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Why Buying Curriculum Won’t Make You a Homeschooler (But What Will)

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This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

You should have seen it! It was the newest hyper speed printer you’ve ever seen in a homeschool household. I kept it busy night and day printing hefty 3-inch binders full of every subject I could dream of to teach my then preschoolers. At the end of three months when it was time to start my first official day of homeschool, I was already burned out. Buying curriculum and printing everything I could find on the internet didn’t anymore make a homeschooler than buying my son’s first car made him an experienced driver.

You couldn’t have convinced me then that unless I had purchased curriculum, I wasn’t a full member of the national unified happy homeschoolers society. (No, there is no such club.)

So You Call Yourself a Homeschooler, Uh

Instead of focusing on buying curriculum, which is only part of the homeschool puzzle, I should’ve been educating myself on homeschool approaches, my definition of education, and trusting a child’s natural bent to learn.

Why Buying Curriculum Won't Make You a Homeschooler (But What Will)

Curriculum seems to be the hallmark of identifying yourself as a homeschooler. While it’s important to have curriculum, I’v learned that:

  • curriculum doesn’t really teach anything,
  • you need very little to get started,
  • focusing on the three Rs – reading, writing, and ‘rithmetic is the starting point,
  • subjects like history, geography, art, and science can wait for a for while as you focus on the three Rs,
  • understanding what is the homeschool lifestyle is of much more importance, and
  • understanding what is NOT homeschooling is just as important as calling yourself a homeschooler.

How to Instantly Become a Homeschooler

You don’t have to wait long to become a homeschooler. It’s not buying curriculum that advances you; it is about adopting ideas from the homeschool lifestyle.

One common weave of all successful homeschoolers is that they think out of the box. Determined to not follow the same method of teaching that wasn’t working in public school, a true homeschooler takes time to know her children first. Then, she finds curriculum to meet her needs. She doesn’t buy curriculum then make her family adjust to it.

True homeschoolers appreciate quickly that:

  • they’re free to choose when and how they learn,
  • they can set their own deadlines,
  • more emphasis can be given to their child’s interests,
  • lessons can be short and still be rigorous,
  • kids are encouraged to be problem solvers and independent thinkers,
  • the day and lesson plans can be flexible,
  • traveling is part of the homeschool lifestyle and
  • that kids do learn by living.

Although we say it all the time, a true homeschooler takes time to understand how curriculum is a tool. A tool can wield great power and hurt others if the user does not know how to use it well.  Like any dangerous tool in our home, we take time to read the instructions well and take great care when using any tools around our kids.

However. new homeschoolers pick up curriculum and command it with such force and that if their kids have trouble, they question first the child instead of the homeschool approach or curriculum. When completing curriculum is set up as the absolute measure of a child’s progress instead of measuring progress individually, a child could be left feeling worthless.

Unintentionally, the harm at home may become worse than what was going on in public school.

Like any tool, sometimes it needs to be used longer, other times it needs to be put down. It reminds me of baking bread. At times, I need to use my kitchen tools and other times I put it away and use my hands. Using my hands is the only way I can tell how well the dough mixed and the consistency of it.

Teaching is the same. If we never take a hands-on approach to our child’s learning, learn to put down the curriculum and change things in the curriculum fit our child, we will never have a pulse for how our child is advancing. Homeschooling will be a struggle from the start and stay hard period.

Use free online curriculum like Easy Peasy All In One to find a true starting point for buying curriculum. I know some homeschoolers who use Easy Peasy primarily and supplement it. Personally, I prefer to buy curriculum and supplement with free curriculum because I want to hand pick curriculum that is unique to each child’s strength.

Also, true homeschoolers avoid the thinking that all of their kids have to use the same math or language arts program. One sanity saving tip is for your kids to learn together. However, you’ll want to take time to understand which subjects can easily be taught together and which subjects are best learned separately. Look at the tips here on my post Skill Subjects vs. Content Subjects: What’s the Difference.

Besides using free curriculum and free online tests to gauge a starting point, a seasoned homeschooler includes her child’s interest as part of her curriculum. When a child comes from public school they’ve been taught to take a passive approach to learning. In otherwords, the teacher dictated the lesson plans and subjects.


Although a child may have been a good public school student, had excellent grades, and be responsible, he was not a partner in lesson making. This concept may seem offensive to the average public school teacher. To a homeschool mom, the concept of including a child in what interests him and how he learns is the first step to independent learning. We’ve learned that an obedient child doesn’t always equal a child interested in learning lifelong. It just means they learned to do what was necessary to get by or to have good grades.

Intrinsic learning happens by independent learning. By giving choices to our kids, we seem them as a partner to their learning and not a passive bystander.

My bountiful binders full of printing material cost me a fortune to print and cost more in stress. Only doing a handful of the worksheets, I learned quickly that preschoolers learn best by doing and not by all the school-ish things I had got ready. Thankfully, my misguided exuberance didn’t mess my sons up for life.

Why Buying Curriculum Won't Make You a Homeschooler (But What Will). You should have seen it! It was the newest hyper speed printer you've ever seen in a homeschool household. I kept it busy night and day printing hefty 3-inch binders full of every subject I could dream of to teach my then preschoolers. At the end of three months when it was time to start my first official day of homeschool, I was already burned out. Buying curriculum and printing everything I could find on the internet didn't anymore make a homeschooler than buying my son's first car made him an experienced driver. Click here to read how to become a homeschooler!

I had time to change my attitude to appreciate that buying curriculum did not a homeschooler make.Have you made the same mistake?

Look at these other tips you’ll love:

Hugs and love ya,

Deschooling: Step One for the New Homeschooler (the Definitions, the Dangers, and the Delight)

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This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

Take the kids out of public school one day, begin homeschooling the next day; it’s a common rookie mistake. And it seems almost impossible to change to a relaxed mindset when you jump from one stressful situation into another one. Deschooling is the first step for any new homeschool family.

Public school kids turned homeschooled kids are not the only ones that  benefit from a deschooling process. Parents who’ve never sent their kids to public school need a deschooling period and need to resist the challenge of beginning public school at home.

How to Shove Back at the Rigidity of Public School

Newbies who follow a deschooling process minimize beginner’s stress and maximize the best beginner’s moments and have good memories for a lifetime.

Homeschoolers, on the other hand, who take no time to understand and implement a plan for the transitional period can set themselves up for a hard road. There are a few guidelines you’ll want to follow.

Start with the basics first. Look the definitions below and then I’m sharing the dangers and how to make this time period a delight.

Deschooling Defined – And No It’s Not Unschooling

Deschooling is a process and unschooling is a homeschool approach.

Regardless of which homeschool approach, i.e. classical, unschooling, unit studies, or Charlotte Mason you follow, deschooling is the first step.

Definitions vary, but most of them include these critical pieces of information.

Deschooling is a period of time when all family members rest both physically and mentally from a public school lifestyle. Resting is the first phase. Even if you have a child that has never attended public school, it’s about defining your understanding of what is homeschooling.

It’s the time to unlearn what you think education should be as taught from a public school mindset and to be open to new, natural, and creative ways to teach your kids.

It’s realizing that taking your kids out of school one day and doing the exact thing at home  the next day that wasn’t working in public school is the definition of insanity (ouch).

It’s letting go and letting in something new in your life; it’s accepting the homeschool lifestyle which is opposite of the public school lifestyle.

It’s having humility to start over learning a new educational approach. More important, it means taking time to get to know your child unlike you have before when he was away from you for eight hours.

Moving away from focusing just on curriculum and focusing on the needs first of your family is at the core of the process.

Embracing tears and fears and excitement and eagerness all at once is the norm. It’s not just filtering and embracing raw emotions, but it’s being active in learning everything about how to homeschool.

During the deschooling process, some families take a much needed family vacation, others fill their days with trips to the museum, to the beach, to the library and try to learn another pace.

How to Determine the Length of Deschooling

What to do during the relaxation period and how long to deschool varies for each family, ages of your kids, and circumstances. One rule of thumb says that for every year the child is in public school take off a month.

That may seem excessive to some, but my experience has been it’s pretty close.

During the deschooling period, it does not mean a family is not learning. It does mean they’re learning in a relaxed pace set to the rhythm of the family.

It doesn’t mean rigidity; it does mean routine. Throwing all caution to the wind is not the purpose of deschooling.

In helping many new homeschoolers to transition to the homeschool lifestyle, I know that older children feel more comfortable with a routine pretty quickly. Just don’t saddle them with many worksheets and subjects while you’re investigating together what they want to learn.

A transitional period requires time to allow each member of the family time to unlearn old ways of learning and focus on the interests of each kid.

This also includes you. Stepping back and analyzing what type of teacher you want to be and assessing what are the current needs of each child takes time and you have it.

Part of the deschooling process is not feeling hurried to keep pace of public school to begin in August and end in May.

Many states have relaxed homeschool laws and you have time to start up your school year. Too, as you’ll learn, most homeschool families have a formal start and stop to their year,  but we also know that learning takes place naturally pretty well everyday. There are many opportunities to learn that don’t have to be scheduled.

The longer the child has been in public school, the longer it takes.

It’s true too that sometimes it’s harder to take the public school mentality out of the parents than it is to take it out of the kids. Like any other significant change in your life, a job change, adding a newborn to your family, or moving, you can’t fast forward the deschooling or adjustment period. It takes time.

Activities for a Meaningful Deschooling Period 

How active or not a family is when they’ve stepped off the public school treadmill varies according to each circumstance.

If your child has been bullied and you’ve fought daily for him at school, you’ll want more time at home healing and being together. If you have a young child that has not been in public school too long, but long enough to be bored, you may want to find local classes for him to join.

Like I mentioned before, deschooling is a relaxed pace or process and it doesn’t mean a state of nothingness. You want to take back the control of teaching and start by feeding your children’s desire to learn subjects or do activities that interests them.

Rekindle the spark of learning and that doesn’t happen by throwing a workbook at a kid or putting them in front of a computer. It just doesn’t.

Kids need you, they need their family, and they need to take ownership of their learning. Start by asking them what they want to learn. Then, research it on the computer or go to the library – together.

Field trips, zoos, living history reenactments, and museums have a way of igniting that dwindling spark.

Activities don’t have to be expensive. A walk on the beach, a trip the local nature reserve, camping together as a family, taking an art class together, taking a cooking class, going to the movies, trips to the library, lounging around reading stories that interests your children, craft time, and park time are just a very few possibilities all now opened to your family.

When Are You Finally Cured of the Public School Mindset?

There is probably not a time that you won’t think about public school because we’re infected by the educational madness and unbalanced view of how much time it really takes to teach a child.

But there does come a time when you see all family members naturally putting their needs and wants for learning ahead of popular opinion on what a child needs to learn.

We all know kids need the three Rs – reading, writing, and ‘rithmetic. Beyond the core subjects, the rest of what we learn and how we learn it is subjective.

To illustrate: A relaxed homeschool educator knows that learning how to write (a core subject) mixed with reading a history story or doing a hands-on science activity (the fun subjects) makes learning meaningful.

While the core subjects are absolutely essential, it’s valuable to teach them only to the extent they’re practical, useful, and make learning come alive.

When that method for teaching a child is followed year after year, you win over your child as a partner to his learning.

Instead of being passive learners, they’re an active participant in it. Therein lies the subtle, but significant difference between spoon feeding a child to high school ( not recommended and won’t work) and gently guiding your child’s love for learning.

Are You Bulldozing Ahead to Deschooling Danger?

Most all homeschool families have and want rigorous academic standards, but not all of them have abandoned the archaic ways of the past like torture and confinement. Just kidding, although some days I wonder when I read how parents charge ahead to purchase curriculum as if curriculum infuses what was lost at public school.

Curriculum is just one piece of the homeschooling puzzle.

It’s so much easier throwing a workbook at your child than it is to jump in and determine the best learning approach for him, the best schedule, and how to determine the order of the subjects.  I’m not saying we can’t start by using workbooks, but it has to be a tool and not the teacher.

Jumping from one stressful situation in public school to another stressful situation at home equals a great big ole’ heap of unneeded stress.

It’s not a waste of time to step back, relax, and read about homeschooling while learning together.

Deschooling Resources

Look at some of these resources that will help you to deschool.

If you’ll thoroughly grasp the homeschool laws of where you live, fold in family activities that suit your family, begin slowly, read everything you can read while you start slow, you’ll avoid a unrecoverable crash and burn.

Telling you that you won’t have problems or burn out is untruthful.

Deschooling: Step One for the New Homeschooler (the Definitions, the Dangers, and the Delight). Take the kids out of public school one day, begin homeschooling the next day; it's a common rookie mistake. And it seems almost impossible to change to a relaxed mindset when you jump from one stressful situation into another one. Deschooling is the first step for any new homeschool family. CLICK HERE to grab these AWESOME tips from a seasoned veteran!

I’m telling you that you’ll need many times to come back to deschooling to get readjusted and then your journey will be memorable for the right reasons.Do you have any questions about deschooling?

Also, you’ll love these other helps:

Hugs and love ya,

How to Create a Homeschool Unit Study – Step 2: Separation

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This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

If you’re wanting to homeschool out of the box, but are unnerved about the planning part of unit studies, you’ll want to start first with understanding the learning process.

How to create a homeschool unit study is done easily when you follow my mnemonic I-SIP.How to Create a Homeschool Unit Study - Step 2: SeparationI-SIP is something I created after I looked back and understood the 4 steps I followed regardless of whether unit studies are lengthy or quick.

The I-SIP steps are immersion, separation, individualization and personalization.

Homeschool Unit Studies: Moving From Immersion to Separation

In my first post on how a unit study unfolds, I shared points to identify the first step which is immersion. It is the one that can be most tempting to quit unit studies because you get totally immersed in an overwhelming amount of information.

Today, I’ll be sharing Step 2 which is separation and giving you tips on how to separate all the information or resources you’ve amassed. A lot of any good thing still needs to be spaced out and manageable in the best way to teach your kids.

At this point because you didn’t really limit subtopics, but explored them along with your kids, you now have an idea of the ideas or subtopics that interests your kids and which ones do not.

The length of time to stay in the  immersion or Step 1 varies for us with each unit study. When I first started doing unit studies, we would stay days or weeks on this step.

Looking back, I almost quit unit studies because I went overboard with the amount of information I tried to cram in.

So after doing unit studies for quite a few years, my most basic tip is that Step 1 shouldn’t last as long you may think. Whetting the appetite of your children is the goal and that can be anywhere from a few hours to a few days.

Delving into subtopics deeper is Step 3 – Investigation. Slicing and dicing material is what you’re doing in Step 2 – Separation.

5 Ways to Tame the Unit Study Information Beast

Also, this separation step is the first step which makes a unit study unique to your family.

Look at these 5 ways to tame the unit study information beast.

1)  Select subtopics that interests your kids and limit the subtopics.

This is an obvious because you want your kids engaged. Allowing them to pick some of the subtopics piques their interest and your kids understand that this is their education.

By allowing them to choose the subtopics or themes to your unit study you already have kids that are engaged.

Also, it’s at this step that you narrow the teaching points so that your kids learn instead of trying to cram in too much information.

Look at my FBI sample below where I limited the subtopics to about 8.

2) Select subtopics that you need to introduce to your kids or that meet your scope and sequence goals.

Here at this point is the hidden benefit of unit studies. Folded in with subtopics that pique your child’s interests are topics or teaching points you need or want to teach your kids.

For example, when we did our FBI Unit Study, I chose a subtopic Why Formed because I knew we needed to cover Russian history and world history.

My kids chose topics like espionage and radio wave learning and I added in some hands-on ideas like finger prints and invisible ink for a fun unit study.

The point is that covering world history was so much more engaging when we studied it in light of  my sons’ desire to learn about the FBI.

3) Plan for subtopics that build character or have lasting value for your family.

Also, every family is different, but at this point I also look for ways to make teaching points for character or for real-life learning.

Some unit studies like novels or literature may be easier to adapt to teach a moral or about the effects of making good or bad choices. Other topics like science unit studies may not be as natural to find a character point to teach.

4) Start planning for hands-on ideas or projects that fit your subtopics or themes.

From the subtopics that are coming to the surface that interest your family, you can start brainstorming easy projects or hands-on ideas to cement teaching points of each subtopic.

For example, in planning our Meso-America unit study we were going to learn about rubber. My youngest son was interested in games using the rubber made ball.

Some subtopics like nature may seem an easier fit for hands-on activities while a literature unit study may not be so apparent.

Just remember that you can add hands-on activities in as you move along in your unit study.

5) Include subtopics or ideas for both younger and older children.

What I really love about unit studies is that you can cover topics or ideas for your younger and older kids. Be sure to grab a mix of them. You can see how I do that below.

Including your kids in helping to plan is part of unit studies, but this step is one that is mostly for you.

Look at my planning page from my Ultimate Unit Study Planner.

Sample of how to plan FBI Homeschool Unit StudyMy unit study theme is in the center of my brain storming ideas.

Then look how I numbered the subtopics that emerged around that main theme.

Some subtopics like espionage my boys chose, but look how I folded in number 2 which is a U.S. Government study. This was a high school level unit study and we needed to focus on a deeper study of the U.S. Government.

The green line connecting the study of the U.S. Government to the 3 Branches of the U.S. Government shows how I broke down that topic for my younger son.

In addition, look at number 7 where I added in study themes for my older boys which are communism and understanding Russia.

Here are the subtopics that have emerged after I started planning the FBI unit study and after my sons had a day or two to see what piqued their interests.

  • J.Edgar Hoover
  • U.S. Government
  • Effects of World War I and World War II
  • Other Important People During the Forming of the FBI
  • World of 1908
  • Science behind Labs
  • Why Formed?
  • Espionage

As you can see, it ended up being a balance unit study plan.

I had history, geography, and science as subjects that could easily be covered in a natural way without a forced fit.

Planning is that easy. Now, it’s time to move on to the next step which is personalization.

Does this mnemonic help you to remember how to start off planning a unit study?How to Create a Homeschool Unit Study Step 2: Immersion. If you're wanting to homeschool out of the box, but are unnerved about the planning part of unit studies, you'll want to start first with understanding the learning process. Look at tips on how to separate the overwhelming amount of information.Here are other tips, you’ll love.

Hugs and love you,

 

19 Delight Directed Interest-Led Homeschool Blogs To Follow

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This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

While pregnant with my first child, Mr. Senior 2013, I was inspired by an article that encouraged homeschoolers to avoid a bookish routine in favor of real-life learning. However, out of fear, public popularity, and because I thought delight directed interest-led homeschooling meant wild abandon of any worthwhile learning, I followed with strict allegiance a bookish routine.

Then, as my sons grew and our lack of real-life learning lagged, I made a scary leap to interest-led learning.

It was scary because I was comfortable in my Nazi teacher approach.

19 Delight Directed Interest-Led Homeschool Blogs To Follow. Interest-led learning is the fuel the sparks lifelong learning. Getting started can be intimidating.Understanding delight directed is imperative. Click here to follow these 19 delight directed interest-led homeschool blogs!

I never felt like a nature loving or craft loving mother which was my impression of interest-led homeschooling. Lame, I know.As my love for teaching grew and realizing that my sons were in an apprenticeship for life, my day to day teaching lacked real-life application.

Soon after, I switched to a unit study approach which is based on mastery of interest-led topics.

Interest-led learning is the fuel that sparks lifelong learning.

Let me back up first and try to capture a simple meaning of interest-led and delight directed learning.

Interest-led and delight directed for our family means using a child’s natural love of learning to pursue subjects that spark his love of learning. Not the other way around. Academic subjects are centered around a child’s passion and then they take on life.

Although public school touts mastery, the truth of it is just the opposite.

A child never explores any passion in depth but is expected to be a jack of all trades or skills. He ends up master of none.

My switch to an interest-led unit study approach reminds me of the quote from Greg Harris which is indelibly imprinted in my memory.

A delight directed study is like a wonderful fire in the mind of a student. It starts small, but as it grows, it begins to consume vast amounts of information until it bursts into a roaring blaze of insight, understanding and creativity. It takes on a life of its own.

It doesn’t mean that there is no discipline or schedule which I thrive in, but it means guidance by the parent. It’s not indulgent, but reactive.

After I switched to interest-led homeschooling using lapbooks as our projects, it has been one choice I’ve never regretted for a moment.

I do regret lingering around the bookish approach for the first 5 years of my journey. Hopefully, you won’t make my same mistake.

To help you make the leap to interest-led and delight directed homeschooling, I’ve rounded up 19 blogs that I follow and you should too which emphasize this approach.

I’ll let each one introduce herself and tell you a bit about her blog.

Delight Directed Homeschooling

►I’m Rachel, and I blog at You’ve Got This Math.

I believe that math should be fun and hands -on. You’ve Got This Math focuses on ways to build number and fraction sense with free printables.

►I’m Susan Evans, and I blog at Susan Evans I love unit studies, themed cakes and parties, skits, re-enactments, and anything hands-on!

►I celebrate the homeschool lifestyle and frequently talk about learning through travel and adventures at This Crazy Homeschool Life.

►Hello! Hola! 你好！My name is Eva. My blog, Eva Varga focus centers around middle school science, specifically hands-on activities, service learning experiences, and project based learning – Minecraft and philatelic exhibits.

Additionally, we strive to expand our understanding of the world through our own cultural heritage and the exploration of diverse cultures (language studies and global travel).

►Hey hey! My name is Amy & I blog at Rock Your Homeschool.

My unique slant is to use Dr. Seuss to teach a love of reading. Also, I use Life of Fred for math learning fun. My five boys & I use brain breaks to keep our homeschool moving.

►Hi! My name is Joan and I write at Unschool Rules.

My unique slant it that we have used movies, video games and life learning as the basis for our entire high-school curriculum for my now 17-year-old daughter, and have a college-accepted transcript to show for it!

►Hey, hey! I’m Tiffany and I blog at Homeschool Hideout.

We are lazy homeschoolers so we like to binge-watch educational shows on Netflix, Amazon Prime and Hulu. We can cover everything from science and history to problem solving, without ever leaving the couch!

►Hi! My name is Colleen. I write all about raising kids to be lifelong learners through interest-led, hands-on homeschooling and parenting with a heavy focus on science, the needs of gifted and twice-exceptional kiddos, and cultivating creativity in all kids.

You’ll find monthly themed book and game lists, Minecraft challenge calendars, and loads of hands-on experiments on Raising Lifelong Learners and conversations with parents on our podcast — launching January 15th.

►Hello! My name is Jenny and I blog at Faith and Good Works. Our homeschool uses free internet resources for unit studies.

►Hi, I’m Ginny, and I offer authentic, hands-on writing experiences to help parents create a culture of writers (and thinkers) at home.
I blog at Not So Formulaic.

►Hello, my name is Sheila, publisher of Brain Power Boys. 

My unique slant is that our site has a lot of hands-on learning projects geared specifically toward boys. We focus on things they like, such as LEGO, Minecraft, Star Wars and topics which include pirates, robots, dinosaurs, knights and more to help them learn reading, science, history, math and other subjects a fun and natural way.

►I’m Ashley, and I love creating thematic unit studies.

We use a variety of resources from fun hands-on activities and great literature to movies and media. My goal is to inspire a love of learning and enrich our studies in every subject from math and science to history and grammar! Please join me in The Homeschool Resource Room! 

►Hi, I’m Erin and I blog over at The Usual Mayhem.

We focus on learning using nature on our cornerstone but occasionally head off into rabbit trails for months at a time (like my son’s year long obsession with King Arthur).

You can find all sort of nature themed posts and other fun on my blog.

►Hi, I’m Sara and I blog at Embracing Destiny. We focus on delight directed, literature-rich (living books) studies in our homeschool.

I’ve created some free Interest Inventory printables to encourage others to follow their child’s interests to foster a lifelong love of learning. We enjoy hands-on creative projects like lapbooking, notebooking, and unit studies. You can find my Ultimate Guide to Delight Directed Homeschooling cornerstone post here.

How to Make Your Homeschool Specialized

►Hi I’m Tricia Hodges at Chalk Pastel. We are a multi-generational homeschooling family.

My mother, Nana, my children and I are passionate about helping all ages lose insecurities and realize that yes, indeed, you ARE an artist. We JUST use chalk pastels and paper. No long, intimidating art supply list. Build confidence, choose favorite subjects and have FUN. We show you how with video art lessons, Facebook Live lessons and so much more to choose from. It’s not just one more thing to do, it’s a great way to make what you are already doing MORE fun while growing a LOVE of art! Art really does complement and help all other subjects.

►This is Ticia here, and over at Adventures in Mommydom I have three unique learners that keep me on my toes.

To stay ahead we cook our way around the world (with mixed results), read book and see how horribly the movie messed up the book, and use LEGOs to recreate history lessons (as well as a few other things). It’s learning adventures at the speed of fun.

►Hi, I’m Cindy West from Our Journey Westward. Teaching creatively is a top priority to meet the needs of my unique children and that’s exactly what I write about on the blog.

Active children excel through nature-based science activities . Reluctant writers blossom with picture book lessons. Struggling learners and those with attention issues make giant leaps through brain training games. And those are just a few examples of the creative learning ideas you’ll find at Our Journey Westward!

►Hi! My name is Pat Fenner and I blog at Breakthrough Homeschooling where I encourage and equip homeschooling parents of teens to homeschool through high school.

I believe in using life-learning and interest-led studies as a basis for a high school curriculum, and am convinced that college isn’t the only path to a successful future!

Then of course, I would love for you to follow my blog! Click below!

Take your homeschool from mediocre to true mastery by following an interest-led approach.

19 Delight Directed Interest-Led Homeschool Blogs To Follow. Interest-led learning is the fuel the sparks lifelong learning. Getting started can be intimidating.Understanding delight directed is imperative. Click here to follow these 19 delight directed interest-led homeschool blogs!

You’ll never teach your child everything he needs to know before he graduates, but you’ll teach him how to find out anything he wants to.

I know you’ll love these other super helpful tips!

Hugs and love ya,

How to Teach Cursive and Composition With A Fresh Perspective

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This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

When pioneers were going west, ruts served as a guide in following others. Ruts are not necessarily a bad thing. However, when you need to veer off the beaten path when teaching cursive and composition because your well-worn path is not working, then you need a fresh perspective.

The first shift in my mindset that I had to overcome when teaching cursive and composition is to realize that they are two very different skills. As teachers we can forget that they’re related, but different.

Cursive is a fine motor skill and requires physical dexterity while composition is a mental process.

When both work together, it is an out of body experience as my son told me one time. Okay, okay, it is a total body experience.

Bottom line is that it can be flat out hard. Telling your child to pick his pencil up and start writing can be the demise of him.

For example, a child may be mastering fine motor skill, but needs help with ideas on what to write.

On the flip side, a child may be excited to write creatively, but his fine motor skills are holding him back.

Both skills are needed for a child to be an effective writer.

How to Teach Cursive and Composition With A Fresh Perspective. When you need to veer off the beaten path when teaching cursive and composition because your well-worn path is not working, then you need a fresh perspective. Click here to read these valuable tips!

Honing both skills need to be done simultaneously as well as individually for both to emerge strong.Let me get one more idea out of the way too. Cursive is both hard to teach and to learn, but print can be harder.

As the parent, you are the only one to know if the problems you’re having with your child are because of attitude or aptitude.

Some children do better when typing, but before you give in to teaching only typing, read on about my experience.

Cursive takes patience, consistency, and fortitude to teach.

Devices today are suppose to speed up the time we have, but they don’t. They can make both children and adults overly anxious.

They also teach us to instantly master whatever it is that we’re learning.

Teaching and learning cursive rubs opposite of the educational grain being thrown at us today. It’s a slow process and not instant gratification. Parents are left wondering if their child has a special need when in fact they may be developing fine.

How to Rock Teaching Cursive

Look at these tips for teaching cursive from a fresh perspective.

1.) Don’t teach cursive later. Big mistake. I hear it all the time: “I’ll wait until my child is in 3rd grade or 5th grade.” 

The best time to teach cursive is soon after he gains control of his fine motor skills. The rule of thumb is about half way through first grade.

One side note is that your child is still malleable and willing to learn cursive the younger he is.

By the time, he is in third grade or later, he may be too embarrassed or not patient enough to learn.

I started each child halfway through first grade and had plenty of time to teach it. Later is not better in this instance. Of course, this means if your child has no developmental issues.

By 3rd grade, my kids had a good handle on cursive and of course I expected them to use it all the way through to high school. And yes, they learned to type along the way.

How to Teach Cursive and Composition With A Fresh Perspective. When you need to veer off the beaten path when teaching cursive and composition because your well-worn path is not working, then you need a fresh perspective. Click here to read these valuable tips!

2.) Don’t teach cursive and composition at the same time.

Direct teaching is very different from practice.

For example, in the beginning while your child is learning cursive don’t make him agonize in how to spell or how to be creative. Just give him the answers and move on while he focuses on the physical part of writing.

3.) Don’t teach composition or cursive back to back in the day.

Whatever you do, don’t do two back to back heavy assignments.

If your child is struggling with both of these skills then space them out in the day.

Do cursive practice work first thing in your day.

Then, switch gears and do other subjects. Add in composition later after your child’s hand has had time to recover.

4.) Strengthening fine motor skills goes beyond practicing cursive.

  • Coloring is a great way to naturally strengthen skills. And coloring something worthwhile like science pages or history pages will make learning time productive. Check out the 10 Westward Expansion History Fun Coloring Pages and 20 Ancient Civilization History Coloring Pages.
  • Copywork is timeless for teaching beautiful penmanship and again worthy of your child’s learning time. Poems, scriptures, history, or science are straight and clear prose which are practical for copywork. Look at my article, Free History Copywork – A Roundup of History Resources.
  • Drawing and writing. Be sure to not criticize, judge, or grade these fun activities. But make sure they do BOTH writing and drawing. My sons wanted to draw a picture first and then the words swelled up from the inside as they viewed their magnificent drawings.

Teaching composition is equally teacher intensive. There are no short cuts. Learning how to express ideas clearly doesn’t just happen. It is modeled by the teacher.

It reminds me of summers I spent with my granny when she was alive. I watched a southerner master cook whip out the most delicious recipes I fondly remember to this day. As I stood beside her, I wrote down her ideas.

I added a few ingredients to her pot under her supervision and then learned to cook delicious meals like her.

Teaching Composition that Goes from Limp to Life

Composition can be the same way. Don’t make it an event where all life goes limp. Make it a time that is memorable for the right reasons. Tears are not a good sign.

Composition starts off as a shared project when your kids are just learning.

You start the “pot”, let them stir it by adding a few key ingredients.

As you model how to write, your kids learn by watching and participating.

Look at these ways to teach composition that are out of the box.

  • Take a week and brainstorm topics instead of writing a composition. In order to have your child’s ideas flow abundantly, you take control of the physical act of writing.
  • Let your child record his ideas on his phone. Then play them back and write them down. This breaks this hard process down into two steps.
  • Have your child use his phone or your phone to take pictures of objects that might interest him. Go on a scavenger hunt. Scrolling back through the pictures is not only fun, but gets your child excited about what to write.
  • Also, I would find a funny picture or some other picture that I thought would evoke a strong emotion and muse with one of my sons about what the title should be. How many titles or ideas can your child come up with?
  • Make writing a group effort. One activity we did was to have each child write part of the story. This is not only fun, but it takes the pressure off of coming up with the whole story.
  • Another thing I did was to write story starters on a strip of paper and have each child draw a topic from a jar. Some kids like the element of surprise and challenge.
  • For one son, he loved it when I wrote as he dictated to me. He had beautiful prose, but his handwriting held him back. So I would write as he focused on his thoughts. When I finished the draft, he would copy it. Eventually, his physical dexterity caught up with his creative mind.
WriteShop

Also, there are many writing programs that I have used through the years, but one of my favorite writing programs that not only taught writing well, but gave me support is WriteShop.

WriteShop has a unique way of helping the homeschool parent because it was written by homeschooling moms.

Not only does it have a fun way of helping the littlest budding writer, but it gives you practical tips in how to teach.

WriteShop Primary

A lot of writing programs can assume that you have a professional background as a teacher. I do not.

From the time you open the curriculum and read about setting a realistic schedule and see a visual of one to how to grade upper grade compositions, WriteShop guides you in every step.

Ruts can be valuable to a routine, but they can also hem you in.

How to Teach Cursive and Composition With A Fresh Perspective. When you need to veer off the beaten path when teaching cursive and composition because your well-worn path is not working, then you need a fresh perspective. Click here to read these valuable tips!

Fresh ideas in how to teach cursive and composition need to be nurtured. Try one or two of these ideas above and let me know how it works for you.

What do you do when you need a fresh perspective?

Also, I know you’ll find these other posts super helpful!

Hugs and love ya,