Planning a Whole Year of Homeschooling Part One touches on not planning specific lessons for each day.

Planning a Whole Year of Homeschooling Part Two addresses how to keep lesson plans in front of you.

Danielle asks:

When you were first teaching your children did you read through the whole curriculum before planning it out so that you knew what you were teaching?

Lets go back to math. I don't have the first clue about teaching a first grader math! Every lesson I've taught him so far I've had to study several times just to feel like I could teach it.

Do I need to do that for every lesson in the book before actually plugging in the lessons in the master lesson plan? That goes for all the lessons though. I have to study every single subject's lessons myself several times before I can teach it. That's horribly time consuming. I know that's part of it, but I keep questioning myself, "Should I even be teaching my kids if I have to teach myself like this before I can do even one lesson?"

I’m going to be horribly blunt and I don’t want you to take what I’m saying personally because it’s not about you or what you’re doing, it’s about me. If I had to do this with first grade math, I think I’d have walked out a long time ago.

If your first grade math curriculum is requiring gobs of time in preparation, it’s time to get a new math curriculum.

I’m assuming you are a bright mom who can do first grade math, no? If so, then you can certainly teach it! Print out addition and subtraction worksheets and teach him to add and subtract. Then let him loose to practice a couple of those worksheets each day until he has it down. Teach him to read your clock, and print out clock worksheets for practice. Teach him the value of money and print out money worksheets.

That’s first grade math, and a curriculum that makes you feel you are doing it wrong if you’re not preparing by reading the teacher’s manual for every single lesson is a curriculum that isn’t worth the stress it produces. Chuck it.

I know Math-U-See is well-loved and you may find you want to go back to it eventually, but for now, you need something far more simple if it's nothing but a burden.

Math aside, I won’t use any curriculum that requires huge amounts of mom preparation. I will spend oodles of time photocopying great coloring pages and notebooking pages and mapwork for the entire year, but I want a curriculum that allows me to pick it up and teach. Or read.