Make your own Homeschool Curriculum

There are so many homeschool curriculums out there! We really are so blessed to have so many choices. I don’t think it’s a matter of which ones are good or bad, but which ones fit you and your kids.

Curriculum is usually the first thing that comes up when I meet a fellow homeschool parent. I’m always curious to hear what they’ve found that works good for them. Sometimes it gives me ideas of how to enhance my own teaching, but more often it just gives me another example of the many choices available to homeschool families. Learning how to make your own homeschool curriculum makes your choices unlimited.

Our homeschool curriculum story

My first year of homeschooling, starting way back in 2008, we did an online program. This was simple to understand and carry out. I’d have our little son do some activities on the computer, and some out of the book, just like the curriculum said. He was also supplemented with a homeschool enrichment program twice a week. This worked great for us in the beginning.

When his sister got added to our curriculum a couple years later, we had a different story. She did fine with the book work, but couldn’t keep focused on the computer. I’d get her started on a computer activity, go check on someone else, and come back to find her doodling on a paper instead of working. We tweaked her work by using just the books in the same program, and adding some hands on learning with art and science projects. We also kept going to the enrichment program.

Fast forward to when our oldest was about to enter 7th grade and we had almost 7 kids. I felt like I needed to be teaching on a new level for junior high. I also needed a new plan because we’d been doing a local program and we had moved. I looked for more seasoned homeschool parents than I was to give me guidance and advice about how to teach older kids homeschool. They pointed me to some great resources, such as “The Well-Trained Mind” by Susan Wise Bowers and Jesse Wise. That was when I started piecing together books for curriculum instead of just taking what was given to me.

Fast forward one more time to 2022. I was washing the dishes and thinking about what we were going to do for homeschool in the fall. I thought of an American history book I’d picked up several years ago and used as a supplement. I wish we could study that more, I thought, my mind stuck in the routine I’d gotten in. Why not? was my reply to myself. Then I began to get ideas, a little at a time, of ways we could connect Language Arts, Science, and even Math to an American history theme. I was so excited! And we really had a blast studying and celebrating our country that year!

It took me 14 years of homeschooling to figure out how to make my own homeschool curriculum. Now I’m going to show you how, just in case you feel like thinking outside the box this year.

Your Own Homeschool Curriculum Step 1: Know the rules

Each area has it’s own rules and laws regarding homeschool. It’s important to know what those are. In the state of Arizona the law about what to teach in homeschool states, “Every child between the ages of six and sixteen years shall attend a school and shall be provided instruction in at least the subjects of reading, grammar, mathematics, social studies and science.” (Arizona Revised Statute 15-802,  https://www.azleg.gov/) So it basically just lists out 5 subjects that have to be studied. That gives lots of wiggle room for teaching. For specifics on homeschool rules in other areas you might try HSLDA.org. 

In Arizona homeschools need to teach:

• Reading
• Grammar
• Mathematics
• Social Studies
• Science

Your Own Homeschool Curriculum Step 2: Get materials

Sometimes I’ve gotten ideas of what materials I want and have searched to find the right thing. Other times I’ve found a book or something that has made me excited with ideas to use with it. I mentioned in my Culture of Kindness post that a lot of my materials come from Amazon and Christianbook.com, but I’m up for hand-me-downs or whatever looks good. 

Choosing whatever materials fit you and your kids is a fun part of making your own curriculum. As long as you get your main subjects covered, the sky is the limit.

There is a book of poems that I came across in my own writing adventures that I am excited to use in our homeschool next year. That is what I’m going to use to show you how to write your own homeschool curriculum. It’s called “A Kick in the Head: An Everyday Guide to Poetic Forms” with poems selected by Paul B. Janeczko.

Your Own Homeschool Curriculum Step 3: Make a Detailed Plan

This is the part that will take the most work, but I find it a lot of fun. Once you know the rules and find your materials, you need to make a detailed plan to use them so that you are ready when it gets to teaching time.

1) Set up your weekly pattern.

What I do first is set up a pattern for when I’ll be doing what in our school week. We do school 4 days a week, and have 5 subject to cover. Here is a simple version of our weekly pattern for next school year.

2) Line up your materials with your weekly pattern.

Once you know how often you’ll be needing your materials, you can look at them a little closer to make a plan to fill up your school year with them.

Our school year is typically 36 weeks long. With this book, “A Kick in the Head,” I can look in the table of contents to help me figure out how to stretch or shrink the book to fit our school year.

As you can see in the picture, there are more poems than there are weeks of school, but not enough to use one every school day (about 144 days for a 4 day school week). I thought about how I wanted to teach and decided I want to spend a little more time than just one week on one kind of poem so they can get familiar with it and remember a few kinds of poetry when we’re done.

NOTE: Don’t feel like you have to use a whole book to get a good study year. Supplementing to help them focus on one thing at a time might be more beneficial than covering more subject matter. On the other hand, there will be some subjects that you’ll want to use as much of the book as you can. Be flexible for your students, keeping in mind how fast they are be able to learn the materials.

3) Make a plan for each day of the week/month/school year.

I met one homeschool mom who had calendared out each page of a math book her high school daughter would use for each school day that year. That is a perfectly acceptable way to do it.

I find it easiest for me to plan my school year in patterns so I don’t have to get that detailed in my plans.  For example, this year I planned my social studies in a 6 week pattern to learn new concepts about one continent for 5 weeks, then review and test on the 6th week.

To use this “Kick in the Head” book for our own homeschool curriculum, I decided on a 4 week pattern. It looks like this:

I realize I will be needing some more poems of the types we’ll be studying, for which I’ll be using another poetry book we have and the internet.

Now I just have to figure out which kind of poem I’ll use for which for weeks, and specifically which poem for which week. I might write down a plan before the school year starts. But my plan is already detailed enough that I feel like I can plan that part out as we go through the school year.

That’s it. I hope that was more simple than stressful. Planning my own homeschool curriculum is actually one of my favorite parts of homeschooling at this point. I love the freedom for creativity that it gives me.

Thanks for reading my post. Whether you choose to make your own homeschool curriculum or not, I hope you’re enjoying your adventure.