A Practical Walk

Since I was homeschooled for over half of my schooling years, I thought I kinda knew what I was stepping into. And while a lot of it went as planned, there were a 3 things I didn’t expect.

It’s not a guarantee that the older they get, the less help they need from you.

I always thought, as they got older, while their hours of schoolwork would increase, mine would decrease. Often this is the case, but not always. They might need more help in the higher levels of math, they might learn better by being read to, or discussing things rather than just studying alone. Whatever the reason, sometimes the work load on the teacher doesn’t lessen as much as you’d think it would.

I didn’t think I’d end up using such a variety of curriculums, and especially didn’t imagine designing my own at times.

Early on, we stuck with one or two curriculums at a time. But as we tried different ones we ended up using all kinds. For example, between my 2 kids this year we’re using 3 different pre-packaged curriculums, a few self-designed courses, and dual credit college classes.

Over the years I’ve used the following (some only for one subject):

• Alpha & Omega
• Saxon
• Shormann math
• Abeka
• Masterbooks
• History of the World
• Breaking the Barrier Spanish
• The Good & the Beautiful
• All About Reading
• Self-designed courses

I thought my kids would both do pretty much the same curriculums.

I think I just assumed whatever curriculums we used, both the kids would do them. And there have been many that they’ve both done, even some years doing a class together. But as we changed what we were doing we ended up doing different things for each kids. Honestly though, this is one of the advantages of homeschooling.

For example, for a couple of years we did Charlotte-Mason-like self designed course for history, science and English for one kid. I think it was a benefit to that child, while the other child stuck with more traditional courses.

Also as they get older , they have more options for electives. They’re also firming up more what they want to do after school, which helps us in deciding what classes to take.

So there you have 3 things that took me by surprise in homeschooling! I’d love to hear from other homeschoolers what things surprised you!

School bookshelf in our house in Africa.