I had a great line-up of curriculum for my kids (kindergarten, 2nd, 4th and 6th grade) this year. We were going to study the the Renaissance, Reformation and growth of nations, Earth and space, and read literature books together.
My kids and I enjoy learning together as a family so I am always looking for multi-age curriculum. But as the school year got under way, it became apparent that my curriculum choices were not going to work this year. I tried to adapt what we were using but switching homeschool curriculum mid-year became necessary.
(This post contains affiliate links. Read my full disclosure here.)
Why We Are Switching Homeschool Curriculum
This year has been a little rough for me. I put all my organizational skills to work and found that it was still a challenge to homeschool my schoool age children. While my meal plans, homeschool schedule and home management tips helped, it was still difficult to manage life as a homeschool mom.
Homeschooling four children, helping my 18 year old transition into adulthood, chasing after a 3 year old and caring for a baby is a lot of work. Throw in sleep deprivation and some additional family struggles and you get one weary homeschool mama.
Despite my best efforts, I was not able to provide all four of my school age children the instruction they needed for homeschooling. I cried a lot and prayed often about what God would have me do. Giving up on homeschooling was not an option but everyday seemed to get harder than the one before.
Then God broke through my stubbornness. I had made homeschool curriculum and methods an idol that I was holding onto with closed fists. God wanted me to let go of my ideal and let Him lead our homeschool year. So, I started looking into curriculum that allowed for independent learning.
And you know what? It is working! School is getting done. My stress level is lower. Everyone is happier.
What We Are Using Now
Switching homeschool curriculum mid-year has been a life saver for me! I miss learning together as a family but I know this is what my family needs this year. Here are our new curriculum choices for the school year.
Kindergarten
My focus with my kindergartener this year is learning to read, developing good penmanship and mastering basic math skills. All those things require me to work with her so I didn’t change anything there. I originally had her doing history and science with us as a family but now she sits in on her brother’s BJU Press history and science DVD courses.
- We are still reading through The Child’s Story Bible for Bible.
- Spell to Write and Read for phonics, reading and spelling.
- Cursive First for penmanship.
- Math-U-See: Primer and then moving into Math-U-See: Alpha for math.
- Do It Carefully, Everywhere We Go, Finding the Answers, Developing the Early Learner Vol. 4 are workbooks she is working through at her own pace.
- She’s sitting in on her brothers 2nd grade BJU Press DVDs for history and science.
2nd Grade
My son still needed my help with working on reading and spelling so we stuck with what we were already using for those subjects. We also continued using Math-U-See since he is able to do most of it on his own. We did need to switch his science and history to something that could be done on his own so I chose BJU Press DVDs.
Here’s everything my 2nd grader is using now.
- The Child’s Story Bible for Bible.
- Spell to Write and Read for spelling, reading and grammar.
- He’s practicing his cursive using Draw Write Now: Polar Regions. It’s in print but he copies it over in cursive.
- Literature consists of reading books of interest from our library.
- Math-U-See: Beta for math.
- BJU Heritage Studies for 2nd grade on DVD for history.
- BJU Science for 2nd grade on DVD.
4th Grade
I needed my 4th grader to work as independently as possible. The solution was purchasing the ABeka Academy 4th grade independent study program. The program has to be purchased as a whole which means I could not pick and choose which subjects we needed. While we have all the materials and DVD’s for every subject we are not using all of them.
Here’s what my 4th grader is doing.
- Math-U-See: Delta for math.
- Spell to Write and Read for spelling.
- ABeka Academy DVD’s for everything else which includes:
- Bible
- Reading
- Language
- History
- Science
- Health
- Art
6th Grade
My 6th grader is using all of the same curriculum but doing everything independently now. Illuminations saved the day for us. It scheduled out everything for her so I don’t have to do any lesson planning.
She is missing the family learning and discussions but it has been a relief to know she is getting a good education while I’m caring for other family needs.
Here’s a look at what she’s doing.
- LifePac 6th Grade Bible
- Winston Grammar
- Spell to Write and Read
- English from the Roots Up Volume 1
- Literature Study Guides that are included with Illuminations
- Student Writing Intensive from IEW (Institute for Excellence in Writing)
- Math-U-See: Epsilon
- The Mystery of History Volume 3
- The Ultimate Geography and Timeline Guide
- Christian Kids Explore Earth and Space
- Choosing Good Health (A Beka)
I’m hoping we can return to our favorite curriculum next school year but I’m reminded that God knows what is best for my children. I’m giving this homeschool journey over to Him.
Update
I am so thankful that the Lord revealed the idols I had built up around homeschooling. This year went a lot better once we switched-up our curriculum. It was still full of challenges but the DVD programs took a huge load off of my plate. I decided to share my experience with BJU Press Distance Learning and Abeka Academy. I reviewed each one in the video below and shared the pros and cons of each.
And here is another video I did about switching curriculum mid-year.
Leave a Reply