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  • Writer's pictureSarah
    • Aug 21, 2022
    • 10 min read

Our Homeschool Curriculum for 2022-23 (with a 15-year-old and a 12-year old)

Updated: Sep 6, 2022

This school year, my 15-year-old Alina daughter continues her self-directed studies alongside our all-together schooling and I am doing more one-on-one schooling with my 12-year-old son Ian. We're also working on learning more about the principles of freedom and the Constitution specifically. This post will detail our curriculum and resources for the 2022-2023 school year.



Character Comes First

Education is much more than academic learning; it involves our emotional and spiritual development as well. I believe that teaching my children to be honest, responsible, kind people is more important than the acquisition of academic knowledge. I intentionally focus on character development through:

  • Household responsibilities

  • Discussion of character during read-alouds

  • Service within our community

  • Relationship development



Life Skills

When my kids were younger, I focused on teaching them life skills that we worked on together. Now that my kids are older, I’m teaching independent life skills, to ensure that my kids will be ready for life on their own.


Household Responsibilities

Both of my kids have a fairly large list of household responsibilities, which they have been taught and are expected to complete on their own. They are working to master all aspects of home care, including laundry, cleaning, maintenance, etc.



Cooking

Each of my kids cooks dinner for the family once a week. They get to choose the menu for their assigned dinner days.


With Ian, I often help him learn to cook new recipes. However, for Alina, being a 15-year-old who has a harder time accepting instructions and feedback from her parents now ☺, she generally prefers to learn to cook simple new recipes on her own rather than alongside me.


Besides simple sandwiches, quesadillas or pizza, some of my kids’ current favorite meals to prepare are:


Ian:

  • Grassfed beef hamburgers on sourdough or sprouted grain buns

  • Mongolian beef with rice


Alina:

  • Slow cooker roasted chicken and potatoes

  • Einkorn pancakes topped with smoked salmon, cucumbers, green onions, capers, and sour cream

  • Ground beef and broccoli teriyaki bowls




Individual Needs and Interests

The homeschool philosophy we love is Thomas Jefferson Education. In this homeschool model, rather than children being in specific grades, they are in “Phases” which each have a specific learning focus. There is more info about the Phases here, and in brief, they are:

  • Core Phase – Age ~0-9 – Focused on character development, right and wrong, good and bad, etc

  • Love of Learning Phase – Age ~8-13 – Giving the child the opportunity to fall in love with learning through nurturing their own interests and providing opportunities for exploration of academic subjects

  • Scholar Phase – Age ~13-17 – Focused on study in a wide range of topics with increasing ability and commitment


An important part of nurturing a love of learning in my kids is through encouraging them to pursue their own interests. One of the biggest advantages of homeschooling is that my children have as much time as desired to follow their passions. I'm supporting my children's current interests as follows.


Egg Business

My kids are partners in a small chicken egg business. They work together to take care of the chickens daily, and each earn a small amount of money for every dozen of eggs that are sold. Owning their own business has given my kids the opportunity to learn much about raising and caring for animals, handling and saving money, profit vs. loss, the value of hard work, perseverance, and long-term commitments. They're becoming experts in management of the flock, and they make the hard decisions about keeping their business viable throughout the productive and unproductive egg laying years of their hens.


15-year-old daughter Alina – Scholar Phase

Alina is in self-directed Scholar Phase. This means that, in addition to our all-together schooling time, Alina is also pursuing her own studies independently. There is more info about our self-directed Scholar Phase here.


Thus far, Alina has chosen to alternate each semester between creating her own study plan and using the TJED High liberal arts online mentoring program. This has given us a good balance of making sure that Alina has time to dedicate to her own passions (writing fiction stories, reading classic fantasy novels, sewing, and drawing) as well as giving her exposure to topics of study which she doesn't tend to gravitate towards through TJED High (such as finances, the Constitution, Shakespeare, and leadership).


Here is Alina's Scholar Contract for Fall 2022. This lays out her responsibilities and benefits, as well as her general plan for her Scholar Studies. (She asked for some leeway the first few weeks in determining how many study hours she will do per week for the coming semester, so that has not yet been finalized.) There is more about how to create a Scholar Contract in Leadership Education: The Phases of Learning.

Alina developed her own curriculum of books to read for the coming semester (with my guidance). As recommended in Hero Education: A Scholar Phase Guidebook, Alina works on a list of 10 books at a time. Alina intends to complete her Scholar studies for the semester by Thanksgiving, so she will have time to work on Christmas crafts and presents in late Nov-Dec.


Alina’s Fall 2022 10 Book List

  1. Bambi by Felix Salten (with Mentoring in the Classics content)

  2. Rhythm of War (Book 4 of Stormlight Archive) by Brandon Sanderson

  3. Pollyanna by Eleanor Porter (with Mentoring in the Classics content)

  4. Basic Math and Pre-Algebra by Cliffs Study Solver

  7. Brandon Sanderson's BYU Creative Writing Course Videos (not a book, but important for Alina since she aspires to be a writer 😀)

  9. Girl of the Limberlost by Gene Stratton Porter

  10. Adventures of Perrine by Hector Malot

Back-up Books, in case there are books on the above list that are just not working for Alina:


Additionally, Alina is still currently very interested in sewing stuffed animals. Resources for supporting this interest include:





12-year-old son Ian – Love of Learning Phase

Ian is in Love of Learning Phase. He has had a lifelong passionate interest in cars and other wheeled vehicles, tools, and machines. Recently, he has also become passionate about keeping a dirted aquarium. I support these interests through:

  • Getting him involved in household maintenance (such as letting him help with changing bike tires, using the drill and manual staple gun, etc.),

  • Including a focus on inventors and inventions in our history studies,

  • Attending car shows,

  • Providing him opportunities to ride his rollerblades, scooter, and bike,

  • Paying him to do home maintenance jobs that involve power tools such as sanding the picnic table, clearing brush piles, chopping wood, etc.,

  • Making sure he has plenty of books about vehicles and machines to read, and

  • Helping him research dirted aquarium care, fish species, etc.



Academic Subjects

I purposely do not push my children academically, but I do give them exposure to plenty of academic subjects and pursuits. We currently have family “kidschool time” for 1-1.5 hours most mornings, before Alina goes off to do her Scholar Time and I do more one-on-one academic explorations with Ian.


There is more about the how we make our homeschool successful and sustainable here, why the homeschooling environment is more important than curriculum, and more about our general homeschool routine here.


Literature

Literature is foundational to our homeschool. It gives us exposure to different cultures and values, allows us to "walk a mile" in others' shoes, and facilitates important discussions that lead to character growth.

Daily Read-Aloud and Kids’ Book Club

I read aloud classic picture and chapter books to my children most days. Read alouds spark many of our most important discussions about culture and character. One new change is that we are now taking turns reading aloud to the family in the evenings; this will help my kids with learning public speaking and how to project their voices.


I also facilitate a children’s read-aloud classic book club once-a-month. Our recent and upcoming read-alouds include:


Classic Audiobooks

My kids are allowed to listen to 1-hour per day of classic audiobooks, usually during our (absolutely-essential) afternoon Quiet Time. Audio books have been a fantastic way to give my kids exposure to a wide variety of classic books without any additional effort from me. Some of the audio books are free downloads from Librivox.


Recently, my kids have chosen to listen to:

Reading

Through a steady habit of read-alouds year-after-year, my children have fallen in love with books. I also make a point of reading on my own frequently; children naturally emulate their parents, so it is important for them to see me engaging in reading and discussing books as part of my own lifelong education.


Alina learned to read at age 4, and Ian learned to read at age 8.5. Although Ian's reading would have been considered "late" were he in school, thankfully I had learned about the wide range of developmental readiness for reading so that my son did not feel pressured or insecure about his reading progression. Some kids like Alina naturally learn to read when they are very young, but it is totally natural that some kids do not read until later, even until as late as 12 to 14 years old. Knowing about this gave me the confidence and patience to (mostly) relax and wait for Ian's reading journey to unfold.


Alina and Ian both choose to read on their own most days. I just need to make sure they have plenty of fresh reading material on-hand. Some of the books they have chosen to read lately include:


Alina:


Ian:



Writing, Spelling, and Typing

We don't use a formal curriculum for writing or spelling. Instead, I find ways to incorporate writing into our everyday lives, so that the writing my kids do has real meaning rather than being a forced exercise. There is more about writing in our homeschool here.


Some of the current ways in which my kids engage in writing are:

  • Writing stories, both on paper as well as typed on the computer

  • Penpals, writing letters to family and friends

  • Informal spelling bees, where we take turns asking each other to spell words

  • Email accounts for communicating with family members

  • Spelling games such as Quiddler and Scrabble



Math

We don’t use traditional math curriculums. Instead, we focus on learning math in the context of everyday life, through games, and through math read-alouds. For more details about how I teach math without a formal curriculum, check out this blog post.


Currently, our favorite resources for math study are:



History

Each semester, we alternate between focusing on science or history. This reduces the stress over trying to fit it all in and allows us to dig deeper into specific topics.


We use the following a 4-year-cycle for history:

We have completed two iterations of this four-year cycle, gaining more complexity and nuance each time. We are working through our third iteration and will be studying Middle Ages History again this year. Our main history resources for this year will be the following:


Principles of Freedom and the Constitution

Recent events have shown us just how tenuous our hold on freedom and liberty are now. Thus, in addition to our chronological history studies, we are also learning more about the founding of our country and Constitution. All together as a family, we are watching and discussing the Constitution 101 Course from Hillsdale College.



Hands-On Science

We have completed two iterations of this science rotation and are working through our third iteration. This school year we will be focusing on Astronomy and Earth Science. Our science studies will include the following resources:



Business Builders Class

My kids are taking a 9-week Business Builders class this semester. This is a youth Entrepreneurship program offered through Kids Can of Doña Ana County.



Spanish

We are using the following resources for learning Spanish together:



Current Events

2-3 times per week, we watch CNN10 as part of our morning homeschool block. Although I find CNN's usual news coverage to be very lopsided and unbalanced, their CNN10 program (which is designed for schools) actually provides surprisingly balanced coverage. CNN10 gives us many opportunities to have discussions about complex issues in the USA and around the world.



Beauty and Creativity

Arts and Crafts

Here are some of the resources we are currently using for arts and crafts:

Music Appreciation

We cultivate music appreciation through:

  • Homeschool band class twice per week; Alina plays flute and Ian plays trumpet

  • Music and arts focus in December, culminating in a small family music recital and A Christmas Carol reading on Christmas Eve

  • Attending live music shows including classical music, jazz, and classic rock

  • Listening to a wide variety of music including classical, world music, classic rock, and pop



Physical Education

Some of our current favorite ways to get physical activity are:


Free Play

Play time is hugely important in brain development. Though we do school work throughout the week, there is still plenty of unstructured free play time for my kids throughout the week. Through their play time, they are able to engage their curiosity, develop their creativity, and learn much about how to interact with each other and their environment.


Typically, we do the bulk of our schooling in the mornings, leaving the afternoons free for the kids to play, create, and explore.



What changes have you made to your homeschool for the coming year?



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