Gel Pen Learning

We’re coming up on that time of year again.

The weather is getting nicer. Everyone is a little bit “over it” regarding school. The curriculum that was so shiny and fresh back in September now feels like something you have to pull teeth to finish.

And just when you can’t take it anymore, your tax refund hits your bank account, which means you can finally start shopping for next year’s curriculum. Because obviously, “if this didn’t work, we just need to try something new.”

Before you go spend a few hundred dollars trying to fix a problem, pause a minute.

The way you feel right now is actually the most accurate assessment of how your homeschool is working.

Not September. Not the first week of school with all your neatly organized curriculum and color-coded bins. Right now. When you’ve been doing it consistently for over 25 weeks, when you’ve been hit with holiday stress, when your family has survived the flu, when the novelty is dead and real life has settled in.

This is the data. And if you don’t like how you feel right now, then buying a new boxed curriculum might not be the solution.

Let’s Demystify Curriculum for a Minute

A lot of homeschooling curriculum isn’t as independent as people think, with some of the same publishers that provide curriculum for public schools operating a homeschooling division as well. For example, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt has Saavs, a distance learning, K-12 educational resource under their umbrella.

If the goal is to get away from the curriculum of public school, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to bring it home with you.

On the other end, you have heavily religious curriculum. And you can absolutely be a Christian homeschooler without having every subject filtered through a denominational lens.

History and science don’t become more accurate just because they line up with your own perceptions of truth.

For example, one year we used “The Light and the Glory,” by Peter Marshall and David Manuel. It is a narrative history book from a Christian perspective, and in this curriculum, Christopher Columbus is presented as a good Christian man just trying to spread the gospel, leaning into the meaning of his name as “light bearer” as part of the narrative. Whatever your personal beliefs are, I think it is challenging to look at Christopher Columbus’s own journals as he depicted what he did on his journeys as anything more than acting like a heathen.

I had to work double time to stay with the spine that I had on my IHIP but present different info to my kids that was child-appropriate but not so permissive with egregious behavior while colonizing.

I say this to say that before you assume that you need a new curriculum or more curriculum, it’s worth asking what curriculum actually is.

The Skinny on Curriculum

Curriculum is not a product. At least not at its core.

Curriculum is simply what you are learning, when you are learning it, and with what materials you will use to learn.

That’s it.

When you buy a boxed curriculum, you’re paying someone else to make those decisions for you. Sometimes that’s helpful. Sometimes it’s not.

But it’s not the only way to structure learning, no matter what random man #2 says at the post office.

Start With What’s Actually Required

If you’re homeschooling in New York, you have requirements. You need to cover certain subjects, like history, but you are not told exactly how to do it.

You’re not required to list every single resource you’ll use. You’re not required to follow a specific time period. You’re not required to purchase a full curriculum package complete with a testing booklet.

You only need a plan, a primary source, and follow-through.

A Simple Way to Build Structure

For content-heavy subjects like history or science you don’t need a full curriculum. You need a spine.

A spine is a main resource that anchors your learning:

• History encyclopedias
• Narrative history books
• Time-period overviews

Not Every Subject Works the Same Way

Before you burn your books and embrace chaos, let me explain further.

Some subjects are flexible. Others are not.

Math is the easiest example.

If math isn’t your thing, you’re not going to string together a year of math problems because sequence and consistency matter. But structure doesn’t have to mean expensive either.

My kids have used Khan Academy for 10 years. They like the format, they follow the instructions, and move through it independently. A lot of people have issues with Khan not being in-depth enough, and I can only speak for our experience. My kids consistently test two years ahead in math; my daughter scored college-ready on her GED in math when she took it, and as the child who cried during math to the point where her public school teacher gave up, she’s majoring in Forensic Chemistry.

I haven’t paid for math in years and don’t plan to start anytime soon.

The point is that you need to know what resource you use. For skill-based subjects, you pick something that works and stick to it, even when it stops being fun.

For content-based subjects like history, science, literature, music, etc., you have more wiggle room. You can build an entire year of literature from a single list. Take a compilation like “1001 Books to Read Before You Grow Up,” and you have your K-12 list. Add a simple notebook or project for everything you read, and you have your curriculum.

Music can be the same way. We have been going through the “1001 Albums to Hear Before You Die” and then curating the selections for child appropriateness.

Not everything needs to come in a box to be legit.

The Problem Isn’t the Gaps

There’s no such thing as a complete education, and anyone claiming they can provide it is lying to you.

Everyone has gaps.

Your kids will know things that other kids don’t simply because of your life. In our case, my kids have a level of familiarity with death and the funeral industry that most people will never encounter. That’s part of their education. It also means that if you have a background in botany, your kids will know more about plants than everyone else.

That’s normal.

There is a big difference between naturally occurring gaps and ones manufactured from curriculum hopping.

Every curriculum has its own scope and sequence. When you jump from one to another, skip sections, or abandon something halfway because you’re bored with it, that’s when you start creating unnecessary holes.

If something is truly not working, that’s one thing.

If it mostly works but you are burned out, that’s another.

Resist the Urge to Start Over

Homeschooling doesn’t need to be reinvented every year.

There is no perfect curriculum, pedagogy, or method. There’s no version of this where it feels exciting all the time.

What matters is consistency.

What matters is using tools that work for your child, in that season, and giving them enough time to do their job.

If you’re sitting here at the end of the year feeling burned out, don’t ignore the feeling, but also don’t assume that the solution is to start from scratch either.

Sometimes the answer is not something new.

Sometimes the answer is to keep what works, adjust what doesn’t, and move forward with more clarity than you had before.

And sometimes, the best plan is to ignore that siren call of new curriculum.

Let’s Chat

For those of you who use a spine, what is your favorite resource? Let me know in the comments below