Unpopular Homeschool Opinions (That Actually Work for Us)

I’ve been homeschooling for a few years now, and if I’m being honest…I spent the first year COMPLETELY overwhelmed.

I kept looking at what other homeschooling families were doing on social media, whether it was the perfectly curated unit studies, the perfectly organized home and spaces, and I would try to recreate it. For someone who had no idea what homeschooling was, all I had was my first impression of it.

And honestly, it was exhausting and overwhelming. I felt like I was constantly second guessing myself, buying things I didn’t need, committing to things that just didn’t fit our family and just stressing myself out.

It wasn’t until I stopped trying to make our homeschool look like everyone else’s that things slowly started working. I took it bit by bit and just worked on trusting myself and my instincts. I figured out what worked for our family, and when something didn’t…I let it go. Though, if I’m being honest, the letting go part took a little bit of courage (and time).

So here’s the homeschooling advice that I live by now, even though it may go against everything you see online.

1. Skip the expensive curriculums your first year. Use the library

   As a matter of fact, just focus on finding curriculums for your core 3 subjects: reading, writing, and math. For kindergarten, I love Math with Confidence, Logic of English Foundations, and Handwriting Without Tears. The rest of the subjects you can figure out which curriculums may suit your family, but while you’re getting the hang of your homeschooling life, the library is your best friend (and it’s free). For science you can grab some audiobooks about topics like plants, weather, animals, space and then do monthly unit studies on them. For social studies, pick some famous people to study and read books about them.

   You can even keep your learning hands on and engaging. Play educational games every Friday. Grab some local museum passes for weekly or monthly adventures. Go to the aquarium!

   Curriculums are not bad (I love them), but your first year is overwhelming enough so ease into school and figure out what direction you want to go without spending $500-$800.

   

2. You don’t need a co-op.

   Conventional advice will tell you to join a co-op for socialization, structure, and community. It’s almost like a homeschooling rite of passage. And if you want my completely honest advice… co-ops can be exhausting, expensive, and often can just lead to more stress than actual value.

   Most co-ops require parent participation, which means you’re not just signing your kid up, you’re signing yourself up to teach classes, coordinate schedules, and show up every week. And sometimes there’s not a lot of parents willing to involve themselves so a bulk of the work ends up on your shoulders (and it’s exhausting).

   Other times, co-ops may lack structure and just feel like a chaotic play date that ends up leaving everyone more frazzled than when they started. We tried a co-op and it just wasn’t an ideal situation for our family so we decided to switch to small groups instead and I find so much more value in that.

So co-ops can be a great resource, and if so, keep them in your lives! But if they’re a huge source of stress, it’s completely ok to drop them and find something else. Your kids will still find so many socialization opportunities, trust me on this.