When you have made the decision to homeschool your child(ren), it certainly comes with many emotions, including feeling excited, nervous that you might not feel capable, happy that you get to be part of the basis of your children’s learning, and most importantly, what will be taught and what materials will be used.
You will meet many families who have varied opinions and beliefs when it comes to their methodology for homeschooling. Some belong to co-ops where the children go to a classroom once or twice a week for specific classes or to experience an all-day class environment (while the rest of the week is instructional time at home). Many families develop their own curriculum for at-home instruction and attend weekly social get-togethers for the kids. Other families believe in an unstructured curriculum and let the children lead with what interests them and what they would like to learn about. If you’re new to homeschooling, begin with these steps to organize your homeschool curriculum:
Step 1: Outline your state’s academic benchmarks
Having been an elementary school teacher, I immediately outlined my state’s academic benchmarks for each subject and grade that would be taught for the school year. While a perk of homeschooling is endless options of how and what curriculum is presented, I wanted to ensure I was covering state guidelines. Many states have different guidelines and requirements on homeschooling such as sending in a letter of intent, keeping an attendance log, and not teaching a lesser amount of days than the public school calendar, per state regulation. You simply need to look up your state’s Department of Education webpage and locate the homeschooling link. There is usually a link provided for the people who are in charge of homeschooling for the state. Once you get the paperwork completed, then the curriculum mapping can begin! Don’t worry, this is part of WHY you have chosen this awesome adventure with your child(ren)!
Step 2: What will be taught and how often?
Once I have written down the benchmarks for each subject (language arts, math, social studies, and science), I decide how often each subject area will be taught each week. For example:
Everyday lessons:
- Math
- Spelling
- Reading
- Phonics
- Grammar
Weekly lessons:
- Social studies (3 times a week)
- Science (2 times a week)
- Word study (2 times a week)
- Writing workshop (2 times a week)
9-week terms:
I break down the topics into nine-week terms. Breaking the benchmarks down into terms like this makes planning so much easier and lets you prep units ahead of time—organization and preparing ahead of time saves a lot of time and headaches!
For example:
- Term 1 – Government/Civics and Economics
- Term 2 – Native Americans
- Term 3 – Geography
- Term 4 – Cultures and Society
Step 3: Materials to choose
Now begins the part on deciding what material to use for instruction. You can easily research a topic and be overwhelmed in a matter of minutes because of all of the options! You can find yourself sitting there perplexed at which one would be best for your child(ren), wondering if the material is too easy or too hard, is too expensive to purchase. Even as a teacher, not everything that I chose was a “slam dunk” with my students, so I would go back and re-teach the subject and revise as we proceeded with the lesson, which would wrap with much happier and confident kiddos (always, always take the time to do this, if need be!). Ironically, when I began to homeschool, I immediately turned to some of the materials that I used in my classroom! I wanted to start with some materials that I knew were tried and tested and gave me great results.
Suggested Evan-Moor materials for homeschooling
Two Evan-Moor products that I used many years ago and now use in my homeschooling are:
Daily Language Review is used every day as a warm-up to language arts. This book does an excellent job of keeping students aware of sentence structure and correct grammar.
Read and Understand with Leveled Texts 
Read and Understand with Leveled Texts features a set amount of stories (usually 20–21) where students will need to read the story and complete many different skills such as comprehension questions, vocabulary, part of speech awareness, text features (compare/contrast, cause and effect, summarizing, and many more).
When I taught in the classroom, I would pick a story each week based on what skill was being covered in the classroom. We referred to it as the “LA Packet,” and it would be assigned on Monday and due on Friday. For homeschooling, I use it very similarly with matching a certain story to the skill that we are covering that week, but it is a daytime assignment, not homework (I can already hear my former students voicing their opinions about this!).
Two other books that I have begun to utilize and have incorporated into my lesson plans are:
Evan-Moor’s Take It to Your Seat Reading and Language Centers
Take It to Your Seat Centers are wonderful. Each center is a review game that the children can complete independently—a major perk when you are managing more than one child with instructional time! We have used some of the same centers over and over again as review!
Vocabulary Fundamentals covers very important topics such as compound words, synonyms/antonyms, homophones, and prefixes. This book has quickly become a staple in my curriculum planning!
One benefit that most homeschooling families agree upon is the flexibility and freedom of matching the best level of work. You might have a child that excels in a subject area while one needs more attention in another. All of the materials mentioned above can be utilized in different ways according to what serves your child the best way. As you continue on this journey, you will gain more confidence and identify quickly how some things would work better than others based on the child’s needs.
I certainly hope this has been beneficial and helpful to some who have recently decided to take part in this journey. It is a great commitment, but know that the memories and experiences that will take place are irreplaceable!
Emilie H. is a former elementary school teacher who currently homeschools her children. She has a bachelor’s degree in Elementary Education (K-5) and Learning and Behavior Disorders (K-12). She is very passionate about planning and mapping curriculum and creating meaningful experiences for her children!