What We're Learning About Curriculum Planning (The Hard Way)
So we dove headfirst into homeschool curriculum research, and wow. Just wow.
I'm talking spreadsheets. Comparison charts. Phone calls with other homeschool parents. Late nights reading curriculum reviews while Natalie questions my sanity. We've probably spent 40+ hours researching curriculum options for our kids, and we're not even started yet.
And here's what we discovered: this process is absolutely broken for most families.
We want our kids' education to reflect our family's values—our approach to faith, character development, how we think about learning and growing up. But most curriculum is either too generic (values-neutral) or too rigid (one-size-fits-all worldview that might not be yours).
Finding something that integrates our approach to faith, classical literature, nature study, and character formation? It's like searching for a needle in a haystack. Most curriculum assumes your family looks exactly like the curriculum writer's family.
We have kids who are going to be at different levels, with different interests, different learning styles. Most curriculum assumes you have one child at one grade level with average everything.
But what if you have a 6-year-old who reads at a 9-year-old level and struggles with math? What if you're running a business from home and need flexible scheduling? What if one kid loves nature study and another is obsessed with building things? Most curriculum doesn't adapt—you have to.
We want to make sure we're compliant with Arkansas requirements, but we don't want that to drive our educational philosophy. It should be seamlessly integrated, not the tail wagging the dog.
After doing way too much research on the Arkansas LEARNS Act (seriously, I went down a rabbit hole), I learned that Arkansas is actually incredibly flexible for homeschoolers. But most families are confused about what they actually have to do versus what they think they have to do.
So here's what we're working on. A tool that would create a full-year curriculum plan based on:
The goal? Go from 10+ hours of planning to maybe 30 minutes. Actually teach our kids instead of endlessly researching what to teach them.
We keep coming back to this image of the one-room schoolhouse—where education was personal, where great books were central, where learning happened at each child's pace, where values and academics weren't separate things.
What if curriculum planning could feel like that? Simple, integrated, focused on what actually matters for your family?
We're imagining curriculum that feels like having Charlotte Mason or C.S. Lewis as your personal education mentor—someone who understands great books, child development, and how learning really happens, but who also gets your specific family and what you're trying to accomplish.
We're building this thing for our own family first, which means it has to actually work. But we want to make sure it works for other Arkansas families too.
We need to understand: What's working for your family? What's driving you crazy? What would make curriculum planning actually enjoyable instead of overwhelming?
Share Your Curriculum Planning Experience → 5-Minute SurveyRight now, we're in the research phase. We're talking to families, understanding challenges, figuring out what would actually be helpful versus what we think would be helpful.
If this resonates with you—if you're also drowning in curriculum options and wondering if there's a better way—we'd love to hear from you. Your experience is shaping what we build.