Our homeschool curriculum focuses on life skills that will help your kids become lifelong learners. As a homeschooler, you can give your kids the education that you wish you had received. You can give them opportunities and challenges missing from a traditional school setting and an education that does not leave them behind or uninterested in learning.
Homeschooling hacks the education system by bypassing busy work, wasted time spent shuffling in between classes, and lessons designed for the majority instead of your child. Because of the freedom that homeschool allows, you can help you children move past their peers and create a curriculum designed to challenge and excite them.
Start with the basics. One mistake that a lot of people make when they decide to homeschool is trying do too much at once. Our homeschool curriculum focuses on the three Rs (Reading, Writing and Arithmetic) and supplements with other skills and knowledge, such as computer skills, sports and cooking.
Reading, writing and math are the foundation for learning all other academic subjects. Teach those three subjects all year and change up the rest to suit your kids interests and evolving skills.
Opportunities for learning are everywhere. Don’t get hung up on always doing everything right. Be kind to yourself and your child. Try new things and if something doesn’t work, brush it off and try something else. Embrace the process and the journey.
Figuring out your child’s learning style, interests, and strengths to give him/her a better education is worth the effort. When you fail and try again, over time you will get better and so will your children. And you will be teaching them by example the most important lesson of all.
Example Curriculum
The following curriculum is a basic framework. Since you waste less time, you only need a solid 3-4 hours of learning 4 days a week.
Monday – Thursday
Journal (1 page, 30 minutes)
- Create a journal jar and fill it with creative writing prompts.
- Write fun stories together and read them to each other.
- Journaling develops handwriting, grammar and creativity.
- Khan Academy math and grammar (30 minutes each)
- Khan Academy has free online classes in all subjects and all grades with a network of over 200 content experts.
- Learning is personalized, high-quality and self-paced. Students only progress when they master skills.
- Online teachers draw on an electronic blackboard while explaining the concepts thru examples and simple illustrations.
- Sign up for Khan Academy as a teacher and a parent. And sign your child up as a student.
- Create daily assignments and set up progress alerts. Khan Academy makes this really easy.
- Watch a science documentary or TED talk (10 minutes – 1.5 hours)
- We usually watch TED in the morning and a Netflix documentary during lunch.
- Move (aka PE) (30-45 minutes)
- We practice wrestling and Jiu Jitsu all year and ballet periodically.
- Read (30 minutes)
- Choose a book with some unknown vocabulary words from a large list of good books.
- Kids write down and look up unknown vocabulary words as they go.
- Software skills (30 minutes)
- Because computers run the world.
- We recommend LinkedIn Learning and Code Academy or YouTube.
- Additional topic (30 minutes for 2-6 months)
- Make a learning bucket list.
- e.g. Learn a new language with Duolingo and practice at the dinner table.
- Pick something from the bucket list.
- Research places to learn about it.
- Create a list of tasks. Divide those tasks into smaller steps.
- Make a schedule.
- Take action!
- Make a learning bucket list.
Fun Friday – Plan a trip to a museum, go on a hike, make a homeschool play date. Anything that includes learning and fun will do. Bucket List Journey and The Kid Bucket List has some great ideas to get you started.
