The Value of Curriculum
Many beginning teachers or homeschool parents rely on textbooks or similar curriculum materials to give them an organized path to develop sequential learning opportunities for their students throughout the years. Predetermined curriculum can be a great resource for people that lack the experience, the knowledge, or the time to develop high quality materials that are goal oriented. Why reinvent the wheel? We believe in having a highly engaging curriculum that supports our mission! However, we have yet to find a written/published curriculum that fulfills ALL of our goals. So, we have created unique curriculums for our own programs.
What does that look like? In a nutshell, we create a scope and sequence of objectives that we want our students to know or be able to do over the course. Guidance from the state standards and using our mission as our main driving force, we then use a combination of our own activities combined with activities from other like minded educators to help students accomplish those goals.
It takes time, energy, and resources to create grassroot curriculums that are ideal for Project Wild Rooted students. That is why we have already started developing the Rooted Academy curriculum for next school year. Curriculum for the one and two day options will be driven by thematic units. Thematic units are when a teacher uses a theme to teach across multiple disciplines. Since the brain naturally looks for patterns and connections, we learn more effectively when learning topics are not segmented, but rather grouped together and based on what we already know. Research supports the idea that thematic units increase student motivation and academic achievement and we are very excited to use this type of structure. Each of our Rooted Academy units will have a heavy focus on sciences, social sciences, and electives. We will then integrate leveled math and literacy extensions within each unit where appropriate. Life skills will also be covered by either weaving them into our unit or as stand alone topics. Because of this structure, we will not have time to deliver stand-alone curriculums for math and english and we will not be giving out homework. Therefore, we are encouraging families to continue with their homeschooling curriculum throughout the remainder of the week within those subject areas.
Developing our own curriculum also keeps tuition costs lower than if we bought from a publisher. It also allows us to have the flexibility and autonomy to create authentic learning experiences with current events that come up in class or things that spark students' interests. It creates more individualized learning opportunities for our students and it also gives us the ability to study phenological events happening within the environment around us.
Curriculum guides educators as they support students through their learning journey. We truly enjoy creating lessons that enrich students with the opportunities for nature based, experiential learning while also providing life skills and character building as we help parents raise ‘em rooted!
