The Pitfalls of the Already Written Curriculum Lesson Plans

Since this is my first rodeo when it comes to homeschooling, I have experienced some unexpected occurrences when dealing with pre-done lesson plans.  It's really nice to have a guide to use all year to indicate to me where my child should be.  But realistically, on week 2 of our kindergarten school year, we're at week 13 for math, week 4+ for phonics, and we're not even using the plans for science, English, and history.  So I'm basically just using the lesson plans to boost my confidence and to guide me through the madness of phonics. 

Pre-designed lesson plans seem like the perfect solution for a parent who wants to teach a child at home.  That said, once you dive into the lessons, you start to see that these lessons were designed for the classroom setting. Thus, there are review activities, review worksheets, and review games scattered throughout the school year.  And there are weeks and weeks devoted to review at the beginning of the school year. These just aren't practical in the one-on-one setting. 

For example, Boy Wonder flew through kindergarten math last year during preschool.  Without missing a beat, he was able to pick up 1st grade math and handle 2 lessons a day when we started kindergarten last week.  According to his curriculum, we should be reviewing kindergarten math for 7 weeks.  But at the rate he's going, we'll be almost done with the book by the 7 week mark.  If I actually followed the curriculum manual, he would be bored to tears or we just wouldn't mess with much math for 7 weeks.  What a waste that would be!

The constant review that is built into the curriculum is absolutely necessary in the classroom setting--especially since kindergarten is not a mandatory requirement for first grade in some states, including Texas.  It just makes sense that a class with 20 children is going to need to review lessons before the entire class is ready to move on to new and harder concepts.  This situation, however, does not necessarily apply in the homeschool setting.

I've always heard stories about homeschoolers who were "ahead" in school.  I used to think that it was because parents who homeschool are more inclined to push their kids.  But the truth of the matter is that if you start a school year without wasting 2-3 months reviewing the previous school year, it's pretty easy to get ahead.  Or, if you do school year-round where you cut your workload in half but don't take 3 months off every summer, you still don't need the intensive review. 

There are definitely some perks to letting someone else plan out your school year by having pre-written lesson plans.  Yet there are also some pitfalls to not proactively planning your own year.  Now I'm beginning to understand why experienced homeschool parents create and plan out their own curriculum.   Those parents are able to give their child a custom education that can't be found in a classroom-focused curriculum manual.