Creating our “gap year” curriculum

When we decided to withdraw our kids for their 4th and 6th grade year this year, I barely knew where to start. Choosing the right curriculum and method for your students can make or break your school year.

The pressure was compounded for me since we are not planning to homeschool indefinitely. We are open to it, but we plan to take it year by year. So our curriculum needs to be close enough to what their classmates will be learning in public school so that they will not need remediation when they return.

My process may be entirely different from yours, but perhaps seeing how I broke down the decision making can help you.

The first step was to ask my experienced homeschooling friends to just point me in a direction. Then I searched the school district’s general plan for the grades I will be teaching. And then I read and watched so many reviews of particular curriculum.

Ask for help

Thankfully the Internet connects us to people from all walks of life, right? I went to friends who have taught their kids for at least a few years, and who have children around the same age as mine. “What curriculum do you like?” Their recommendations carried more weight than those of internet strangers.

Next, there are gobs of curriculum review videos available. If you start leaning toward one math book or another, search for reviews of that book. When you keep hearing about some curriculum, watch reviews. Honestly, I like watching “why we stopped using ___ and why” style reviews. I want to know why people chose not to continue the same series for a second year. Their reason might convince me or it might not matter to me.

There are also Facebook groups of all kinds. Search “curriculum for sale” in your county. There are homeschool groups online. Ask questions. Something I’ve observed with gratitude is that good homeschool moms love to teach–even newbies who sound like puppies lost on the vast sea of homeschool possibilities.

If there is a certain style of homeschool or curriculum or special need that you are interested in, search for a group around that series. There is sometimes nothing more helpful than being able to ask a specific question and have a few experienced parents say, “I’ve been there and here’s what I did…”

Hint: if you are asking questions, do a little bit of searching first, so you have specific questions besides, “Help! How do I teach my kid?!” And be clear on the front end about what grade, age, subject you are asking about.

Compare and contrast curriculum options to state standards of learning

After dipping my toes in the water, I went to the county website to review the Academic Standards for each subject and each grade. This is based off the state’s educational standards.

If you want to make sure your kids are staying on track with their public school classmates, search “[your state]’s educational standards” and you’ll find it pretty quickly. In fact, as I wrote this paragraph I just found a great curriculum map for Georgia’s standards. (Thanks, Joy, for sending me the detailed Social Studies maps for the girls!)

Now. I realize these standards refer to Common Core. Some people have very strong feelings about Common Core, and honestly, I’m not one of them. Common Core is often vilified among conservative circles as having hidden agendas and complicated math. Really, the basic concept is that all the states in the U.S. use the same pattern and goals for each grade. This is what I’m using as a guide for the scope of their entire educational career. If my kids need to learn Astronomy this year so that they aren’t lost next year when they go back, then we will cover Astronomy. This avoids redundancy and missing whole topics of study.

The goal is to serve my kids and equip them for success–not to entertain any dreams I might have of “the right way to homeschool.”

When I was homeschooled, we changed curriculum so frequently that somehow I learned about the ancient civilizations for several years yet never learned about modern history. It is a huge gap. To be honest, I am looking forward to learning our Social Studies material this year because it will fill in so many holes in general world history knowledge.

If you plan to keep homeschooling for a while, you can jump on one of the programs that runs through a several year cycle, or can choose to focus on material that’s entirely different from what your school district does. That is the beauty of homeschooling. You are now the boss of your school.

Take notes, buy books

I used my calendar, which I wasn’t using to keep track of anything else, to jot down the books and programs that sounded promising, for one kid or the other. And I wrote down the YouTube channels that were helpful. I checked off the subjects for each of my kids as I found and ordered the materials we needed.

Most of my books have come from Christianbook.com. They usually have free shipping for orders over $35, and something is always on sale. Anything that wasn’t on sale that I knew I wanted, I just left in my cart for a while until it became 30% off.

Meanwhile I kept my eyes on the Facebook groups for used books. I’ve checked it a few times a week. We chose a couple of things based on what was available for $25 and 20 minutes of driving, instead of $60 and a few weeks of waiting.

I have noticed that there are a lot of books on backorder from the publishers, which is kind of wild. These are unprecedented times, after all!

And then… start.

We plan to start on August 12, when the schools around us start. (They will be beginning digitally, and then plan to bring a few classes at a time, until later this year everyone is in school. We shall see.) I am not quite ready, but nearly all my books are here or on their way. But without a start date, I could prepare indefinitely.

As the chief administrator and director of your educational establishment (your homeschool), you get to decide how you start, when you start, and how much work you do each day. Don’t have your science books yet? That’s fine – start without science. Kids in school do not do every subject every single day.

As I’ve planned, it has been important for me to step back periodically. Since I spent a good deal of the weekdays trying to figure out our goals and needs and requirements, on the weekends I chose not to open any of those tabs on my computer.

I could very easily obsess over making sure everything is thought of and covered and that I have every book we need before we start. But the truth is that if God is calling us to this new venture, He can provide what we need to complete it.

A post is coming shortly with the specifics of what we have and why we chose it. And what is still undergoing construction.