Homeschool Rule: Always Be Planning for Next Year.

One thing about homeschooling is that you are always (always) looking ahead to the next year.

You are always in planning mode.

You are solely responsible for the progression of your child's education.

There is no repeating the same curriculum year after year.

Every year is new.

And mostly, it is completely new: New grade (or stage) appropriate materials to identify and learn for yourself. New goals. New standards. Entirely new academic pursuits.

So, even now, in the middle of the autumn months, while we are still only one-third through our current curriculum year, I am already thinking about what next year will bring. I already have a basic plan and a calendar layout for the 2026-27 year.

We are secular, eclectic homeschoolers -- meaning that we are flexible in our methodology.

We are adaptable and will lean into whatever educational philosophy or curriculum will work best for us at this current moment in time.

We don't passionately subscribe to any single method.

We are not Montessori or Waldorf or Reggio Emilia, though I appreciate the premise of each.

We are not part of the "public school at home" crowd or online k-12 students or unschoolers.

We move-and-groove to our own beat and are willing to completely change step when we see it is needed.

I have found unit studies to be useful during this season of learning in our family.

As my boys are relatively young, unit studies provide an intuitive structure for learning and can easily be expanded to incorporate every subject and learning goal: from math and science, and art and social studies, to music, critical thinking and social-emotional learning.

I appreciate how unit studies flow throughout the month(s) of their focus.

It feels like achieving the best balance of structure and improvisation.

This year, I built a homeschool curriculum around three long(ish) interest-based unit-studies: dinosaurs, sharks and cars/vehicles. We recently finished our 8-week-long dinosaur unit, and it was a HUGE hit with my boys.

But, as I said, I am always planning for next year.

As my boys have progressed in their understanding and engagement in academic learning, my focus, too, has shifted to more "common" topics for these unit studies -- topics that you would more likely find in a traditional classroom environment.

So, next year, the plan is to create a curriculum with month-long units around topics such as "my world" (social studies learning about self, families, and community, etc.) and "community helpers."

We will follow those unit studies 2 to 3 days each week.

Then, because it is important to our family that we instill in our kids a profound environmental ethic, the remaining 2 to 3 days will consist of outdoor programming and environmental education.

For this aspect of their curriculum, I started my search for materials very early -- almost on day 1 of this current school year.

I want a comprehensive curriculum guide, something that just.... flows in the right way.

I need to feel the vibe of it. You know?!

It must be engaging and fun. We have to want to do it, to look forward to it.

And, of utmost importance for our family, it needs to be something I can easily adapt to suit my older son's learning needs around his disability.

It needs to be secular, or at least "neutral" -- no *weird* talk of "Christianity" in nature.

Ideally, I want a curriculum I can easily expand in parts if one of my kids showed a particular interest in a certain aspect of it.

And then -- and perhaps this is the biggest ask -- it needs to be age/grade or "developmental stage" appropriate for both of my boys, who will (at that time) be ages 3 and 8/9.

Finding the right curriculum is hard.

These all-in-one curriculums, even for single subjects, are tough to find, whether you are looking at mainstream (traditional public/private school) or homeschool publishers.

Mainstream curriculum does not work for my kids; or honestly, for my own sensibilities. Materials developed for a public school classroom setting are, in my humble opinion, extremely boring and rigid. They are forced to focus so much on meeting mandated standards that they forget learning should be fun. They are also not designed to support the type of flexibility and adaptive learning needed by many kids with disabilities, my own son included.

For curriculum designed with homeschoolers in mind: the most challenging part is finding secular materials. Shocking (not actually shocking), I know. While the percentage of secular (non-religious) homeschoolers is growing rather quickly, the options available for secular curriculum are still relatively limited. It just is what it is, unfortunately.... Things are changing, but it is reality that the homeschool crowd is still more conservative and traditionally religious than the general population. (It can be harmful to those kids, and it absolutely gives homeschooling a bad reputation on a societal level. But that is all outside of my personal control.)

So, that leads me back to constantly searching for useful curriculum for our own family.

The search is always turned ON.