It is January, a new calendar year, but for most folks the middle of a school year. It is often a time we reevaluate what were are doing in our home school to see what is working well and what needs some tweaks. Sometimes we can make minor adjustments and see big changes. For example, I shared last week about how I switched my son from regular chalk pastels to chalk pastel pencils and renewed his love of art. However, sometimes you need to make bigger changes. It could be that the spelling program you are using just is not working for your child, or they are frustrated and not understanding math because of the way it is presented.
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It can seem so simple to change things up on one hand, but I also know that curriculum can be a financial investment. It can feel like a waste to toss aside old curriculum without using it and purchase more curriculum (which may or may not be the right fit). However, continuing on with a curriculum that is not working is not just wasting money but time. So how do you manage to not waste money or time and still have the flexibility to find the right fit for each child?
One solution is to buy used curriculum. If you can find the curriculum you want used you can save money upfront. Assuming that it is not a consumable product you should also be able to sell it when you are finished or realize it is not the right fit for your family and recoup much of your investment. You can ask around on your local homeschool Facebook groups or e-mail loops, your local homeschool store (if you are lucky enough to have one), or check online at places like Amazon or eBay.
What if you want even more flexibility or do not want to hassle with buying and selling curriculum? You might want to the ability for your children to pick out some of their curriculum based on interests or to add electives as the year progresses. This is where a family membership to Schoolhouse Teachers can be the perfect solution. They have a variety of classes for each grade level in most subjects with a total of over 425 courses for the whole family. This means that if you are working through one of their 7th grade literature courses and decide it is not quite right, you just switch and take a different one. All of the courses for ALL of the students in your family are included for the same low price. You can also combine courses or just do certain lessons depending on what you need for your child.
I personally use a combination of both of those approaches to give me flexibility to work with what each of my children needs, to change things up as we go along, and yet to stick to a reasonable budget. We use math from other programs, but love the literature courses on Schoolhouse Teachers. I love the fun hands on courses for my preschooler and enjoy being able to give my children access to instruction in a variety of electives based on their interests.
If you were looking for an inexpensive way to change things up or just wanting to add in some fun electives like music, drama, bread making, photography, homesteading, graphic design, or wild life adventures, you should consider a membership to Schoolhouse Teachers. Right now they are running a great special that makes their already good value even better. You can get access to all 425+ courses, World Book resources, and lots of parent resources for your entire family for only $90 a year. You can pick and choose as many or as few courses as you would like and change them whenever you see fit. You can do lessons from various courses or do the entire course straight through.
Resource Library and Affiliate Disclosure
When you sign up for the Schoolin’ Swag free resource library you will get a link and password to the library, we are adding to the library each month with new items. You will also get a bi-weekly newsletter email to keep you up to date on what we have going on.
This post may contain affiliate or referral links, including Amazon affiliate links. As always I will never recommend a product that I don’t believe in and you will never be charged more for purchasing through our links. It does help pay for the costs associated with the blog.
Deals and Freebies!
Starting August 31st all of Evan Moor’s Daily Practice titles will be on sale 20% off!
The NEW color edition of All About Reading is ready to order!
Free Help Your Child’s Memory Book from All About Learning Press!
If you are looking to add some new electives or switch up some of your classes, SchoolhouseTeachers.comis having a great sale, that is over 400 courses to use with all of your children for one low price.
*Some of the links in my posts may be affiliate links see below for more information. *
When I started thinking about a hymn study for January I was looking at various lists of hymns for the ‘New Year’ and thinking that it would be appropriate to chose one of those hymns. I even started writing a post about one of them but it never felt quite right.
Then I finally slowed down enough to listen to that still small voice and I kept hearing the words to this song in my head. It is a hymn that I love but do not often hear anymore. I pray that you enjoy this study this month and that it resonates in your soul.
If painting isn’t the right fit for you, you could do some other fun craft, a series of pictures, or a program like 
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