Part 1: Before We Began Teaching
By LaTrecia Doyle-Thaxton, Something NuBian
Before the First Lesson: What Happened Before the Curriculum Was Tested
When people see a curriculum, they usually see the finished product.
What they don’t see are the hours spent thinking, revising, printing, reorganizing, questioning, and occasionally staring at the ceiling wondering if any of it makes sense.
Before Inner-G Scholars Academy ever reached a student, it first had to survive me.
One of the first things I did was hand the binder to my daughter, Willow.
Not because she was the target age for every lesson, but because I wanted another set of eyes on the structure, flow, and overall experience.
Could someone move through it logically?
Did it make sense?
Were there obvious gaps?
Sometimes the people closest to us can spot things we no longer see because we’ve been looking at a project for too long.
After receiving feedback and reviewing the material myself, I moved into the next phase.
Creating Daily Lesson Plans
Once the foundation felt solid, I created daily lesson plans.
Actually, two versions.
Version One
Pre-entered lesson plans.
These are designed for families who want a clear path to follow with minimal preparation.
The structure is already in place.
The guesswork is reduced.
The focus can stay on teaching and learning.
Version Two
Blank lesson plans.
Because not every family learns the same way.
Some parents prefer flexibility.
Some children need modifications.
Some families already have favorite resources they want to incorporate.
The blank version allows parents to make the curriculum their own while still following the larger framework.
Creating the Worksheets
The next step was building worksheets to support the lessons.
This phase taught me something important.
A lesson may make perfect sense in your head.
A worksheet will quickly reveal whether it makes sense on paper.
Worksheets forced me to think like both a teacher and a student.
Could directions be understood independently?
Was there enough practice?
Was there too much?
Was the activity engaging or simply taking up space?
Every worksheet became a tiny quality-control checkpoint.
What I Learned Before Testing Began
The biggest lesson wasn’t academic.
It was realizing that creating a curriculum and teaching a curriculum are two different skills.
Building the system was one journey.
Using the system would be another.
And that’s the phase I’m entering now.
The binder exists.
The lesson plans exist.
The worksheets exist.
Now comes the part every creator eventually faces:
Testing the thing you built in the real world.
And if we’re being honest, that’s both exciting and terrifying.
Reflection
Have you ever finished creating something only to realize the real work begins after it’s done?
Sometimes completion isn’t the finish line.
Sometimes it’s simply the starting point.
☥
This post is part of my ongoing documentation of the Inner-G Scholars Academy curriculum development process. Rather than waiting until everything is perfected, I’m choosing to document the journey as it unfolds, lessons learned and all.
Homeschool Binder Coming Soon: Chakra Chronicles: A Holistic Approach to Homeschooling 🌱📚
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