🌼 This isn’t a perfect homeschool routine. It’s just what actually works for us right now — and everything we tried before we landed here.
I already shared what our days actually look like in What Our Homeschool Days Actually Look Like.
But I haven’t really talked about how we got to the curriculum we’re using now — or everything we tried before it clicked.
What Time4Learning Actually Is
For anyone who hasn’t heard of it, Time4Learning is an online, self-paced curriculum the kids work through on the laptop.
For us, it covers the main subjects we wanted — math, language arts, science, and social studies — plus a few elective options like art and music, depending on your child’s grade level and setup.
You set it up around the months you plan to homeschool, and it builds a schedule from there.
If we miss a day, we don’t stress about falling behind some fixed schedule — we just go back to whatever day we missed and finish it before moving forward.
That part alone took so much pressure off me. I’m not sitting there building lesson plans from scratch every week. It’s already laid out. I just have to show up and support them through it.
It also grades a lot of the online work automatically, so I’m not sitting there with a red pen at the end of the day on top of everything else.
Why It Works for This Chapter
I’m not just homeschooling one child. I’m homeschooling two kids at completely different levels, chasing a toddler who has zero interest in slowing down, and fitting all of it around doctor’s appointments and time with my nana.
I don’t need a curriculum that expects me to be a perfect teacher with hours to build lessons from scratch. I need one that gives us enough structure so I can spend my energy on whichever kid needs me most that day.
That’s exactly where Time4Learning has fit our family.
The One Thing We Still Add
For us, I still felt like we needed more direct writing practice than Time4Learning gave on its own.
Language arts covers grammar, phonics, and reading comprehension. But actual writing instruction — the kind where a kid learns to build a paragraph, an argument, or a story — isn’t really part of it in the way I wanted for our homeschool.
That’s exactly why Spectrum Writing has a permanent spot in our homeschool.
Alongside it, we do weekly writing prompts with the kids — a topic to actually sit down and write about — and then we go back over it together for grammar, spelling, and structure.
It has become one of the more consistent things we do every single week, and it fills a gap I didn’t want to ignore.
What Else We Use Alongside It
Time4Learning isn’t the only thing in our homeschool.
We go to the library for certain books when we need them.
We have workbooks from Amazon too — mostly Spectrum, across math, reading and language arts, and writing. Sometimes I’ll also look up exactly what one of them needs help with on different websites and print worksheets out myself.
It’s not one thing doing everything. It’s a mix, built around whatever each kid actually needs that week.
What We Tried and Dropped
We started with a video-based homeschool program first.
I know it works well for some families, but for my kids, it just wasn’t the right fit.
The videos didn’t give them quite enough explanation, and there wasn’t enough practice afterward for me to feel confident that everything was really sinking in — especially with math.
So even though it gave us a starting point, I still felt like I was having to fill in too many gaps myself.
Switching to Time4Learning made the difference clearer.
I liked the grading system better, and I also felt like I had more control over the schedule. I could skip things that didn’t apply to us, adjust what we were working on, and if one of the kids needed to go back and try a quiz again, I could reset it and have them redo it.
That kind of control made a difference for me.
It helped me feel more confident that they were actually learning the material — not just clicking through lessons to get them done.
We also tried a game-based math program.
My daughter liked it at first, but it started feeling too young for her pretty quickly.
It is built heavily around games and characters, which can be great for younger kids. But for her, it started feeling more like something to click through than something she was actually learning from.
And for us, if we are going to do math practice through a game, I would rather keep it simple and hands-on — like the deck of cards trick we use at home.
Simple, but it works.
When Something Isn’t Clicking
My daughter loves to learn. But when something feels too hard too fast, she gets overwhelmed and shuts down instead of pushing through it.
That’s when we go looking for more material — not more pressure, just a different way in. Sometimes it’s a different worksheet. Sometimes it’s me sitting down and explaining it a completely different way than however it was first presented.
We keep trying until something clicks for her again.
Where It’s Been Hardest to Find the Right Fit
Math worksheets, specifically, have been surprisingly hard to find exactly right. More than once we’ve just sat down and written the problems out ourselves instead of hunting for the perfect printable.
Reading comprehension has had its own version of that same struggle — finding stories at the right level, about the right things, that actually hold my daughters attention long enough to answer the questions afterward.
Homeschooling in Texas Gives Us More Flexibility
We’re in Texas, so our homeschool requirements are simpler than some other states. That gives us more flexibility in what curriculum we choose, but it doesn’t mean I want to wing it.
I still want to make sure my kids are learning, growing, and getting what they need.
If you’re in another state, this is definitely something I would check before choosing any curriculum.
What I’d Tell a New Homeschool Mom
If you’re just starting out, I’d tell you to really think about how your specific kid learns before you buy anything.
Do a little research first. Don’t assume one curriculum will work for both of your kids just because it worked for someone else’s.
Right now, Time4Learning is doing well for us. It’s taken so much of the stress off me so I can actually focus on everyone.
That’s really what I’m looking for at this point. Not perfect. Just something that gives me room to breathe.
✨ Thank you for letting me share what our curriculum actually looks like behind the scenes. If you’re homeschooling, I’d love to hear what you tried before you found what worked.
With love,
Rachel (RaiRai 💛)
→ What Our Homeschool Days Actually Look Like
→ Why We Chose Homeschooling When I Wasn’t Sure I Could Do It
This post is based on my own experience as a homeschooling mom. Every family and every state has different requirements, so always check your own state’s current guidelines and research any curriculum thoroughly before choosing it for your family.
This post may contain affiliate links, which means I may earn a small commission if you purchase through my links, at no extra cost to you. I only share things we personally used or found helpful in our homeschool.
Leave a Reply