Simple Homeschooling 101: What to Teach and When to Teach It ~
Written by Jamie C. Martin of Simple Homeschool

More than once during my 15 years of homeschooling, I wished I could find a resource that would simply list the basic subjects we needed to cover as well as give me ideas for how and when to prioritize them.

I found plenty of conflicting and over-complicated descriptions, but here, in the name of “Simple” Homeschool and as a veteran/retired homeschooler, I have created for all of you what I once wanted and needed.

Prefer to listen instead? Look for episode 62 of the SH podcast!

To begin Simple Homeschooling 101, here is a list of the four basic subjects:

• Language Arts: Includes reading, writing (handwriting/spelling/grammar/composition), and literature
• Math
• Science
• History

Then depending on your child’s age/grade, you might add in things like:

• PE/Health, Foreign Language, and electives, centered around your kids’ interests, future goals, and your family’s priorities

Below, I’ll share how our family covered these subjects in an outside-the-box way through the years.

Remember: Personalization is the goal, and your homeschool doesn’t have to look like “school” to inspire real learning.

This is not at all a “Homeschooling 101” formula to follow, as you don’t need that! There are a million ways to run a “successful” homeschool, and zero ways to run a perfect one.

Don’t seek to follow my plan or anyone else’s – adapt everything (yes, even that official looking curriculum!) to suit your family’s needs.

I originally divided this article into the traditional categories of elementary, middle, and high school, only to realize that most of my recommendations for middle and high were the same, so I’ve switched to two categories instead: one covering ages 5-12, and one for teens.

Simple Homeschooling 101: What to Teach and When to Teach It (Updated!)

Early Schooling (ages 5-12)

Our family’s main goal during this time was to have our children make tiny, incremental progress in core subjects, while maintaining their love of learning. The traditional system tends to overemphasize a child’s progress while often doing away with the love.

A child’s brain is wired to learn best through play during this time, so keep that in mind as you think about the subjects that you hope to cover. This is especially true for ages 5-9, with slowly increasing maturity as they hit double digits.

Learning to Read – We only did this officially when we felt like each child was interested and ready, and not all children need formal reading instruction – some teach themselves!

If you do need or want to introduce this, I would recommend All About Reading, Reading Eggs, or simply a BrainQuest workbook (afflinks), and start out small – five minute lessons with lots of praise (and/or bribery) as needed.

Learning to Write – When you feel they’re ready, teach your child to form capital and lowercase letters (any basic workbook can help with this, or you may not even need one).

Once they have mastered them, begin doing copywork – copying a few words or a sentence each day. Use their name, inspiring quotes, or passages from their favorite book!

This sets the foundation for spelling and grammar later on.

If you want to add in formal spelling, I recommend All About Spelling – but remember those super-short, high-motivation lessons are key! 5-15 minutes is plenty, and only as a formal practice after your child has a beginner’s grasp on reading.

For grammar, we used Mad Libs, not diving into anything more formal until the tween/teen years.

Literature – We read, read, and read aloud some more during this range, enjoying the natural conversations that would arise through that time together, not trying to force “narration” or anything too schooly. Substitute audiobooks if reading aloud isn’t enjoyable for you.

What should you read? Use a guide to help you discover classics, like my own book (for a global lens) Give Your Child the World, Honey for A Child’s Heart, or The Read-Aloud Family, as well as adding in books that interest you and yours!

We also used audio stories from Sparkle Stories a lot at this age as a “slow media” alternative to excess screentime – they gave us a break and occupied many car rides, too!

Math – We read math books in the early years and enjoyed Bedtime Math, mixed with a little gameschooling for good measure. Later we introduced an online curriculum when it seemed like the kids were ready for more, allowing them to dip in and out as they wanted.

Science – We enjoyed informal nature study, read-alouds, and an outdoor wilderness program for science, not doing any formal curriculum until the teen years, but just what interested each child when it came to this subject. (Long-time readers will remember my son’s intense meteorology phase.)

History – Likewise we covered this mainly through read-alouds and videos during this age range, and it worked so well that my kids fell in love with history and wanted to study it more deeply as teens.

If you want to take it further, begin a history timeline. And if you feel memory work is important in this subject or any other, look for play-based resources (songs, etc) to help you accomplish that.

Interests – Everything Else! This is where we dove into my own interests, family priorities like Bible, and the interests of the children. This is what we emphasized the most during this age range.

Teen Schooling (ages 13+)

Don’t be afraid of homeschooling middle or high school! Generally speaking, 120 hours spent on a subject (including a student’s personal reading, documentaries, online courses, and formal work) or 75% of a textbook completed equals one credit.

Once you get familiar with the process, it’s not scary, and sites like FastTranscripts.com make it a breeze to quantify your teen’s learning in a way that colleges can understand.

Our family’s homeschooling goal during the teen years has always been to meet the minimum requirements for graduation, and then allow tons of extra time to pursue areas of interest and passion!

Language Arts – Here are some of the resources that worked well for us, which we adapted to each child’s interest level and ability:

• Sonlight (literature/history/Bible)
• TJEd High (online mentoring in literature and leadership)
• Wordsmith Craftsman (after searching for AGES, this thin guide contains everything your high schooler needs in order to write well!)
• All About Spelling – We only taught spelling after age 10+, when I could tell whether or not my children were natural spellers. At older ages they progressed quickly and were motivated, too.
• Grammar: Both Fix It Grammar and Life of Fred Language Arts worked well for us!

Math – Using online resources for math allowed me to outsource this subject, which I loved! We mainly used Teaching Textbooks as a key component in our homeschooling 101.

Science – We tried a variety of higher level science options, but the best fit for us ended up being the courses from All in One High School. (Bonus: They’re FREE!!!) We loved it because it was self-sufficient for my child to complete on his own, and was just right for a student who needs a solid overview of the subject but isn’t planning to go into a science-related field.

If your student might want to explore a STEM-related field in their future, the online classes from My Fun Science are highly reputable and recommended!

PE/Health – Our outdoor wilderness school, C25K and Calm apps, and a basic health textbook

Foreign Language – A combination of Duolingo, All in One Spanish, and private tutoring worked perfectly for us!

History – Sonlight, lots of reading (both fiction and non-fiction), Big Fat Notebooks, and the occasional workbook

Current Events – Watching and discussing CNN10 and The World from A to Z led to incredible discussions over the years (sometimes we still watch and discuss these together!)

Electives: This is where teens can focus on areas of interest – it’s where homeschoolers can thrive in ways that teens in traditional school just don’t have the hours for!

Also use electives to focus on your family priorities, like Bible Study, Life Skills, etc. Some of the specialized courses we created for my high schoolers included Drawing, Music Theory, Film Studies, Animation, Lighting Design Technology, and more.

We have seen this interest-led approach go on to serve the children well as they continue to slowly enter their post-homeschooling phase of life. When Jonathan applied to colleges for Lighting Design, he was told that his current level of skill was already similar to that of a college graduate in the field, so they weren’t sure he would “fit in.”

He appreciated their candor and opted out! (Though he did get in to both places he applied.)

Instead of college, he ended up getting hired by a variety of A-list celebrities within a year of high school graduation, and is currently touring worldwide with various artists.

This was never our intention, plan, or goal when we let him pursue his interest through high school, but it is remarkable to see that what one does for love and interest can go on to translate into a satisfying work life!

I hope this list has served as a helpful Simple Homeschooling 101 for you – simplifying your thinking about what to teach and when to teach it!

When we lean into the freedom and flexibility homeschooling has to offer, we can craft a beautiful and highly individualized education that suits each child best, and sets them up well for wherever life may take them.

* Read more of Jamie’s popular posts on Simple Homeschool here.

What’s Your Homeschool Mom Personality? Take Jamie’s quiz now and receive a free personality report to help you organize your homeschool based on what your personality type needs most!

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Homeschooling in Survival Mode ~
Written by Kari Patterson

My dad passed away three weeks ago. I wrote about him in my day-in-the-life post, how we live next door and the little boys run over every day. We helped care for him these last two years after my mom passed away.

She had Parkinson’s; he had leukemia. It’s been an intense few years.

We miss him daily and life isn’t the same without him. But I’m also finding that I’m finally coming up for air in terms of my schedule, that life has a little more space now.

I’m very aware that we were Homeschooling in Survival Mode most of this winter.

A dear homeschooling friend just went through a crisis due to her husband’s addiction. He was in rehab for 30 days, while she was on her own with four kids — two homeschooling, one toddling around getting into everything, and one six months along in her womb.

Pregnancy exhaustion + nursing + a toddler + single-parenting + homeschooling = Survival Mode

She texted our group thread asking for advice, and the flood of helpful responses inspired me in my own Survival Mode status. These caring and wise women rallied to encourage and support her.

So if you find yourself barely army-crawling through the days, wondering how on earth to homeschool through the craziness of Survival Mode, here are a few thoughts from my tribe:

5 Tips for Homeschooling in Survival Mode

1. Build stability as much as possible.

When things feel chaotic, it’s hard to learn. When we’re afraid or stressed, our capacity for comprehending new concepts or tackling coursework is extremely limited.

So I tried to keep as many regular routines as possible. Some were impossible — my little boys could no longer do their daily trips to Papa’s. I had to be away a lot caring for him, and I couldn’t take them with me.

It was hard. But we kept our consistent bedtime routine, we kept our read aloud time, we did our fun little letter worksheets, we continued all of our normal outside-home activities.

I chose to not feel guilty for leaving Dad in others’ care sometimes because it was important to keep a sense of stability and normalcy even in the midst of chaos.

2. Prioritize, and keep the must-do list short.

This is probably obvious, but some subjects can clearly wait. Do you HAVE to finish that unit on the life-cycle of frogs? I remember a seasoned homeschool mama of 9 children saying, “Just keep up on math. You can easily catch up on everything else, just keep up on math.”

And in my dozen years of homeschooling, I’ve also found that’s true. In really crazy seasons, we’ve made math and reading the only must-dos.

Tadpoles can wait.

Now, full disclosure: Sometimes the subjects that suffer are important ones. Our oldest (17) was definitely the hardest hit by this season, and he got so far behind in Pre-Calculus and Spanish he was overwhelmed and depressed and we realized there was no way he could catch up. We made the difficult decision to let him drop those two classes.

He’ll have to retake them next year, but he’s SO much happier and relieved to not feel like he’s hopelessly drowning in coursework. It is painful to feel like you’ve failed, for sure, but I’m grateful we were able to walk through this experience with him, and he gained some priceless lessons.

In the end, those lessons may be more valuable than Pre-Calc anyway.

3. Allow others to help.

Sometimes all it takes is a season of struggle for you to really find your people. I have found that in my times of weakness I’m amazed at how willing other moms are to step up and step in to help me.

But we have to let them. The day that my dad died another homeschool mama offered to take my boys to an Easter Egg hunt. It felt weird to send them off, oblivious to my sorrow, to run around and collect candy.

But I had to attend to details and they had to be gone, and I was grateful for the support, and by the time they were back around I was ready to navigate the grief with them. There are countless ways that other homeschool moms helped me through this season. But we have to let them.

4. Let the kids help.

Kids can feel powerless when life is crazy and there’s nothing they can do. Intentionally enlisting their help, in ways that are appropriate, will increase their stability and security like nothing else. 

Our teenagers helped significantly during both my parents’ final months and weeks. At 17 Dutch has now been a pallbearer twice. Heidi daily cared for two grandparents as they neared death. These are heavy things, but also good.

I was so proud of them, and I could tell that they felt good about being able to serve and make a significant contribution during a time of need. They both also spoke at Dad’s memorial, a learning and growth experience to be sure! The littles couldn’t be involved in that way, but they could “help Mommy”  with chores because Mommy was helping Papa.

5. Hold them, love them, keep them close.

While we certainly need to allow others to help, I also knew that more than ever my kids needed my nearness. There were times I could have easily given over the job of driving someone here, or being at a certain event, etc. but as much as possible, I tried to stay as close as possible.

As you know, most of the priceless, precious conversations we have with our children happen when we least expect it. We can’t schedule “Deep Conversation about Death & Eternity” into iCal. We just have to be there.

And if we stay close, as much as possible, we’ll get to be part of the most valuable part of their education: The growth that happens as they learn through daily life. I don’t want to miss that.

So dear friends, if you are homeschooling in survival mode, hang in there!

Know that you have a community right here who can rally around you as well. Drop us a line if you have questions, or just want to share what you’re going through.

We’d love to encourage you if we can.

What’s Your Homeschool Mom Personality? Take Jamie’s quiz now and receive a free personality report to help you organize your homeschool based on what your personality type needs most!

Over the years, ‘are we doing enough?!‘ questions have plagued my mind, especially during challenging seasons. We might not have been able to cover what we wanted. Perhaps we had grand plans of visiting places that we didn’t.

Or maybe the read aloud books we’d purchased are still sitting untouched on a shelf. Sometimes I’ve had kiddos who are resistant to reading and writing. And my mind wonders, ‘Have we done enough?’

During these times, I’ve found that I have become more open to the fact that learning continues to happen every day. We favor peace and ease over stress and a monotonous routine. 

And in doing so, I’ve found that my kiddos are not only more motivated to learn, but that their depth of engagement is deeper and more authentic too.

My job has evolved into playing what I call ‘learning facilitator and detective’. I observe what they are interested in, give suggestions and choices and then see the educational value in what my children are learning. 

Let me give you couple of examples.

Stealth Homeschooling 101

One of my sons is dyslexic and autistic. He finds engaging with written materials quite challenging at times. He absolutely LOVES his new 3D printer though.

We chatted about what he was making. I asked him how he would remember the projects he has worked on – what worked and what didn’t. He said he wasn’t really sure so I suggested he start keeping a diary about his projects.

He loved this idea! I took him to the shops and he chose his journal. He wanted one without lines so that it had a lot of room to sketch his designs.

We got out the camera printer and he printed photos of some of his projects and stuck them in his journal too. He has been working away at this journal (without a fight or tears from either of us!) because he loves his 3D printer!

Observation, choice, and facilitation are all parts of my role as learning detective in stealth homeschooling!

The observation was made by me that he was loving his 3D printer. I also observed that he didn’t like writing. Giving him a choice over which type of journal to buy felt empowering to him. My role as facilitator was to take him to the shops and buy the journal. 

Now, because he is 12, he’s not always going to remember to write in it regularly. So again, I observe if that’s happening.

I might suggest we add it in when we do our next Planning Monday Morning session. I might even give the choice to him like, “How many entries would you like to do this week – 3 or 5? I might need to buy more photo printing sheets as facilitator.

Here’s another example:

My daughter isn’t a huge fan of science. But…she loves science kits! Both Mr 12 and Miss 14 choose which parts they’ll do. They then take turns completing various stages of the kit. They both listen as I read aloud science information from the booklet that comes in the kit.

Of course we do other science learning too, but this has been a great, fun and easy way to make sure we cover science outcomes (that would otherwise be tough and painful to do!)

Can you see it again – observation, choice and facilitation? I observed that she’s not a huge fan of science, but DOES love step by step work and enjoys the kits.

I facilitated by buying and ordering the kits and they made choices about which parts they’d do to complete the kit. 

We went on holiday recently. A beach holiday for rural-living kids presents lots of learning moments! I didn’t plan on doing any structured learning whilst away.

Instead, there was a lot of subtle, incidental learning. I sometimes use a free program to help me incorporate stealth homeschooling (great for those of us with brain fog!) I enter the activity and select the subjects I want it to cover and the program then shows me what we have learned.

Here’s how it works:

Activity: We went to the beach and swam in different types of water – a calm lagoon and the wild ocean. There was a red flag on one of the beaches so I encouraged my son to ask the lifeguard what the flag meant (red means the beach is closed!) He told us about rips and pointed out examples of those, of sand dunes and wind patterns. 

Learning:

• Enhanced communication skills through meaningful conversations with life guards about flags and safety measures at the beach and lagoon.
• Expanded vocabulary with terms related to beach safety such as rip currents, warning flags, and water conditions.
• Developed listening skills by actively engaging in discussions with life guards to gather information about different types of flags and their meanings.
• Improved comprehension skills by understanding the importance of adhering to flag warnings and following the instructions provided by life guards.

I hope you have gathered some clues to incorporate in your own homeschooling lives. Let’s use all the tools that are out there to make our jobs as learning detectives that little bit easier!

Enjoy your stealth homeschooling!

What’s Your Homeschool Mom Personality? Take Jamie’s quiz now and receive a free personality report to help you organize your homeschool based on what your type needs most!