Why We’re Changing our Homeschool Curriculum

Exciting things are coming to our 2023/2024 homeschool curriculum! Today I’m sharing what we’ve used for the past 4 years and why our growing family needs a change.

Honestly, I’ve been in what feels like a black hole since 2020. On top of the pandemic, we had two babies, needed significant house repairs, and struggled with postpartum anxiety. So what once worked for our family school-wise got turned on its head.

But we’re finally settling into a bright new normal, and it’s time for a change in curriculum to fit our current lifestyle better.

In the past, we have used My Father’s World and The Good and the Beautiful as our primary curriculum. While always mixing in plenty of living books, outdoor time, and everyday life skills.

My Father’s World was great with just one or two small children. It’s a beautiful place for someone new to homeschooling to start because all the planning and materials are included for you.

But for me, it became complicated, overwhelming, and costly once my boys got older and could no longer share the curriculum.

So we moved on to The Good and the Beautiful. I have used their preschool, pre-k, Kindergarten and 1st grade materials, the science units, and reading practice books. We LOVE this curriculum for its ease, beauty, and quality. 10/10 recommend.

But with a baby, a toddler, and 3 children to homeschool now, I really need my older kids to have something that they can work on independently part of the time.

TGATB (The Good and the Beautiful ) uses a lot of stories and games in their math and language arts curriculum, which requires me to teach and be present 100% of the time for all their different lessons. And that just isn’t realistic with multiple little ones around.

I tried to squeeze all the older boys language arts and math in during nap time. Still, I inevitably had to take lots of breaks to care for the younger ones and towards the end of the year we began slowly skipping lessons and stopping altogether because it was just too much.

So when we found out we were moving in June, I felt the Lord give my perfection/performance-driven self permission to pack everything up and enjoy the summer.

The slow pace has been bliss and I highly recommend anyone homeschooling to schedule breaks for yourself. There is so much magic that happens in the margins.

If you ever feel like you can’t keep up, know you’re not alone. I stayed stuck while forcing myself to finish a curriculum. That wasn’t beneficial for my kids or me. Give yourself so much grace when homeschooling, and here’s your permission slip to let it all go and start over if you need to!

I can’t wait until next week’s post when I’ll be sharing allllll the research I’ve done and what our 2023 homeschool curriculum will be!