What Makes a Good Curriculum?

Pam Barnhill [00:00:01]:
Are you ready for homeschooling to feel joyful again? Do you long for support as you learn alongside your kids? Welcome to Homeschool Better Together, a podcast about building a homeschool experience that works for your family. I’m Pam Barnhill, and it’s time to step out of the overwhelm and into the wonder. Let’s do this. Hello. Hello, and welcome. Today, I am chatting with the a member success manager here at Homeschool Better Together and no stranger to the podcast, supermom of eight and half marathon runner. When did that happen? Miss Laney Homan. Laney, welcome back to the podcast.

Laney Homan [00:00:51]:
Thank you. So glad to be here. I did finish that half marathon, but I have to tell you, I still don’t feel like a runner. I’m too slow for that.

Pam Barnhill [00:01:00]:
Hey. You’re running. That’s all that matters. Speed does not matter one little bit. Well, when I thought it about, like, I just wanna talk about all the things about curriculum and just kinda, like, get, like, get real about it. Right? Like, get get people kind of the down and dirty. I’m like, who can I talk to? Who do I know who absolutely has the most curriculum of anyone? And it was Laney.

Laney Homan [00:01:25]:
Yes. This is true. I have used all the curriculum. I don’t know. I haven’t well, I say that, but I really have settled into kind of our routine in these last probably five, six years, and we haven’t done a lot of curriculum changing. I love that. Like, I know what worked.

Pam Barnhill [00:01:40]:
Okay. But how long have you been homeschooling?

Laney Homan [00:01:43]:
I’ve been homeschooling for twenty years.

Pam Barnhill [00:01:45]:
Okay. And so of the twenty years, the first fifteen years.

Laney Homan [00:01:50]:
Exactly. Well, it’s interesting because every every year, I would start by shopping for my curriculum. Like, that was always, like, the big deal. And every year, we would just shop for what we were gonna use for the following year. And then that kinda changed really with when I went through autopilot for the first time, and we set goals for the kids to I, like, laid out the vision for my homeschool and set goals for my kids. Then I started shopping for curriculum after I had done that. And it became a very different experience because I was looking for things to help me help the children meet the goals that we had laid out for them for the year rather than just plugging and chugging. We need science.

Laney Homan [00:02:34]:
We need history. We need math. And it really just changed the experience of our whole homeschool. And when we did that, I found that we found things that really worked, that we stayed with. And it’s not that that stuff I can’t even look back and say, oh, we used this and it didn’t work in previous years. But it was, like, every year was this just new experience of what are we gonna look at this year and what are we gonna buy?

Pam Barnhill [00:02:59]:
Maybe I can find something that’s more magical than the thing we used last year.

Laney Homan [00:03:04]:
Yeah. I think so. Like, it was always like this new year has to be something new. And

Pam Barnhill [00:03:09]:
Yes.

Laney Homan [00:03:09]:
So it was really kind of interesting to see that shift as we started shopping to meet the kids’ needs. And then as I shop to meet the kids’ needs, then it was far easier for me to, like, see where we could kinda combine and go together. And then we started using curriculum that was it was just a better fit for our whole family. And morning time related to that, all the things. But

Pam Barnhill [00:03:34]:
So I I do wanna stress, like, for the people who are out there going, like, wow. She had fifteen years of curriculum that she never uses anymore. You kept all that stuff, and you still like, when you make your kids’ goals, you go back and you shop your shelf, and you say, is there something here that could meet the goals of the kids?

Laney Homan [00:03:52]:
Absolutely. I very rarely purchase new curriculum at this point in time. I’m there’s occasionally I’ll buy a new book or something like that, but I do shop my shelves. Absolutely. When I’m looking for read alouds, when I’m looking for something that might meet the particular need of a specific kid, I always go and look at what we have on the shelf. And sometimes, there’s a gap there, and I’m like, oh, what? I mean, we just had this happen. My daughter was recently diagnosed with dyslexia. I have used the same reading program for multiple children.

Laney Homan [00:04:24]:
They had all successfully learned to read from this program. It was a great program. I had no complaints about it, but this child was really struggling. And as we, you know, we’re kind of sorting through her diagnosis and trying to figure out how to better help her in the reading front, that led us to purchasing a new curriculum because we just felt like that was the right thing to do. And so here it is, my last child, and I just purchased a brand new, you know, phonics reading curriculum for her to go through.

Pam Barnhill [00:04:54]:
Okay. I’m gonna ask you what it is because everybody’s gonna wanna know.

Laney Homan [00:04:57]:
Right. We are using all about reading right now. And I will tell you before that, we used phonics museum by Veritas Press.

Pam Barnhill [00:05:04]:
Oh, yeah. Yeah. I’ve heard of that.

Laney Homan [00:05:06]:
I have loved it. It is kind of like a two year phonics program. My other kids, they’re some of my favorite readers. They’re hilarious. Like, they they have heavy emphasis on art for the younger kids. It just was not a good fit for my daughter as she was really struggling. And it just it took us a little bit. We backed up in it.

Laney Homan [00:05:27]:
We gave it a good long try. I think that’s the other thing. You can’t just jettison a curriculum immediately.

Pam Barnhill [00:05:34]:
Yeah.

Laney Homan [00:05:35]:
But, yeah, it was a good switch for us. And so now she’s using All About Reading, and she’s making forward progress and really doing well. But like I said, my other kids flourished with the phonics museum. So Yeah.

Pam Barnhill [00:05:49]:
Hard to Well, I’m a all about reading girl, and I tell you, you’re gonna love those readers too. So

Laney Homan [00:05:55]:
Well, wait. She’s working through some of them now. Like, she’s already she’s moving pretty quickly. We started her at a level that we wanted to build some fluency before we moved her into new material. So she’s moved through the lessons pretty quickly right now, but, I’m really pleased with it. It’s a little bit more time consuming. Yeah. Lots of moving parts and pieces, lots of cutting, so a little bit more parent prep, but it’s definitely been worth it.

Laney Homan [00:06:19]:
And, usually, I prep her reading supplies while she’s working on math.

Pam Barnhill [00:06:23]:
Yeah.

Laney Homan [00:06:23]:
App is still an elbow thing for this child, so I sit there while she’s doing her math. But, she doesn’t need me every day for math. Like, I can sit there and cut out her pieces and stuff for her reading that we’re gonna do for the day while she’s working on her math, and then we move on.

Pam Barnhill [00:06:39]:
Exactly how I did it. Like, I would sit right next to the kid while they were working on their math and cut the reading stuff out so it would be ready for the reading lesson. Yeah. Yeah. I didn’t spend a lot of time prepping ahead. I know that’s a new thing with moms, like, in all about reading is, like, oh, I’m gonna pre prep all the materials. I’m like, you’re gonna lose some of that. I I would just say I would lose it.

Pam Barnhill [00:07:02]:
I’m just gonna sit here and do it right before we use it. So And we I think And we put

Laney Homan [00:07:06]:
in so much more effort to keep it all organized to what I was gonna use day by day. Like, before you cut those pages out, it tells you at the bottom of the page, this is lesson 12.

Pam Barnhill [00:07:17]:
Like Yeah. Yeah. After you cut it out, you have no idea. I love it. I love it.

Laney Homan [00:07:23]:
I definitely like the prep as we go method for using All About Reading. She enjoys the little games and things, so it definitely has been a good fit for us. But, again

Pam Barnhill [00:07:33]:
And I will I will tell you, Thomas got to the end of level four of All About Reading, and he shut the last book. And he looked at me and he says, when do we start level five? And I was like, oh, sweetie. I’m so sorry. But you’re a great example. No level five.

Laney Homan [00:07:47]:
Exactly. So and, again, I think this is a great example. Number one, you don’t have to have a curriculum. Not every curriculum is gonna fit every child. Yes. You don’t have to stay with something even when it’s not working if there’s something that comes up. But you do need to kinda give it a chance because I don’t have complaints about our previous curriculum. Right? Right.

Laney Homan [00:08:11]:
It

Pam Barnhill [00:08:11]:
worked for seven kids.

Laney Homan [00:08:13]:
And I I can talk to people about that, and I don’t we didn’t actually use it for seven kids. I’ve used several phonics programs over the years. That’s the one that stands out to me most that I used for longest with most kids, but that’s not the one we started with. And, actually, when I bought Phonics Museum, again, it was kind of a shift in need that I had this young child who was more than ready to read. And he needed more of a school experience, Like, he was ready for those lessons and asking for them. But I had older kids, and I didn’t have the time to kind of devote to that the way that I had with my previous kids. And so I wanted something that was very open and go and that had little activities and things like that. Like, I wanted something that had the handwriting and the cutting and pasting and, like, the things that would build fine motor skills all laid out for me.

Laney Homan [00:09:08]:
And phonics museum does that really well. It was then it became kind of this scripted program I could open, I could do with my younger child, and then I could, you know, focus my attention on my older kids. And that so, again, it was a a shift in need for my current circumstances that that caused me to look for something that would fit that need more than it was just a, oh, we didn’t like this. So let’s try something new this year. And I think that’s really been my experience in changing curriculum, but finding the things that are meeting the needs has become the biggest thing. And I love your little tagline. You know, the best curriculum is the one that gets done.

Pam Barnhill [00:09:50]:
Oh, so you did the spoiler alert. I was like, we’re not gonna do the spoiler alert. Oh, guys. We are so far off of our outline right now. I’ve got to rein Laney in. Alright. K. So let’s talk about what is a good curriculum.

Pam Barnhill [00:10:05]:
This has all been great stuff, but we do have an outline to follow. And you know me. I’m way more type a than you.

Laney Homan [00:10:11]:
Yeah. We but I will move back to the outline.

Pam Barnhill [00:10:14]:
Back to the outline about curriculum. So and and, actually, the heart of what we’re trying to get to today is what is a good curriculum, what does make a good curriculum. And I think Laney’s really laid it out. A very firm foundation for us is that multiple curriculums can be a good curriculum. Right? And it’s going to be you did give us the spoiler, like, the good curriculum is the one that gets done, but also the one that works for your child and their goals and their needs in the moment. But let’s back up a little bit, and let’s set some expectations about curriculum. Because I think one of the things that moms things we struggle with, especially as we kind of start off on this homeschooling journey and we’re just a couple years in, is, like, we’re still looking for the magic curriculum. We’re still looking for the one that’s going to solve every problem that we we know we we have these struggles in our homeschool, and sometimes we think if we could just throw a little money at it, that that’s gonna solve our problem.

Pam Barnhill [00:11:17]:
K. So I wanna start with this quote by, Colleen Rein, who is a member of our community. I interviewed her for the podcast a couple years ago, and she said something that stuck with me so much. I had to stick it on a slide. And that is no curriculum is going to take the sin nature out of your child. Right. Has that been your experience?

Laney Homan [00:11:39]:
Well, okay. Going back to the story about my daughter and switching reading curriculum, like, every day was a full on battle before we switched her curriculum. It was hard. There were definitely some things about the curriculum that were a hang up for her, and she wasn’t making good forward progress. And so it was a it was a daily frustration for her. So, we got to see lots of sin issues there. Right? I mean, who doesn’t have a little sin issue whenever you’re frustrated by something? Like they’re not moving forward. That’s incredibly frustrating.

Laney Homan [00:12:08]:
As we switched the new curriculum, she was very excited about it. It was new, and so she was more eager to try the reading lessons and things like that, and it has gone very, very well for her. But guess what, guys? There are still days where she is frustrated or she just doesn’t wanna do it, and she has sometimes colorful language about describing what she doesn’t wanna do. So she’s like, you know, this is dumb or I just she there are days where I can’t erase the hard for learning to read her. And so I’ve switched to curriculum that is a better fit and is helping us meet that goal, and it’s helping her make forward progress in her learning. But that doesn’t mean that reading is not hard. It doesn’t mean that she doesn’t still experience some frustration and there aren’t some still some days where there’s a battle or there are tears or and so a %. Like, curriculum does not change the hearts of your child.

Pam Barnhill [00:13:07]:
Yeah.

Laney Homan [00:13:08]:
And I think sometimes when we switch from one curriculum to the next, we are looking for something to correct our children’s attitude. Like, oh, we’re gonna find something they love, and then they’re gonna come to the table eagerly with bright, shiny faces every day smiling and so happy to comply. But that’s that’s actually not the job of a curriculum.

Pam Barnhill [00:13:28]:
Yeah.

Laney Homan [00:13:30]:
Yeah. I I don’t know that you’re gonna find one out there that is going to change the I mean, like, I know you will not find one out there that’s gonna change the heart of your child whenever whenever you’ve got sin issues going on. So that’s definitely a powerful statement by Colleen, and so true.

Pam Barnhill [00:13:47]:
Yeah. I used to joke at the homeschool conventions that, if Steve Demme could just make a curriculum that would also, like, mop your kitchen floor for you. Right?

Laney Homan [00:13:59]:
That’s it.

Pam Barnhill [00:14:00]:
It would, like, he would be a billionaire.

Laney Homan [00:14:04]:
Somebody what a grown up damn thing.

Pam Barnhill [00:14:06]:
We want we want this unicorn curriculum that is just going to do every single thing, including make our kids behave perfectly and also, you know, fold the laundry and babysit the toddler and all the things. But I think the thing to remember is curriculum has very finite powers. You know? And I think once we get real about that, we can stop, for one thing, like, buying every single thing that comes along to try it thinking that that’s gonna solve our problems. I mean, think of how much money. I think of how much money I could have saved if I had done that. So let’s talk about what curriculum won’t do, and we’ve started that. It won’t cure bad attitudes. It won’t magically make the kids self motivated even though they can get excited about it in the beginning.

Pam Barnhill [00:14:57]:
It won’t handle the chaos of your home for you. And here’s an another one that I think is really big for moms to understand. Curriculum is not going to make a lot of your kids independent

Laney Homan [00:15:12]:
Right.

Pam Barnhill [00:15:13]:
Overnight.

Laney Homan [00:15:14]:
No. It doesn’t. I mean, that that’s the thing. We you know, I mentioned earlier, like, needing to be elbow with my daughter while she does her math. Math is like, she does a great job with math. That is one of her strengths, but I still need to sit there with her. And I have other kids who are, you know, several years older than her, but those kids still need me. They need sometimes they just need the encouragement of your presence.

Laney Homan [00:15:42]:
There’s a new I don’t know whether it’s new, but the whole body doubling thing where people are there

Pam Barnhill [00:15:47]:
to

Laney Homan [00:15:47]:
kinda help you get through a test.

Pam Barnhill [00:15:49]:
What we do in finishers club is body doubling. Yeah.

Laney Homan [00:15:52]:
Yeah. And I think sometimes my kids just need that body doubling. They need somebody there with them while they’re working on a task. And so I find that even when my child is working through a curriculum fairly independently, and I’m using air quotes here that you can’t see, but it still requires me to be present to make sure that they’re staying on task. Sometimes they just need to know that they have mom available to answer a quick question so they don’t get hung up or they don’t get paralyzed by something. I have one child in particular who feels like she is incapable of completing any assignment that I give her to say, hey. Go and do this. And she but I can’t.

Laney Homan [00:16:34]:
It’s too hard. But if I am present with her, all all of a sudden, she can do it. She doesn’t actually need my input. She’s quite capable of it, but it’s, like, kind of a little bit of a security blanket. So we have to kinda scaffold that independence. We have to we have to work towards it, but it’s not a curriculum that provides the independence. It is like character and maturity. What other things would you say that you would recognize in your child to say that they’re ready for more independent work?

Pam Barnhill [00:17:03]:
Well, circling back to what you were talking about earlier, you said that you used the phonics museum because you had a you wanted something that a child could use independently who was motivated to learn to read. Like, he was motivated to learn to read or or she. It may have been Katie. I don’t know. But, like, this child was motivated to learn to read, so you needed something. And I wanna point out, you probably were not very concerned whether or not that child was making major progress with that curriculum. You you had a child who was motivated, and you’re like, okay. Let me give them something they can do by themselves while I’m working over here with these other kids.

Pam Barnhill [00:17:41]:
But you probably weren’t, like, stressing about whether or not that child was, like, gonna learn to read completely in one year.

Laney Homan [00:17:46]:
Right. Well, in the phonics, that it was a little different. The phonics museum, I didn’t I never gave to a young child to do independently. It was just it

Pam Barnhill [00:17:55]:
was scripted for me to

Laney Homan [00:17:56]:
it was, like, easy for me to execute,

Pam Barnhill [00:17:59]:
which the

Laney Homan [00:17:59]:
previous curriculum that I had used was not as like, I just didn’t have all the parts and pieces. Like, it was more of like a a boxed, like, all in one curriculum. And Had all of the, like, fine motor skills and the it it had it was a first grade in a box. That’s, you know, kindergarten in a box kind of thing, where I did have to do that with the child, but it made it easy for me to do it because everything was all included. And that’s why I had switched to that was because I needed something that was structured a little bit differently. But, again, that structure was for me more than the child. Yeah. I do sometimes see that people are looking for a particular structure of a curriculum because they’re looking for something that is structured for their child to be able to complete independently where they can just come in and, like, maybe check the work or something.

Laney Homan [00:18:52]:
I am not saying curriculum like that does not exist, but, mostly, I think it goes back to what you were saying, and that is you have children that are ready to do things. They’re motivated. They’re self driven. You mentioned Katie, my daughter. She I’ve always said, and you guys have heard me talk about her, like, high school years and things like that on the podcast before. She was a self driven, motivated human, period. She is just a hard charger at life. And she has a totally different personality than some of my other kids who needed a little bit more direction where I could give her, like, open ended tasks, and she was going to kind of create her own thing that she wanted to do.

Laney Homan [00:19:36]:
But I’ve had other kids where I needed to lay out something very specific. Even if they were using very similar curriculum, I would just have to create, you know, the deadlines and the assignments and be very specific.

Pam Barnhill [00:19:48]:
Like, make the task cards.

Laney Homan [00:19:49]:
Yeah. You have to you have to do that for your children. Curriculum is not designed for you to say, okay, here you go. Go educate yourself.

Pam Barnhill [00:19:58]:
Yeah.

Laney Homan [00:19:58]:
And I think there’s some of it that can be marketed that way. But And I think that’s such

Pam Barnhill [00:20:03]:
an important point, and you you brought this up slightly earlier. The curriculum is laid out for the parent. It’s not laid out for the child. And so curriculum, like, I would say 90% of the time is really laid out for the parent. It’s a tool for the parent to use, which kind of takes us into our next point that curriculum is a tool. I think that’s the the number one way to look at it. And just like you can have different kinds of tools in your toolbox, you’re gonna have different kinds of curriculum. But curriculum is a tool, and it’s a tool for the parent to use.

Pam Barnhill [00:20:40]:
So you’re almost always acting as the buffer between the resource and the child. How do I need to take this curriculum and modify it and present it in a way that my child can learn? And sometimes it is as simple as making a task card, and your child can take the task card. And we do have our teen task card master class where we show you how to take your curriculum, make task cards from it, and the task cards are the thing that make your kids independent. But you’ve sifted through the curriculum and made the card. You’re almost always the buffer.

Laney Homan [00:21:14]:
Yeah. And so here’s I was actually thinking of our Teens on Track course is my skills course that my son just finished taking. He took it this past semester. That is a curriculum that is written to the child. You know, the videos in there are speaking to the child, the instructions that it comes with task cards that are laid out for your child.

Pam Barnhill [00:21:37]:
Done the work for the parent.

Laney Homan [00:21:39]:
Right. And there are that’s there are curriculum that is laid out like that. It’s it’s written to your child. It is designed for your child to do independently. But, again, that teens on track class is designed for older teens. It’s not

Pam Barnhill [00:21:51]:
meant to 18. Right? It’s

Laney Homan [00:21:53]:
not meant for, like, your super young teens. And then even still, like, my son did that, and I still had to, like, follow-up with him. I had to grade it you know, I had to check to make sure he was staying on task and make sure that he was completing his work.

Pam Barnhill [00:22:07]:
Well and I will say one of the genius things about that curriculum, and I, you know, I know I created it, but I can say it anyway, is we give you the weekly meeting agenda. Like, this is what you’re supposed to talk to your teen about. This is what they were doing this week. This is what you’re supposed to ask them about and talk to them about so you can see if they’re on track. Like, this work, the work that we did with Teens on Track needs to be done with, like, almost any curriculum that you give your teen. So maybe we should make a class on, like, well, I guess we did. We did the teen task card class, but, like, this is the step you need to take to make this curriculum independent for your teen. I don’t know.

Pam Barnhill [00:22:48]:
I just I love I love that method of, like, this is how you do it. This is how you take the curriculum and make it something that your kid can actually use. But we don’t do that with second graders, and we don’t do that with third graders. And and my heart breaks because so many times, we have moms who are like, and god bless you. I know. I have worked from home since my youngest was four, you know, in varying capacities. As they’ve gotten older, I’ve worked more and more. And and I get the struggles of, like, you know, contributing to the family income and, you know, needing to have time to work and needing your kids to be able to do some stuff on their own, but not when my kids were in first or second grade.

Laney Homan [00:23:31]:
Yeah. And that’s you know, even when you have a large family and you have multiple kids, you know, I’d we were having a conversation with one of the moms in our community the other day. I think it was during our finishers club meeting. Just that like, just logistically being present for all of your children when you have a large number of children, you need some of the activities that your kids are doing to be kind of independent. But, again, you have to be realistic about what you’re expecting from those kids, and you have to really have an understanding of what independence looks like. I will never forget I I cannot remember who gave the speech, or who gave this talk at a homeschool convention, but somebody was laying out the types of things that we should be giving our kids as independent work at a younger age even. And we’re not talking about having them be, oh, they’re using a curriculum that’s totally independent, where they can just do it on their own. But she said any independent work that the child was doing should be something that is a practice, something that they have already become comfortable with so that they can do it on their own.

Laney Homan [00:24:41]:
They should not be covering new material or newly learned material on their own because they’re not getting the direct feedback they need. You know, if you have a child and you are teaching you teach them the math lesson and then you send them off to do the math lesson and they work an entire math lesson without feedback from you, if they’re working all of those problems incorrectly, they are reinforcing the incorrect method. They’re they’re reinforcing something that is incorrect, and then that is gonna be even harder for their brain to kind of redirect that path to the correct method. And so it’s important, especially when they’re young and they’re learning new skills, that they can have practice where somebody is watching and guiding and directing. I’m not gonna sit there and watch my child who has just learned to do multiple digit multiplication make mistakes, and then tell him at the end of that problem, you got the answer wrong. As I’m watching him do the problem, I’m going to point out where his errors are as he’s working through that. And then after we’ve done that for several days and he’s starting to get more problems correct, then I would let him, you know, work some problems completely independently. But it’s that it’s that scaffolding.

Laney Homan [00:26:03]:
It’s making sure that we have that guided practice in there. Guided practice cannot be done without the presence of a parent or, you know, something that to give them that feedback. And it’s really important for their little brains as they’re learning new things, and we especially have that whenever, you know, you have younger children. And so it’s just be your presence is important, and you can use a curriculum as a tool. You can use some curriculum that is more prepared. So there’s scripted curriculum, you know, like we said, there curriculum that you’ve done for the teens that have the task cards. You can find different types of curriculum that are written and laid out in different ways. But again, it’s always supposed to be a tool for the parent to guide the education of their child.

Pam Barnhill [00:26:50]:
Yeah. Well and so somebody might be saying, well, gosh, this is so depressing. You know, what do I do? I have five or six kids, and and they’re telling me, like, I gotta do all of it. So how do I do that? And and so I’m just gonna sing the praises of another line of products that we have, and that’s our together line of products. I mean, those are totally set up. Now you you know, they don’t teach your kid to read, and they don’t teach your kid math. You know, those are things that you kinda do have to make time for independently, though. Heather Tully, who’s a mom of 10, who works with us sometimes, she sometimes does combine two kids who are ready for reading lessons or math lessons or something like that.

Pam Barnhill [00:27:32]:
But a lot of things can be done together, and that is why we set up that particular line of curriculum, the language arts, the, geography. Now Laney’s writing the science together so those kids can work together on those things. How’s your and on Wonder Studies. So how’s your experience been with that, Laney?

Laney Homan [00:27:53]:
So that that has been really it’s been life changing for our homeschool, and that is what we have stuck with the longest. That’s when I mentioned earlier, like, we’ve kinda found our groove. I’m not I found the things that work for our family, and we have really moved into this family style learning. We had used previous curriculum that was written for multi ages, like, you know, to bring your kids together. And I can’t tell you what was working or what wasn’t working about that. I just know that part of it was my mindset, thinking that curriculum was supposed to achieve something that it’s not. So I had kind of almost given up on the idea of bringing all my kids together to educate them at the same time because there was it was a lot of work. It was hard.

Laney Homan [00:28:40]:
They were fighting or they were, you know, there was bickering or people who are at different levels or we we just had these obstacles that I felt were too great to overcome. And then as we started doing morning time, we developed a better rapport at the table. I had a little bit

Pam Barnhill [00:28:59]:
of a You practiced. Practiced.

Laney Homan [00:29:02]:
We corrected behaviors and attitudes and things like that. So it was, like, over the time over the course of several years of just these are the expectations that we have. And then sometimes there’s discipline that’s involved. Like, that sometimes we have to correct those attitudes and behaviors that’s just as much a part of educating the children. So but after we had gotten to a certain place, we were able to start effectively using, you know, these together curriculums. And for years, you guys have heard me talking about how we’ve used the explorations, and then we moved into the wonder studies, which kinda came out of that. And so we are using the wonder studies. We still use the wonder studies, but now that we have some of these together curriculum, I’ve pulled those into our homeschool and that is helping with our language arts.

Laney Homan [00:29:51]:
So this year, we’ve been using our language arts together program. We used it a little bit last year. And then we are using science together that I have written, and I have, you know, three kids that are using that. And even my 14 year old is sitting in on some of it. But then we’re getting ready to start geography together. And I really feel very confident about the material that we are covering, and we spend a couple of hours and everybody is getting through those content subjects together. We have lots of discussions as a family. And it’s been I see that the relationships for our children are being deepened by having a time together and the interactions together.

Laney Homan [00:30:39]:
And it has been a very good fit for my family. I’m excited about the new Together products that we’re releasing, and I do. I plan to just kind of incorporate those as we are going. And I like the fact that we’re like, some of the Together curriculum we’re having is is leveled up a little bit. So where I’ve been using a similar product for a long time for my certain ages of kids, but those kids are getting older. Well, I find that the products we’re releasing at Homeschool Better Together are also growing with my kids. And so I’m able to shift our focus to some of the middle grades products that we have, and it has been it has been a lifesaver on time for me to be present with the kids, for the kids to develop relationships with ideas and each other. And then it allows me to have the time to do the individual lessons for the subjects that need that.

Laney Homan [00:31:36]:
So we do together time. We cover all kinds of content in that together time. Then we move into children that are working on school independently. And by independently, sometimes that means I’m at the table at elbow while, you know, children are working, and then I just rotate through them and they do their grammar and their spelling and their math. And if you’re still doing phonics, you’re doing phonics lessons with me. If you have moved into

Pam Barnhill [00:32:05]:
more of

Laney Homan [00:32:05]:
a formal writing curriculum, then you’re having some interaction with me on writing. But

Pam Barnhill [00:32:12]:
And I think it’s important to say, like, when I was doing that with my kids, that independent stuff at Elbow for older kids, even when they were younger, it was a little more loud and chaotic when they were younger. But when they were older, like, we were all at the table together. Sometimes people talk about, oh, my kid takes their book and goes off to their room and stuff like that. That rarely happened at my house. Like, we have a we had, actually, we’re blessed to have an area that has a couple of tables in it. So, like, you know, we have, like, this big open concept plan, and, like, we have this, like, little alcove over here where there’s a table, and then we have the dining room table. So, like, the people who don’t like to touch each other or look at each other or smell each other could sit at, like, two different tables, and then I could be at one and still see the other table. Right? And so but, like, we were all there together all the way up through.

Pam Barnhill [00:33:06]:
And then somebody could be flopped on the couch or in a recliner reading a book or something like that. But there wasn’t a whole lot of, like, I’m going off over here to do, and I’m using Laney’s air quotes now, do my math. You know? We were kind of all right there together. And and even when your kids are older, that at elbow, you know, or what’s the next thing? I’d we’re using at elbow, which is a Susan Weisbauer term, and I think the next one is, like, burgeoning independence or something like that. Like, it like, keep everybody in the same room. You know? Keep everybody in the same room.

Laney Homan [00:33:42]:
Certainly, the only child that leaves the main area where we homeschool are my high schoolers.

Pam Barnhill [00:33:50]:
Yeah.

Laney Homan [00:33:50]:
And they might leave to go like, my right now, my 14 year old, he will go up stairs to work on his algebra if he doesn’t need assistance from me because I will be working with the younger kids and we’re talking, and there’s more noise.

Pam Barnhill [00:34:05]:
There’s some

Laney Homan [00:34:06]:
for him, it is, you know, he can go upstairs. He can work on the latest Latin assignment that I have given him. And then when we meet together and we try to meet together, probably every other day right now because that seems to be a good fit. You know? We meet. We go over his work. And if he has a question, like, say, he did he did an algebra page, he’ll come to me and be like, hey. Can you check this and make sure that I’ve I’ve got this concept down? But that’s only after we’ve we’ve done some instruction. Or if he’s used he uses a curriculum that has a video, so he’s already watched the instructor kind of do some examples and things.

Laney Homan [00:34:42]:
So he’s having that instruction without me doing the teaching. But sometimes he’ll say, hey. I’m a little confused about this, and then I’ll need to sit with him to do it. But, generally, yeah, the kids that are doing school are at least in that same kinda open area even if they’re not sitting right next to each other. But they do I do require them to wait to ask their questions until it’s their turn to meet with me So they’re they’re constantly interrupting somebody.

Pam Barnhill [00:35:07]:
Interrupting.

Laney Homan [00:35:08]:
You know? And that’s a that’s a hard thing. Again, it requires discipline. It requires teaching expectations for things. It’s not like everything goes smoothly every day. I still have a child who insists on having his questions answered in the middle of somebody else’s work no matter how inconvenient. And I have to constantly remind him, I will answer your questions when it is my time to meet with you in another, you know, twenty minutes or whatever it is. But that method of homeschooling lots of kids has been very successful for me over the years, and that is pulling people together, going over a lot of the content subjects together, and then having short independent loops where they go through their material with mom. I used to loop through kids at this point.

Laney Homan [00:35:55]:
I have a very set order of when I meet with them. Works.

Pam Barnhill [00:35:58]:
Yeah. It works. And I will say, I’m just so jealous. Like, we’re we’re developing all of these things. And I guess, like, part of the thing is is, like, now that I’m on this side of everything, I’m like, I can see what I needed at that point, and now I have time to, like, help create it. Right? It but I’m really sad because it’s like I don’t get to use any of this stuff. Though I will say, I was proofreading, so our proofreader, Jeanette, had a baby earlier this year. And so just to help her, I’ve been stepping up and doing some proofreading.

Pam Barnhill [00:36:34]:
So let just just so you know, when you get the geography, if there’s anything wrong, it was Pam, not anybody else. But, I’ve been proofreading the geography, and I told Meg, I’m like, I may have to use this with Thomas. And so now I’m taking our middle school together curriculum, and I’m thinking, I need to use this with my lone high schooler. So I don’t know how fast it’ll happen, but we’re thinking of making task cards out of the geography stuff and leveling it up for high school because it’s so good.

Laney Homan [00:37:06]:
Yeah. And that’s it that’s the thing is that, like, as a team, we’ll sit down and discuss. We were talking I know it was probably about a year ago, like, oh, we need that. Like, I need this for my teen or I need this for my middle schooler. And we’re like, okay. Well, we’ll start writing this stuff. And so we kinda laughed about how the fact that this is how we’re gonna get our kids through high school is, like, just writing curriculum to meet the needs that we have as a team. I want people to understand that, like, I write the Science Together curriculum.

Laney Homan [00:37:36]:
Right? Meg has never looked at or used the science together curriculum unless she chooses to do that. Right. You know, it’s the same thing. Meg wrote the geography together, and I am looking at that as, like, a a person from the outside. Like, I’m like, okay. What am I using for geography? I look at our resources first, and I’m like, oh, this is great. This is what we’re gonna pull in to what we use. But the curriculum that I choose to use from Homeschool Better Together is always stuff that is meeting the needs of my children.

Laney Homan [00:38:09]:
And so that’s that’s kinda how we I don’t just use it because we because we produced it. I guess that’s what I’m trying to I use it because it is a good fit for my children and our family. And there are some of it that, like, I’m looking at it just like a new customer, and I’m just so excited about it. And Geography Together is one of those things that we will be using, but we have not really dug into it yet. I need to I need to buy my book to

Pam Barnhill [00:38:33]:
Well, and it is brand new.

Laney Homan [00:38:35]:
Yeah. It is it is brand new. It’s but that’s the kind of thing. But my kids have started science together. I did not, like, write that as I was I wrote that, and now my kids are using it.

Pam Barnhill [00:38:46]:
Yeah.

Laney Homan [00:38:47]:
And so it’s it’s definitely I love the curriculum that we’re producing. It is definitely become part of our, you know, curriculum that we choose to use as a family. And I have had such exciting moments with my kids as they’re learning and making connections across, you know, the different curriculums that we are using, and I just think that’s so fun. But I think the format of it has been really great for, you know, fostering. It get and it gives me ways to help to scaffold. You know, like you said, if as we create the task cards and things for our older kids or it creates that family learning environment for younger kids.

Pam Barnhill [00:39:28]:
Yeah. Okay. So let’s bring this home because I I knew that Lanny and I could talk about curriculum all day long. And let’s bring this back to the spoiler from earlier about the perfect curriculum. So let’s just, like, lay it out for everybody. The perfect curriculum is the one

Laney Homan [00:39:45]:
That gets done.

Pam Barnhill [00:39:46]:
That gets done. Yeah. Where it is. Yeah.

Laney Homan [00:39:50]:
If you hate the curriculum, it’s not getting done.

Pam Barnhill [00:39:53]:
Well and that’s true. And, like, everybody’s always looking for the perfect curriculum for their kid. I think it’s so important to remember that mom matters too. And so, like, if your if your kid loves hands on science experiments, and every time you open that science book, there’s another hands on science experiment and you hate them, it’s never gonna get done. Your kid can’t do it by themselves.

Laney Homan [00:40:19]:
Right.

Pam Barnhill [00:40:20]:
And you’re just not gonna do it. So you have to you have to strike a balance of, okay. Well, maybe every fifth lesson is a hands on science experiment. You know, but the rest of them are not. Yes.

Laney Homan [00:40:31]:
And in the same way that curriculum does not create motivation and and enthusiasm in your child where it’s gonna create this perfect utopia of every day, I have a smiling face. The same is true for moms. Like, I don’t know about you, Pam, but there are some days where I don’t actually wanna homeschool. I have to get up and I have to make myself do the lessons with the kids because I have a just flabbergasted. I have a long list of things that I could choose to do, but it is my like, I’ve taken this on as my job. I have taken this on as my responsibility. And while there is some curriculum that I really enjoy using and it makes it easier for me to kind of get involved in it, I still have to get up and do the thing. It doesn’t Yeah.

Laney Homan [00:41:18]:
Again, it’s yeah. I don’t wanna keep repashing what we’ve already done.

Pam Barnhill [00:41:21]:
This is my plea to to everyone out there is make life easy for yourself by choosing curriculum that you will do. And look. Like, choosing curriculum that you will do. And look, like, you can totally be online and thinking, oh, my kid would love this thing. My kid would love this thing. My kid would love this thing. Well, until you tell them, they don’t know that it exists. So if you know that you’re not going to do it, skip it and go choose the one you will do.

Pam Barnhill [00:41:47]:
You know? And, yeah, it’s, like, it’s striking this balance between what’s good for your kid, what you know is really good for them, but also what you know you’re going to do because it is way better to do a bad curriculum than it is to never do the perfect curriculum.

Laney Homan [00:42:08]:
Yeah. Act that’s that’s so true. And I I think the thing is is that you have to look for things that are going to be meeting your kids’ needs, but also meeting your needs, especially you have to you know, when we’re talking about we’re talking about all this stuff about independence, a lot of times, as parents, we’re wanting to push independence on our kids through their curriculum because we are short on time.

Pam Barnhill [00:42:33]:
Yeah.

Laney Homan [00:42:33]:
And they’re you know, so look for a curriculum that is gonna make things easier for you and it’s gonna be less time consuming for you. It’s a great question to ask whenever you’re shopping for curriculum. Is that

Pam Barnhill [00:42:45]:
Oh, stop right there because next week’s podcast is all about the six questions you should ask when you’re shopping for curriculum. So, like, we we have got you covered. Well, it’s two weeks from now. In two weeks, we got you covered with all of those questions. So, like, we’re gonna leave this on a cliffhanger. Yeah. Yeah. Laney, thank you so much.

Laney Homan [00:43:07]:
Alright. Glad to be here.

Pam Barnhill [00:43:08]:
I’ll see you in a couple of weeks with those six questions. That’s our show for today. Be sure to follow, subscribe, and leave a review so you never miss out on the wonder of homeschooling better together. To stay connected and learn even more about the homeschooling better together resources and to join our free community, visit hsbtpodcast.com. Until next week, keep stepping out of the overwhelm and into the wonder.