Map out your entire homeschool curriculum!
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Masterfully plan all 12 years of your homeschool curriculum, with the end goals you want to achieve!
You’ve decided to make the leap from public education to homeschooling.
This is exciting!
It can also be a little daunting.
I want to be a resource and help you.
In previous articles, I have covered:
The 5 different types of homeschooling and how to determine which is perfect for you and your family
How to set up your homeschool space
How to plan your homeschool year
And even…
How to choose (and another on how to avoid) a perfect writing curriculum!
In this article I want to help you plan your entire curriculum to maximize your child’s learning while providing fun and engaging lessons that meet both of your needs.
First, you need to understand I am a planner.
I believe that if you don’t plan for something, it often does not happen.
Case in point:
You made an extra $200 one month.
You wisely think, “I am going to save this for Christmas money!”
Yet, you do not put it into a savings account, you just keep it in checking with all of your other money.
What happens?
Somehow, it seems that money just disappears.
I worry (yup, a planner and a worrier, is there anything worse?!) that if you do not plan educational objectives or goals, your child will have a lot of fun.
Or you two will experience many things together, however, there may not be learning taking place that will meet other goals your child may have in the future.
This is what I am going to help you avoid in this article.
Why do I put this warning?
One of the types of homeschooling believes you should just let things happen.
The child will direct the learning with their interests.
This article will not interest that type of homeschooler.
I am not that laissez faire.
Planning your homeschool curriculum
In Chaos to Curriculum, Planning Your Homeschool year, I talked a lot about all that goes into the decisions you will be making.
I am not going to repeat all of that here.
Just make sure you run over there and take a “peek” if you have not done all of the prep work.
There are different ways to planning your curriculum.
I am going to cover two completely different types here.
Approach #1
This is the way I describe in Chaos to Curriculum.
If you are new to homeschooling, I recommend starting with this, simply because it is easy.
If you have a lot you and your child are adjusting to, determining what to teach and when, that first year, curriculum is an added difficulty.
Give yourself grace, concentrate on the “have to’s” and follow this method that first year.
Decide
Decide which subjects you want to teach.
This seems like a “no brainer” but the reality is, you can add whatever you feel is important and take out what you feel is not.
I love the brainstorming activity that I do with parents in Approach #2, you may want to do that just to get an idea of which subjects are important to you.
Level
Determine in which grade level your child is currently performing.
This is a ballpark, not intended for the child as much as for you and your planning.
If you have just taken your child out of the public system and they were halfway through 3rd grade, start with the objectives in 3rd grade.
Objectives
This is your crutch and cheat sheet!
Go to your state standards, I have a video to show you how to do this.
Look at what the schools are supposed to be teaching in each subject that you plan on teaching.
You will pay particular attention to the grade level before, after and the one your child is currently in.
This gives you ideas of what you CAN teach or shoot for this year.
You do not HAVE to do any of the objectives in the state standards.
I understand, you left the schools because you were unhappy with them.
However, you are going to look at skills the students should learn, not content.
Also, let’s face it, if you are new to teaching, isn’t it kind of nice to see someone else’s work K-12 of all of the objectives in every single subject?
Whether you agree or not with the subject or content, you can see how they tried to build on skills from grade level to grade level to finally attain a specific goal upon graduation.
You pick and choose.
You simply have a reference or starting place.
I did a short video to show you how to do this, go here. Watch the state standard cheat here!
Planner
Now you are going to get out that yearly planner.
If you are planning multiple years, which I talk more about in Approach #2, you will need your years planner.
MAP OUT YOUR ENTIRE
HOMESCHOOL CURRICULUM!
- These sheets go with the article: "Map Out Your Entire Homeschool Curriculum"
- Download and copy as many as you need (years, goals, and subjects)
- Yearly Goals has 8 years and 5 main goals for each year
- Annual tracker helps you break down each year, each main goal
- Which skills will you teach and when, to achieve the desired results-it is easy to see when you map it
Get the planning done easily and in advance!!
You will take each one of your subjects, then a skill within that subject, and then put it on your planner.
Your goal is to see each learning objective you want your child to learn and be able to “chunk it” so that they can learn a little bit of new information each time they encounter it.
Approach #2
You are confident in your teaching abilities and in the fact that you are DONE with any kind of institutionalized educational system.
You have no desire to see what the state is mandating for education at each level.
You are willing to put in the time and effort to guarantee your child’s success at homeschooling.
Sometimes this means researching the perfect units, finding great curricula, or creating your own lessons.
I love this approach.
I believe that in the speed in which the way we access information and what we need to learn or how changes, this is an amazing way to look at your child’s educational journey.
Commit
How long do you absolutely commit to homeschool your child?
In this method, you are not working year to year, we are working from a final goal backwards.
It is important to understand your personal reasons for homeschooling and your time restrictions.
If, for example, you aren’t ready to separate from your little and you plan on keeping them home until they go into third grade, we need to know where they are going in 3rd grade.
Why?
If you are sending them to a public/charter or even private school, you will need to know what those institutions will expect your child to know when they enter 3rd grade.
Your child will have to transition from home to a different type of school environment.
They will need to make friends.
They will adjust to a different schedule and different expectations.
You do not want to make this transition more difficult by having your child be “behind” academically because you did not prepare them at home.
If, however, you are planning on homeschooling your children until their last year of high school, you have a lot more freedom in many ways.
Brainstorm
This is my favorite part of the entire “creating curriculum” process.
You get to dream.
What has not worked?
Not just in the public schools, but in your opinion, in society in general?
For example, I went to get a coffee with a friend.
My coffee cost $4.76.
I gave the (17 year old?) a twenty and a penny.
This person called over their manager.
They actually said, “Oh, my, I can’t do math!”
The manager told them to calm down, and tried to walk them through, without really giving them an explanation.
Then gave me $15.25, and said, “That is right, right, I am not real good with math either?”
She was 30ish.
For me, this is an all too common problem I see.
Even though we have machines that can do a lot of this kind of work, it is very important to me that my children learn how to do mental math of this type.
Now, think of all of the things you want your child to learn and know, even or especially anything not taught in school.
My list is long, but you will see my brainstorm sheet, if you go to the video.
You are now going to create a brainstorm sheet of all the learning objectives or goals you want your child to have accomplished when they graduate.
I like to keep a brainstorm sheet so that I can continually refer to it, add to it, change anything, and make sure I am staying on track.
I created a video and a brainstorm sheet last week. Watch it here!
You can see how I created this here I also spoke about the subjects I chose and why I have subsets of each one.
You can grab a blank brainstorm sheet as well, in case you just want to work on paper.
Plot
For a quick recap: you know what subjects you want to teach, you have a good idea of what you want your child to know when they are done homeschooling, now you get to plot the learning, like a graph on your calendars.
Start with final year, one subject, and write the goals for that subject.
Then go to Kindergarten or where ever you are beginning your homeschool journey.
What is the first step you need to help your child take in achieving this end goal?
My belief is ideal learning happens when we give our children something familiar and then ask them to “reach” a little.
Every “little” that they reach, they learn.
The “little” is enough to learn, but not too much to cause frustration.
Because they are on “familiar” ground, they are comfortable enough to take that little risk so they can reach.
You are going to look at every single subject, every single goal and go back to the beginning where you are starting homeschooling.
Then you are going to introduce concepts that build upon each other, each year or month so your child can attain that goal by graduation.
Integrate
Retention and engagement are both higher when subject matter is not taught in isolation, but instead taught integrated into other subjects, experiences, and excursions.
Look at your goals in all of the subjects for a 6-12 week period.
Think if any of them lend themselves to an overall unit or theme.
Then try to have the others fit into that theme as well, if you can move around the content so you teach the same skills, but at different times of the year to fit into units better…great!
An example of this is sixth grade Roman Unit.
Reading mythology: Roman Gods and Goddesses
Roman philosophy and its importance in government
Science: architecture, aqueducts
Math: Roman Numerals and geometry (based on architecture and aqueducts)
Writing: Persuasive piece on most important God/Goddess
Within this unit I will still be teaching my goals for the year, however, they will all fall into this theme.
This is a very brief explanation of integrated curriculum, which was the focus of last week’s blog.
You are ready to start the home learning journey with your child!
One of your first challenges is to plan your homeschool curriculum.
There are as many ways to do this as there are personalities.
I have given you two, one is very easy and the other, although requiring more work, is very rewarding.
Please comment and let me know how you plan your homeschool curriculum.