Okay let's be honest, I'm the type of person that gets overwhelmed in stores trying to choose what type of shampoo to buy. I'd rather just buy something I know and used before than have to choose something new with millions of choices.
Costco+instacart have been my lifesaver the past few months. Costco usually carries the same brands for long periods of time and I can count on them not having more than one or two choices per item. Anyways, back to homeschooling. If you get overwhelmed by too many choices like me, choosing a curriculum will NOT be your favorite part of homeschooling.
I don't really do Facebook (Instagram is my jam) but that's where ALL the homeschool groups are, so I hesitantly joined a few. Instantly overwhelmed. Again.
If you are at this point I'd recommend thinking about what type of curriculum you are looking for. There are open and go types that give you everything you need. I mean everything...books, manipulates, activities, flash cards, etc. There are some that are online, think educational app on steroids. And then there are some that are a combination of both. I knew I didn't want an exclusively online curriculum (let's be real, they spend lots of time on screens these days and we are really working on cutting that down) And some of the open and go curriculum sets were just WAY too expensive.
Luckily, I somehow stumbled upon someone's recommendation of Wild Math for their active first grader (sounds like us!) I looked them up and totally dug the vibe. Then Nicole from Cay+Col posted that she would be doing Blossom and Root. Looked into that and low and behold it totally vibed with Wild Math. Nice! Then noticed they both were having a sale and boom! I was sold. (The sale ends this Tuesday, September 15th if you want to check it out!)
Both Blossom and Root and Wild Math are curriculums (okay the plural of curriculum is actually "curricula" but that sounds way too fancy for me) that you can make to work for you and your child. You will not get any physical books and will need to print out the parent guides, student notebooks, etc. There is also prep work that you will need to do each week in order to cover the material.
After the first week of TRYING to implement the curriculum, I contemplated looking for an easier route. I mean they were doing well with worksheets the past few weeks and all I did was print stuff off the internet. But after the initial stress and overwhelm and after really sitting with my thoughts and emotions I realized that this is the right path for us right now.
I mean things may change in a month or two and we'll deal with it if it does, but right now I feel this decision will not only help the girls to blossom, root and learn wildly (see what I did there?) but it will strengthen me as a person, teacher and mother.
Here goes nothing!