
First, new homeschoolers: you do not start with this much curriculum. Consider us heavyweights in the weightlifting arena. When you are first starting, you start with a basic routine and slowly build on it as you achieve success in order to avoid injury. Same goes for curriculum! Start small, succeed small, observe where your children might need or want a little extra in a subject, and pursue options for filling that hole. Some of us have taken years and years to cultivate our perfect curriculum. Don't rush into homeschooling. A gentle acclimation to it is the best thing you can do for yourself and your family.
Second, if you are homeschooling with a curriculum, remember that EVERY GRADE is different in expectation, so never compare a second grade curriculum list to a Kindergarten one. Kindergarten should be very, VERY simple.
Lastly, there are things done at different speeds with homeschool in general. In some curriculums, you may feel that the writing portion isn't as advanced as you'd like...but that's because many curriculums believe that schools push writing far too fast at the expense of allowing children to fully develop creative ideas. I've seen this with my kids. If we combine imagination AND writing in too many subjects, the depth of their learning stays shallow. But if I participate in a discussion with them instead of forcing them to write again, they are able to take off into a mental world of ideas and understanding. Writing will absolutely come and be rigorous, but in many homeschool curriculums, they believe in rigorously cultivating and protecting the wondering process as well as the writing process.
âNow....