Spring Planning Special: Take a Survey!

Once I understood that joy was the best motivation for learning, I had to change the way I shopped. Prepared curriculum packages had become a slippery slope. I was feeling my way into new terrain. I tried a number of methods.

At one point, I gave some curriculum catalogs and brightly colored markers to my boys and told them to circle whatever they liked. They nearly always picked things that looked dangerous or like birthday presents.

One son held an ongoing campaign to purchase books that would teach him how to survive on whatever he could forage from the backyard and surrounding neighborhood. He also wanted to collect preserved specimens. I didn't even know that some of these creatures existed, much less that they could be preserved for posterity.

My other son wanted to build every kind of robot and gadget the catalogs offered. He dreamed of filling the house with machines. Let me tell you, if you want to build things, you can find some weird stuff for sale.

Still, the information I gained this way was priceless. It gave me a window into what brought them joy. This became an important part of picking curriculum for our school every year -- just asking them what they wanted and letting them respond without being censored.

I made no promises. But I let them express themselves.

A Sure Path to New Ideas

If your school is tired, if everyone is unhappy, or if you are just looking for a way to breathe fresh air into your program, try it.

Try asking your kids what they would like for school. If they can't think of anything, hand them a curriculum catalog or let them look online. Let them pick anything that looks interesting. Tell them there are no right answers. Explain that you are just getting feedback.

Don't worry about getting "correct" answers. Most kids won't show any interest in textbooks. Instead, they'll pick things that seem completely inappropriate -- equipment for a hobby, something silly and messy, or even something that looks like it's designed to annoy.

No matter what, it's still helpful feedback. Make a note of it. Think about it. What does it say about the need for joy? What are these choices telling you?

What about Older Students?

In high school, there's lot of pressure to meet expectations. In those years, I had to fight the temptation to dictate what must get done and the worry about being legitimate. The problem is, we do have to worry about that -- we need to learn to translate our courses into terms that make sense to accreditation agencies and colleges. We need to be sure that our courses are generally equivalent to high school courses.

Even so, our best work is done where there is joy.

Allowing our kids to follow their own interests and passions is the smartest investment we can make in their education. They will develop into adults who are gifted and have found something they do with excellence.

So, go ahead. Ask. Don't say it can't be done. Do some research. Nearly anything is possible. You can always arrange the studies to make them work like a course for credit.

Spring Planning Special: Choosing Curriculum For Joy!

Learning can be hard work. It often is. But it can also be our joy.

Slowly, over the years, my children taught me this. Joshua's love of nature, even its unsavory aspects, led us to strange activities. The first of these was our "insect zoo". He captured insects, put them into clear containers, fed and observed them. We studied large pictures of bugs, learned about their body parts, and examined how they functioned. During this time, I had recurring nightmares of large bugs crawling toward me and over me with heightened details. I was relieved when this stage passed. But for my son, it was a glory. I still have photos of him, his face beaming, with his arm around his zoo specimens. Years later, when he became a National Merit Scholar, Joshua was asked to give a speech at his graduation ceremony. He talked about how homeschooling allowed him to pursue the things that delighted him. He used the insect zoo as his example, and he thanked me for allowing him to do it. His words were, "This is homeschooling at its best."

The perspective I now have of nearly two decades is a great advantage. There are many things that were foggy to me when I was slogging through the daily effort of homeschooling which are now clear. Beyond any doubt, our best work was done when there was joy. It's that simple. Nothing we did, and I mean nothing, mattered more.

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Take a few minutes to think about what is enjoyable in your home school. Is there anything that delights, that brings fresh joy? This is important, but few homeschoolers think of it. The reason for paying attention to this is that the joy shows you something that is ideal, something that you should emphasize, protect, even repeat in other subject areas. What is working well? Why?

Where is the joy in your school? Make a note of it now, before you begin planning for next year.

Spring Planning for the Home School

As the calendar turns to March, many homeschooling moms turn to the annual task of choosing curriculum. Some of you don't have to think much about this because you are using a standardized, boxed curriculum and you simply order the materials for the next grade. But for many moms, the early spring is full of thoughts about next fall. Last week, I was amused by the mother who posted this question on a website: "Am I the only one who is obsessed with curriculum right now?"

It took us three full years to understand the way we needed to organize our learning adventures and how we should shop. Every family must find what works for them. That's the beauty of homeschooling. We can use a custom-fit for the needs that are present. One of the keys to our process was for me to have enough time to assess and plan thoughtfully.

I found that setting aside some time in March worked wonders for the year ahead and for our current year. That's because the first thing I did was assess what we had accomplished over the last 6 months. I put the schoolwork into looseleaf binders which were divided into subject areas. I made notes. How much had we done? What had worked well? What had not worked at all? How much farther could we reasonably go into the material by June? I based my projections on the reality we had been since September.

I learned that I needed quiet and space for this task. So I made arrangements for the kids, either with their dad, a relative, a friend, or a sitter. I used Friday and Saturday afternoons for my work, and I rewarded myself with a "treat" on Saturday night and an afternoon nap on Sunday.

Rewards are important for me. I need an incentive to push myself to get work done. Appointments are essential. By arranging for the kids, I made an appointment to do the work. That kept me accountable.

Beginning this in March let me work on it before the distractions of spring sports and events began. It also gave me two full months before a curriculum fair in May. What I thought should take one month actually took two. And that was the first rule.

A job always takes at least twice as long as I think it will. Always.

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What about you? Have you started thinking about curriculum for next year? How do you like to do your planning?