Lessons Learned

After twelve years of homeschooling, my love for this lifestyle has grown, but I've also made some whoppers of mistakes.  Along the way we've learned a lot.  Here are a few of them:

#1  When the child is resisting their work, blame the curriculum, not the child.  After several years of watching the difference between serious foot dragging and speeding through challenging work, I now realize what a tremendous affect curriculum has.  But I didn't know that at first.  I cringe when I remember how I used to berate my oldest for not working harder. Now, when a child isn't learning effectively, or isn't working hard, we switch to something else as quickly as possible, until their eyes get that sparkle of enthusiastic learning.

#2  Schedule matters.  Some people name a flexible schedule as one of the benefits of homeschooling, but we have found that we are more successful when we stick to a regular schedule.  Morning is hard-core school time.  After lunch is quiet, personal work.  We follow a 36-week schedule, just like the schools, but we are able to decide which weeks we school and which weeks we don't.  Negotiating those breaks is a family affair.

#3  Everybody needs rest.   My tendency is to do too much and wear my children out in the process.  I have learned to honor their authentic need for rest, and mine.

#4 Get the best.  When faced with several different curriculum choices, I can't count how many times I've bought the cheapest, didn't like it, bought the next, didn't like it, finally bought the best.  Just get the best from the beginning.  Many of my favorite curriculums are not cheap, but I've learned that we save money in the long run if I just get the good stuff in the beginning.  We spend about $3,500 a year on materials for our five children.  That's the equivalent of tuition for one child at a Catholic school, so we're doing fine.

#5 My time matters.  Sometimes the materials we choose from are about the same for the children, but the way they are organized makes a big difference in my life.  With five children homeschooling, I don't have the luxury of spending hours planning every day.  Materials that take little preparation make this lifestyle sustainable.  I've learned to argue with myself when I say, "oh, it'll be OK."  

CURRICULUM

After years of trying lots of different things, these are our tried and true favorites:
Sonlight — history and literature.  Sonlight is so good, so easy to use, and makes my kids happy.  It's easy to be enthusiastic when your kids beg you, "just one more page!"  The instructor guides are easy to use and save me hours of preparation.   My husband and I love the books too.  We have a running joke that the two of us arm-wrestling over who gets to do history or read alouds with the kids.
Teaching Textbooks — upper level math.  We started Teaching Textbooks several years ago with Pre-Algebra.  I have one daughter who excels at math and another who has a pretty hard time.  Both like this curriculum and both like math after using it.
Institute for Excellence in Writing — writing composition.  After watching my poor daughters get lots of practice at writing badly and feeling unable to help them, we stumbled upon this writing approach.  In one year their writing has gone from poor to very good.
The Idaho Adventure — Idaho history.  State history is important to me because the history of Idaho is the history of my family.  After using two books that were pretty disappointing, we laid out the money for this book and discovered that it was magnificent. 
Sing the Word — Scripture verses set to really good original music.  As part of Sonlight's Bible program, they schedule listening to these pieces.  After a few weeks, my daughters have the verse well memorized and it's a great way to start our day.

We use other curriculum pieces that we like:
Hey Andrew, Teach me Some Greek — biblical Greek.
Christ our Life (Loyola) — catechesis.
Singapore Math — elementary level math.
Think a Grams — critical thinking.
Grammar Ace — grammar.
Simon Peter School Scripture Study — Bible study.
Keyboarding Skills — typing.
Sonlight Science — elementary level science.
Artistic Pursuits — art.
First Language Lessons (Peace Hill Press) — grammar.
All About Spelling — spelling.

And then there are some that we're using, not excited about, and actively searching for something better:
Rosetta Stone — Spanish.  We have found that Rosetta Stone is fine for the first level, but after that its weakness begin to compound.  This year we will try Tell Me More and see what we think.
CLE Chemistry (Christian Light Education) — chemistry.  After two other curriculums didn't work for my teenage daughters, we settled on CLE Chemistry and it's getting the job done, but nobody is raving about how much they love Chemistry.