Should I switch to a boxed curriculum?

[Emily ZL]

Next year I will be homeschooling kids in PreK, 1st, 2nd, 5th, and there will be 2 littles under foot. This is currently our 2nd year and I generally love HS planning. I love deciding on the very best fit for each child for each subject. However... I'm wondering if it's just better to get the plans and the package and compromise on the curriculum choices for the sake of my sanity, or if I would just regret it and hate it. 

The reason I ask is that right now I have plans for my K/1st grader (CHC) and even though we use a different math and add to their weekly plans (poetry and Bible memory, history, Song school Latin), it really only takes me 15-20 minutes on Sunday to plan our week. Maybe it's because they're so young that they mostly just do the next thing? Or maybe it's because the plans make me feel good about being on track? I don't know. But for my 4th grader, I hand-picked all of his materials and tweaked them all and made my own plan for the year. But still, every Sunday it takes me an hour or so to plan out the week. There are just so many loops and blocks and chapter books and moving parts, and I like to tweak it if he's ahead or behind. But I'm feeling like that's becoming just too much, especially with a new baby almost here, and two more students moving into elementary work. I'm sick of reinventing the wheel.

I've looked at Memoria Press, Catholic Heritage Curricula, Ambleside Online, Mater Amabilis, Veritas Press, Simply Charlotte Mason, Mother of Divine Grace... They all have some great stuff but they all also have a bunch of stuff I don't want to use. I'm always tempted by MP, but my oldest already loves his math and his CAP writing and Latin. Plus it's a 5 day week with 9 subjects per day - how could we not get behind?? I'd rather add to a gentler schedule than take away from a packed one. The CM ones aren't a great fit because I prefer a focus on math, writing, and Latin and I rarely have time to read aloud to a big group with all the littles making trouble. I don't want computer learning though..

I guess I'm wondering what other people have experienced. Did you make the move to just go with a boxed curriculum even if you didn't like all their picks? Was it frustrating and a waste of money or the best move you ever made? Did the non-favorite picks turn out better than expected or did you just go back to what you liked?

[Slache]

50 minutes ago, Emily ZL said:

Next year I will be homeschooling kids in PreK, 1st, 2nd, 5th, and there will be 2 littles under foot. This is currently our 2nd year and I generally love HS planning. I love deciding on the very best fit for each child for each subject. However... I'm wondering if it's just better to get the plans and the package and compromise on the curriculum choices for the sake of my sanity, or if I would just regret it and hate it. 

The reason I ask is that right now I have plans for my K/1st grader (CHC) and even though we use a different math and add to their weekly plans (poetry and Bible memory, history, Song school Latin), it really only takes me 15-20 minutes on Sunday to plan our week. Maybe it's because they're so young that they mostly just do the next thing? Or maybe it's because the plans make me feel good about being on track? I don't know. But for my 4th grader, I hand-picked all of his materials and tweaked them all and made my own plan for the year. But still, every Sunday it takes me an hour or so to plan out the week. There are just so many loops and blocks and chapter books and moving parts, and I like to tweak it if he's ahead or behind. But I'm feeling like that's becoming just too much, especially with a new baby almost here, and two more students moving into elementary work. I'm sick of reinventing the wheel.

I've looked at Memoria Press, Catholic Heritage Curricula, Ambleside Online, Mater Amabilis, Veritas Press, Simply Charlotte Mason, Mother of Divine Grace... They all have some great stuff but they all also have a bunch of stuff I don't want to use. I'm always tempted by MP, but my oldest already loves his math and his CAP writing and Latin. Plus it's a 5 day week with 9 subjects per day - how could we not get behind?? I'd rather add to a gentler schedule than take away from a packed one. The CM ones aren't a great fit because I prefer a focus on math, writing, and Latin and I rarely have time to read aloud to a big group with all the littles making trouble. I don't want computer learning though..

I guess I'm wondering what other people have experienced. Did you make the move to just go with a boxed curriculum even if you didn't like all their picks? Was it frustrating and a waste of money or the best move you ever made? Did the non-favorite picks turn out better than expected or did you just go back to what you liked?

I'm compromising this coming year. I had designed our own Greek, Japanese and content studies. This year I'm buying open and go for those three. I'm still choosing the individual curriculum rather than buying a box, but it's going to be simpler to implement.

Also, I do a lot of prep work at the beginning of the term. All the printing and counting out lessons and such. This makes my weekly prep much less.

[Slache]

Don't change anything he loves.

[carriede]

I got to the same point as you when my oldest was 3rd grade. I started homeschooling with TWTM and got tired of having to reinvent the curriculum every year (for multiple children!).

I chose to go with MP, but only for the subjects I was tired of... we stuck with the math and grammar we liked. I was planning on using MP for Latin anyway, so that was my foot-in-the-door.

So figure out which subjects you would rather not antagonize over. Then look at those boxed curricula ONLY in those subjects and see what you think.

(As a side note on MP - you can still get a sizable discount even if you don't get a full core. If you get "enough" subjects and purchase the curriculum guide for that grade level, they'll give you a discount. Send them an email of what you want, and they'll send you a quote back, no obligation to buy.)

[carriede]

Another strategy you might consider is the "go down the list" method. Yes, many schedules expect you to do so many lessons in so many days, but that's hard to do in real life.

So instead of saying "it's Tuesday, we must get these 10 things done listed under Tuesday!" you might instead start at the top, work your way down until you need to be done for the day, then pick up where you left off the next day (even if its Wednesday and your starting Tuesday's 7th assignment).

This doesn't work for me, but others have found this a helpful mental shift!

[Janeway]

I think a boxed curriculum will make all your problems worse, big time. You need to consolidate anything you can..science, history, etc. Then only do things separate that must be because they involve basic skills such as math.

[2_girls_mommy]

My kids all got their own math and language arts at their levels, has to be done. (We happened to like Rod and Staff.) Then we worked together through WTM "afternoon" subjects: History ala WTM 2 days a week, Science ala WTM 1- 2 days a week, one afternoon of art, and one day a week for co-op or field trips or extra projects/finishing up for the week. I felt like I set up WTM history and science to be pretty open and go. Yes I did get all of the library books, but library day was a regular for us anyway. One day a week we hit storytime, and I requested next week's books on the computer, picked up the ones I had requested last week, all using my SOTW AG, and the kids played toys or computers or colored while I spent a few minutes doing that. 

I did not super plan read alouds or extra books. We just had a basket that I picked from. I found at different times, what time of day worked best for read alouds. I used to do bedtime when they were little, but after hsing started, I was just too plain tired at the end of the night. So then I switched to reading to them over the lunch table while they ate before they played outside. A chapter each day that we were home while they finished lunch, then went out to play added nothing much to my day. I didn't stress if didn't to everything on all of the lists. We just read. 

I set up everything to be open and go in the summer and didn't worry about how far we got in anything. We had notebooks set up. I figured out how many math I ought to do a month to finish in a year. I decided that on the first history day we would read a section, do the map and color sheet. ON the second history day we would read the next section, do the narration, and do a project. 

For art time, I just made sure we did art during that time each week. Sometimes I worked through a specific program or book. Sometimes I used that time to do a SOTW art project or a seasonal project or a girl scout or co-op project that we had due. As long as we put in time that one designated day, I varied what we did over the years.  

I still spend a few days before each new semester starts to go through my books, review and set up lessons for the week, make copies, and prepare everything for weeks at a time to be open and go. I do basically no planning on a weekly basis except pick up library books or do my own reading keeping up with a book or program they are working through.  When I taught at co-op, I did the class teaching, and another mother did the weekly copying for me. It was easier for her to run to the copy place to get the week's copies made because I had younger kids at the time. It helped me a bunch, and it worked for her. I didn't mind reading and studying the lesson. She liked learning it, helping one on one, but not leading the class. 

Edited January 24, 2020 by 2_girls_mommy

[Clemsondana]

I only have 2 kiddos, but I have found that anything that is set with a 5 days/week, 36 week schedule doesn't work at all at my house.  First I have to modify for co-op day (you might not have that but might have some other 'out of the house' day for lessons or field trips).  Then I feel like we can't ever take a week, or even a day here and there, to do something different.  During the elementary years, we always had math (we love Singapore) and handwriting (HWOT, which, after letters are learned in K is independent).  I do phonics for as long as it's needed.  We add spelling at some point and do as long as we need it. I have used spelling books but have also just pulled words from vocab or other subjects - even phonics lessons.  Grammar shows up around 3rd-4th grade.  I've used workbooks (the critical thinking company has some good ones) and the MCT program, which is teacher-intensive but also can be used with multiple ages (and only your oldest would be likely to be the right age right now).  

In the K-4 years I based our science and history on the Core Knowledge sequence, although there are lots of plans that would work.  I did alternating units each year -  a month of geography, then a month of world history, then a month of science, then a few weeks of art, then a month of US history, another month of science, then music history.  These weren't all strictly a month - anywhere from 3-8 weeks, depending on topic.  I would just go to the library and/or raid our bookshelves to find appropriate books about explorers, or early US history, or the human body or the solar system, etc.  The kids might be learning about different parts of US history depending on grade (and you could clump your youngers together) but I would just fill a basket with acceptable books and they could choose something to read each day.  It could also include coloring pages or we could do a project - it would depend on the kid.  We used an Even-Moore geography workbook during that unit for a particular grade (I don't remember which).  Exactly how we did these unit varied depending on the kid.  One was happy to just read (and was an early reader).  For the other, they'd look at an illustrated book or read from 'What your 1st grader needs to know' at the appropriate grade.  Then they'd draw, or build a model, work a floor puzzle (we had presidents, a map, the human body, and the solar system) or occasionally we'd do a craft or try a food.  In other words, elementary history and science involved lots of looking at books and reading, occasional simulations or drawings, but very little output  We'd sometimes watch documentaries or listen to different genres of music.  As long as they could do math, write, and read then any content learning was good.   Then in later elementary I started having them sometimes write a few sentences, and then we progressed to paragraphs, about what they were learning.  In 5th-6th grade we worked on stringing paragraphs together and the MCT writing program that we started in grades 4-5 was a big help with that, although there are lots of ways to work on writing.  

[vonbon]

On 1/26/2020 at 10:47 AM, ClemsonDana said:

I only have 2 kiddos...

I hope you don't mind, I PM'd you?  Had a few questions but didn't want to derail this whole thread or start a new one, necessarily.  I'm not online throughout the day, but I will check back in at some point during the week.