. Unfortunately at this point, that's not an option. Back to dream land goes that plan.

The back up plan is to create my own curriculum.

I'm sure there are 100 million ways to do this. My way works for us, so I'll stick with it.

Everyone works on what they have and I give them harder packets (of free printables) or workbooks as they complete what they had with competence. I pay little attention to grade level, I just increase the difficulty as they master a skill.

Sometimes that means someone is doing basic subtraction or coin values for 6-8 weeks until it clicks and then they may get the next skill down in a week or 2.

For things like introducing government and history topics we get age appropriate books from the library (we go every other week) and read them together. I answer any questions they may have that wasn't covered in the book. Some questions I can't answer, because even Google doesn't give you Abe Lincoln's favorite color.

I plan to do a homeschooling post every Wednesday. Next week I'll cover how homeschooling fits into our day!