7 Signs You Should Change Your Homeschool Curriculum
The semester break is a good time to make changes to your current homeschooling curriculum. It’s also a popular time for making a mid-year switch to homeschooling.
However, knowing how to choose a homeschool curriculum can be difficult — especially when “the perfect one” stops working for you. Whether your last curriculum unexpectedly changed or increased price, or it’s simply not meeting your student’s learning needs, we’ll go over several reasons when vs. when not to change your homeschool curriculum.
Take a break or change curriculum?
A homeschool curriculum is a personal choice. Each child is different, and what works for your oldest may not work for the youngest. Before you shop around, there are a few things you should consider.
First, identify the problem. If your student is easily distracted, try using study focus strategies. If they’re falling behind, try re-teaching past units or hiring a tutor. If homeschooling every day is too mentally taxing, try taking turns with a family member or joining a co-op to split the responsibility.
Second, how are you feeling? If you’re feeling exhausted or irritable, you may be experiencing homeschool burnout. Changing the curriculum when you need a break from homeschooling itself isn’t likely to work — before you purchase another curriculum, take some time off and see how you and your student are feeling.
Finally, if it’s not broken, don’t fix it! If your student is struggling with math but doing well in every other area, adjust only the math course if possible. One of the benefits of an online homeschool curriculum is access to many grade levels at once to find the right fit for your child.
Simply taking a break and stepping back can make it clearer whether or not your curriculum is still the right fit. Small changes to the curricula you currently have, rather than a complete overhaul unnecessarily, can be helpful.
1. Your student is bored.
One of the great things about homeschool is the ability to make learning fun! Engaged students are more eager to learn. If your student is bored out of their mind with every subject, maybe a change is in order!
2. The workload is too much (or too little).
Depending on how customizable your curriculum is, this could be easily fixed without changing your entire approach. Add supplemental activities that relate to what they’re currently learning, or lighten the load by choosing the most important units. If your student is most comfortable working in multiple different grade levels, an online homeschool curriculum with access to several grade levels is a good solution. If your curriculum is one grade level only, you may want to explore an upgrade.
3. Your student is having trouble with mastery.
You may have been impressed with the curriculum at first, but your student starts having retention issues later in the course. The curriculum may not progress incrementally or be as in-depth as it needs to be. If that is the case, supplemental materials or a more robust curriculum could be helpful. If your student is struggling with content mastery, it could also be the pace or difficulty. If you can control the content pace, try slowing down or revisiting past units.
4. You’re struggling to teach all the content yourself.
If a curriculum does not include recorded or live video lessons, requiring you to be the primary teacher, it can be difficult if you don’t know the material. For many homeschooling parents, both learning and teaching their children’s schoolwork can be overwhelming, especially with multiple students. If the material is too advanced for you to teach, switching to a curriculum with video lessons and/or instructor office hours may be worth it.
5. Your homeschool methods or goals have changed.
It’s best to take homeschooling year by year as your children grow and change. The homeschool style you used last year may not work anymore, and that’s okay! Homeschooling can give you the freedom and fluidity to change with your students’ needs. If your homeschool style or goals have changed, it may be time to find something new.
6. You (or your child) don’t like it.
Sometimes you don’t have a specific reason your curriculum isn’t working. When this happens, it can greatly affect the quality of your homeschool experience. Whether it doesn’t fit your teaching style, isn’t adaptable to your student’s learning needs, is not user friendly, or is just a pain to use — it’s probably time to make a change.
7. It just doesn’t work as well as it used to.
As we mentioned earlier, homeschooling is different year by year as your children change. Maybe you took a break and aren’t excited to start using your old curriculum. Maybe it requires too much supplementation or customization, and it’s too exhausting to make it work. If your curriculum is no longer a good fit and it’s becoming too much of a hassle, save yourself the headache and treat yourself to something that makes your homeschool journey easier.
Making the Switch to Miacademy
Miacademy’s endlessly customizable format makes it a breeze to switch over or supplement a curriculum you already love! Here are some ways that Miacademy can help your family be excited about learning again:
1. Engaging, accessible quality curriculum
Our accredited online homeschool curriculum has thousands of high-quality lessons for your student to explore. Developed by real teachers, students are able to work at their own pace and use accessibility features such as text-to-speech, closed captions, and transcriptions. In addition, Miacademy makes learning fun with plenty of games, activities, and virtual community opportunities!
2. Intuitive and powerful tools
Miacademy’s easy-to-use interface helps your student work independently and provides all learning materials for you. From PDF activities, video lessons, games, and quizzes, your student will get everything they need to succeed, all in one place. You can also easily track your student’s progress and generate full reports with our powerful parent tools! From your Parent Page, view how much time your child spends on their learning each day, what units they’ve completed, how they answered, and what grades they’ve earned, all automatically.
3. Flexibility and customization
One of our biggest strengths is our curriculum’s amazing customizability! Enjoy full control over your child’s learning, and choose from thousands of lessons across all grade levels, including core courses and fun electives! Your student can work in any grade level, on any subject in any order, and they can pick which units to omit, with parent permission. Our curriculum is also 100% self-paced, with an automatic calendar that does the scheduling for you. Simply add your course, assign how many weeks you need, and start learning!
If you have any questions about how Miacademy can help you reach your homeschooling goals, feel free to reach out to our friendly customer service agents! They’ll be happy to help you with any questions you may have.
FAQ
Can you switch to homeschool mid-year?
Yes! The middle of the school year is the most popular time for families to start homeschooling, other than in August and September. Many homeschool families may find that traditional school settings aren’t working well, and winter break creates a good opportunity to switch from public school.