It’s the new year and you’ve started the second half of your school year. The curriculum wasn’t quite working but you thought maybe a break and a fresh start in the new year would help. But your gut feelings tell you the program you were all excited about in September is not the best fit. What are your options?
First of all, know that you have more than the two options of: pushing through or finding another program.
You can first try some minor changes. For example, if the program is more visual or textbook oriented, try supplementing it with some hands on activities. This is especially helpful for the young child who learns best by doing. Or maybe supplementing with audio books is your answer.
If you, mom-teacher, are the one having difficulty with the curriculum, stop and ask yourself what might be the issue. Do you need more ideas to teach to your child’s learning style? Search the Internet for some ideas and plug them into your program. But don’t get overwhelmed and think you have to do everything.
For some moms, that’s the other side of the problem – the curriculum has too many activities. It’s okay to omit some tasks. You don’t want to be overwhelmed and neither do your children. Select a few activities that draw the children in as active learners. And besides not all activities or projects are practical or appeal to your children.
But alas, the reality is that we do purchase some white elephant curriculum and there comes a time when we need to make the decision to sell or donate the curriculum. This can be difficult because we rehearse in our minds that we spent all this money, that so and so rated this curriculum as the best program, that maybe we’ll use it sometime later, and on and on. But, if the small changes as described above do not work, or you are just not able to teach with that program, or worse yet, your child is not learning, then it may be time to say aloha and move on.
And you know what – you commit this to prayer and seek wise counsel, and God will direct you and give you peace! He cares about you and your child!!