Can we all just agree that our favorite learning moments in life have not been sitting with a textbook or worksheet? Can we just admit that maybe the easiest way to teach may not be the best way to teach? Most of us do it, including me. We teach the textbook and the workbook first. It’s the textbook/workbook foundation to education we all seem to need and want - no matter if we are educating children in an institutional school or in our own home.

But it takes work to avoid resorting to your curriculum for every subject as your child’s first encounter with a certain topic. It takes more energy, planning, and developing my own knowledge base to do education differently. The real learning, the deep, life impacting learning though, does not usually happen while we are inside our curriculum textbooks and workbooks.

The real learning is the extra stuff.

The Extra Stuff

It’s the extra stuff the curriculum lists as enrichment - the videos, picture books, biographies, activities, experiences, excursions, and interactions - but that should be the “real curriculum.” Even homeschool publishers call it enrichment, a.k.a. extra stuff.

It’s the extra stuff that made our hearts leap, that grew our interests, that motivated us to write more, research more, study more. It’s the extra stuff that makes us want to pick up our textbook to learn the foundational information to understand our curiosity more.

What About Textbook-Based Curriculum?

Not to say textbook/workbook curriculum doesn’t have its place. It can train the brain, lead the way, dive deeper into a topic, provide us the information we need to pursue interests - but this textbook/workbook-based curriculum is not what taught me what I truly value. It was the extra stuff.

Curriculum vs. Extra Stuff

Yes, we need to practice math - whether it be in our curriculum…or while playing games, cooking, and shopping regularly together with our child. Or both.

We need to learn grammar - whether it be in our curriculum…or while we write books, edit a friend’s work, and by learning a second language. Or both.

We need to learn history - whether it be in our curriculum…or by visiting museums, creating a timeline based upon living books we read, and filming our own documentary. Or both.

We need to learn science - whether it be in our curriculum…or while we experiment to satisfy curiosity, study inventions, and make our own. Or both.

Our brain needs to know these elements of knowledge exist, whether we study these elements separately with textbooks and workbooks or as a cohesive unit as we pursue curiosities.

What Should I Do?

What memories do you have learning? For me, it’s the extra stuff I remember. Is it the same for you? If so, know this, and design your homeschooling accordingly.

Maybe we need to flip the equation.

Do the extra stuff first, and let the bookwork fill in the blanks as we see our child searching for more. Maybe we dissect the heart first - and then as they ask questions we look up the answers provided by our textbooks. Maybe we visit the museum first - and then observe what makes our child linger before we dive into the history books. Maybe we let them read and write to their heart’s content, and then teach them grammar using their writing, editing as we go along. Maybe we take them shopping with their piggy banks, teaching them to add and subtract as they need it.

But let’s keep remembering that homeschooling can be, and maybe should be, all about the extra stuff.

(Check out podcast episode 66 where we talk about the author John Taylor Gatto and his best childhood learning experiences experimenting and learning from adults with free rein and autonomy in his day. This type of learning carried over into his experiences as a teacher.)