Pre-planned programs vs. designing your own......

[Allison TX]

I am going back and forth about whether to use a pre-planned unit study program or design my own the WTM way.

 

What made you decide to use one or the other? For those that follow a pre-planned program, do you ever feel "tied" to the program? For those that use the WTM as a guideline, do you do a lot of planning, or is it more of just doing the next thing?

 

Thanks for any feedback! I'm hoping after reading other points of view it will help me make a decision.:)

(This is going to be my fourth year homeschooling, you'd think I'd have it figured out by now.:tongue_smilie:)

 

Allison

[hsmom]

I did the do it myself for the first 2 years and would continue to fall off track and such. This year I am using sonlight for a keep me on track type of thing. I hope it works better than the other way. I like that fact that I can go in my own direction, but still have a schedule to fall back on or to check off as we go. Also it was a lot less work on me.

[Michelle T]

I've tried using a pre-planned curriculum several times, and have never finished one yet. I always find I do so much tweaking, I might as well just save the money and do my own thing anyway!

 

Every pre-planned curriculum includes books that I don't want to use, for various reasons, and DOESN'T include other books I do want to use.

 

Every pre-planned curriculum has assignments/work that I end up skipping.

 

My DS has LD's, and requires very customized curriculum so he can learn.

 

And truthfully, I get bored easily. If I am using something pre-planned, I feel trapped and likely to drop the whole thing. If I'm planning myself, I can make changes at any time, without feeling like I wasted money.

 

I use the library extensively, so it's very easy to tailor my reading from week to week.

 

So my vote goes to do your own thing! It's much more fun!

Michelle T

[Sherri in MI]

The advantage of a pre-planned program such as Sonlight or Winter Promise is that all the decisions (which books and materials to use) and lesson planning and schedules have been done for you. All the materials are pulled together for you. The cons are: you may not like all the books and materials in the package (you can buy only the ones you like separately, but then you are missing out on the advantage of the schedule); and they are usually costly.

 

The advantage of designing your own is that you can tailor your program to your individual children or your families needs. You can use only books and materials that you definitely love and will use. You get to choose everything yourself. The disadvantage is all the time involved in choosing, scheduling and writing lesson plans.

 

Hope this helps. I go back and forth myself. I have used Sonlight for K and loved it. Bought Core 3 and only like about half the books they've chosen. I wanted it so I didn't have to plan myself. But the fact is my preferences are so specific that I probably will have to always plan for myself.

 

I think it's easy to be swayed by "curriculum lust"! All the books and materials look so yummy and fun and interesting and it'd be so good for my kids to know about that! I have struggled so much over choosing an American History program or books to design my own. Finally I sat down one day and wrote down all my goals a desires for an American History program. It's clear I'll have to put one together myself. But I'm going to refine my goals and narrow them down and then use that to choose only books and materials that will meet those goals (with maybe a chosen few thrown in for "fun"). I am encouraged by this and think it will help.

 

Hope this isn't too long and hope it helps!

 

Blessings,

Sherri

[MomOfOneFunOne]

I tried enrolling with a homeschool provider. They offered three things I really thought I needed: oversite, a "tried and true" program, support if needed.

 

For the oversite, I was supposed to keep a portfolio. Nothing happened if I didn't but they highly recommended . . . but still, not required. So, I didn't really think it very effective . I did keep a portfolio and love doing it but "optional" didn't make me feel like the oversite was keeping me on task.

 

That the program was tried and true is great but one size fits all NEVER fits me. I knew I wanted to use Singapore for math so I substituted out for that. After a few weeks I didn't like the English program. So, I knew I'd sub out for that next year, too. After substituting for this, that and finally, the other, after a while I wondered why I was paying them for me to plan the program for them.

 

Support was also a big let down. They offer a support person on staff who can be reached during school hours or an hour or two in the evening. I thought this would be very handy but in reality, it was a bust. She was a young, childless, recent grad who had neither been homeschooled nor homeschooled any kids. I think it was her first job. Meanwhile, I had a graduate degree in education and several years teaching. I didn't need a recent grad, I needed a homeschool mom. The college education didn't mean anything to me I needed a real homeschool mom who had been in the trenches and knew what to do in a real live homeschool setting with real live homeschool children and a real live homeschool mom. So, I found very little support in their support system.

 

From time to time I have a look at prepackaged curricula but I always find that it still doesn't fit. I have to design it myself.

 

Oh, another thing . . . I thought the lesson plans would be helpful but in every case they were "do the next page." I can do that for free and frankly, in most cases, just doing the next thing in the workbook is a bore. We're more hands on, project doing, novel reading kind of people. do the next page was a let down.

[PeterPan]

Allison, I've been homeschooling 4 years now too, so I've felt that yearning for something preplanned and ready to go too, hehe. I think making a change like that would be dependent on two things:

 

1) no looking back. You have to be SURE you have to make that change. If you're thinking in the back of your mind you could have done a better job yourself, you're not going to stick with it. But if life or something has made you convinced this is the year and that you'll gratefully accept whatever they say, then it's probably going to work.

2) you like a majority of the things being used. You've tried a lot of things by now and know some things that really work, some that are flexible (several options could work), etc. If you have to set aside something you're doing that WORKS for something else, you're probably going to get frustrated. It's not that the new thing couldn't work, but it's a change and not what you're used to. I found that when we tried SL, that I took it too far, trying to change EVERYTHING, rather than just letting the scheduling portion fix what was broken for us. Don't fix what works, only what is broken. So if your science and LA work but not your history, then just change to a pre-scheduled history, not everything the vendor sells.

 

I've put an insane amount of effort into planning this year, so I DO know how you feel. It's a real trade-off, getting what you want (customization) vs. your time to stay sane and be with your dc. IF you want to plan out your year and have it go well and do all this ecclectically, it honestly does take a lot of time, no two ways about it. And unfortunately, it seems to take more time each year, not less. But it also means that if what you're doing happens to coincide with what someone else is doing, you can use their (free) plans and take advantage of the time they've put in.

 

Anything we can help you with? What subjects are not going well for you? Is it a systemic thing, as in your whole day, or just one particular subject? I wrote in another thread about using daily checklists. Sometimes the problem isn't that you need lesson plans, so much as you need a daily checklist for your growing dc so they can be more independent, more self-driven. It eliminates the arguing, confusion and controversy, and it fits with their drive for independence. Might be that's all it would take to help you feel more on-track. Make up a basic checklist of the subjects and chores, leave blanks to check them off and blanks to write in lesson numbers. Then make overall plans for each subject for the entire year. Now you just go each day and write in the lesson numbers for the day. It's the el simplest simplest way to get there but has worked really well for us.

[Kris in Wis]

I've tried using a pre-planned curriculum several times, and have never finished one yet. I always find I do so much tweaking, I might as well just save the money and do my own thing anyway!

 

Every pre-planned curriculum includes books that I don't want to use, for various reasons, and DOESN'T include other books I do want to use.

 

Every pre-planned curriculum has assignments/work that I end up skipping.

 

I use the library extensively, so it's very easy to tailor my reading from week to week.

 

So my vote goes to do your own thing! It's much more fun!

Michelle T

 

When I first started homeschooling back in the 90's, I used the whole preplanned, scripted curricula - we started with BJUP. It failed us after only a couple months. I discovered WTM in '99, and it has been my foundation ever since.

 

I would agree with Michelle on all counts. In addition, my kids never liked worksheets much, and with a design-your-own, narration foundation, we accomplish all we need in a much more practical way.

 

We use TruthQuest history, which has superb commentary, excellent book lists, and the flexibility to use which topics and books are important to you and your family.

 

Designing your own program does require research and work, but as you go through the years, planning time lessens. Since you're cycling through, just hang onto those lesson plans for the next time around, using more advanced books.

 

To us it is a waste of money to purchase a structured, preplanned curriculum, but if you aren't willing or able to put in the prep time to plan your own lessons, you probably want something like that. It's a personal preference, I guess.:001_smile:

[The Governess]

I'm not sure if my response will count too much since I haven't even started homeschooling yet, but I'm planning on NOT going with a pre-packaged program. One of the big pulls of homeschooling for me is that I can learn along with my children, and customize their education to fit their interests, learning styles, etc. I am so excited to do some research and find some great books, ideas, and different approaches to the material we will cover. With a pre-packaged deal I'm afraid I would miss out on being able to customize things and be stuck re-living my public school, generic education at our dining table. Also, my children learn in completely different ways (its very apparent to me already!) so I want to customize things for each of them, but still reuse as many of the materials as I can. I'm guessing that a pre-packaged program that works for one would not work for the other and I would end up having to use two completely different ones, which doesn't sound like much fun to me.

 

Anyway, those are the reasons why I will be using a custom curriculum. But I will say that I am scared to death that I will get burnt out trying to plan everything out, do research, etc. I'm trying to do a lot this year, while my dd1 is in preschool: fine tune my approach, decide on long-term curricula like math, etc., get my record keeping methods down, and take tons of notes on ideas for different subjects - a good book to include, an important historical event we don't want to miss, a fun way to cover a certain topic, etc. That way when it is time to start formal schooling I will feel a bit more prepared. Whew. It's a lot of work, but I think it is going to be very rewarding for our family.

 

I hope you find success with whatever you decide!

[sagira]

For my first year or two at least, I like to take a middle of the road approach, which is get things recommended and choose from there, add on more things. That's what I get with a create-your-own curriculum guide from Tanglewood. This way I don't have everything pre-planned, and I have some freedom, but I'm still not left stranded on an island. Or tied to a curriculum with some choices I would eschew.

 

Available at http://www.tanglewoodeducation.com (I swear, I should work for these people!)

[Allison TX]

Thank you all! I appreciate your feedback.:)

 

OhElizabeth, I like your suggestion of a daily checklist. We will try that this year.:)

 

Allison

[Rosie_0801]

A suitable curriculum for religious studies hasn't been made, and wouldn't sell if it had, so I'm piecing that together myself. I may have to end up writing my own for local history, but who knows where we will end up, so I'm in no hurry to start.

:)

Rosie

[Peela]

I have always done my own thing, and sometimes I do a lot of planning- because I enjoy planning- but on our actual school days, it is usually just do the next thing.

I prefer to do my own thing because I can follow our passions, I can adapt a program to my kids' individual temperaments and abilities, and I get to be involved in a way I really enjoy- choosing the literature, the historical fiction, following a 4 year history cycle.

I wonder if you have to be kind of quirky to really enjoy designing your kids' educational program- most people I know IRL, even homeschoolers, don't do it and don't get the buzz out of it that I do. I cant imagine doing it any other way...but, most people cant imagine doing it the way I do it.

[sagira]

That's exactly what I get out of it -- a buzz from the planning and pulling together resources.

[woolybear]

I'm doing a bit of both this year. I started off with a pre-planned curriculum for history, but I have changed so much I'd say it's really my own at this point. For some other subjects I think I will pretty much follow what I've bought and for others I'll just do my own thing.:)

[Staci in MO]

I tried doing my own thing one year, but I didn't follow through as well as I wanted to. Part of it may have been that I was too ambitious for the ages of my kids, and part of it was some major upheavals that occurred, but I also think that a little of it was that I didn't take it seriously enough.

 

I don't know if that makes sense, and since I can't seem to follow curricula I *pay* for, perhaps it's just me. I've tried Sonlight twice, and don't seem to last very long.

 

I seem to do best with a planned curriculum that still gives me flexibility. TOG is a good fit for *me*, because I feel just enough pressure to keep on top of things, but I have enough freedom that I don't feel locked in.

[Laura W.]

For several years I used pre-planned programs. When I had just 1 child who was school age, it worked great. We loved SL K and 1. However, the pre-planned programs (I'm talking SL and WinterPromise) just weren't flexible enough for our family when I started adding more children to the mix.

 

This year I'm planning my own programs for Bible, science, and history. I couldn't find a preplanned program that was the right fit for us and covered the topics I thought our family should study this year.

 

I realize I'm changing, too, as the years go by. I needed a preplanned program at first. If I planned it myself, it was either too much or too little, and the preplanned program helped me relax and know I was covering an appropriate amount of material. Now, a preplanned program feels constraining to me. I still like someone helping with the plan somewhat (if possible), so after we finish our world cultures/geography course we'll be trying Biblioplan. It schedules 2 spines I specifically wanted to use, and it covers the topics I want to cover with my oldest before she starts high school, but I will still have a lot of flexibility in how I use it. That feels good to me right now.

 

Blessings,

 

Laura

[G5052]

I started with Sonlight PK, then did Sonlight K history/lit with Calvert K, and then did several years of self-planned. That had to end as DH's health got worse and I began to work more. Now we've used Sonlight again for several years with more classical choices for language arts and math, and it's been just right for us. Frankly I get more done with Sonlight than I did in the last year of my self-planned studies. My children's test scores are actually better too, although that's not a big deal to me frankly.

 

It's all what works for you!

[WTMindy]

I love planning and I almost always tweak stuff, so I plan my own. :001_smile: