So many homeschool curriculums! Where do I start?
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Our first steps into homeschool (and curriculum)
I decided that if I’m going to sell a homeschool curriculum that I wrote, I should also share the curriculums that I have used over the years as well. Plus, what we are currently using. So many families are homeschooling for the first time this year and boy, oh boy, can it be overwhelming.
We weren’t a homeschool family until about five years ago. My husband and I had both graduated from public schools and our kids were currently in public schools ranging from 3rd to 8th grade. At this point, after dealing with a horrible school district and behavioral/developmental issues that our children were facing, we started looking at other options. A friend of ours was homeschooling their kids through a public charter school that would pay for curriculum for each kid and provide laptops. We decided to give it a try.
Fear set in…
Our first meeting with the school administrators was probably the most foreign and overwhelming thing I’ve ever done. I had never felt so unprepared and lost in my life! How in the world was I going to homeschool my kids when I had no clue where to even start? It doesn’t matter how educated you are. When the school told me I could pick whichever curriculum I wanted and just let them know when I decided I literally almost started crying! I HAD NO CLUE WHAT WAS GOING ON!
I stopped at the front desk on the way out and luckily the secretary was a veteran homeschooler and pointed me in the right direction on a few things. I was still overwhelmed, but at least I had a couple of websites written on a sticky note and a strong desire to teach my kids.
Exploding with ideas
At the time I had four kids at very different levels, $800 a piece to spend, and the entire internet worth of ideas. My poor kids! I wanted them all!
I started at Cathy Duffy Reviews. She reviews hundreds of curriculums by subject and has a quick view spot with age levels, religious views, parent involvement, and price. This was a huge help for me at the time. However, now I often turn to blogs and podcasts to decide which ones are right for my family.
What curriculums we ended up using
I have opted to stay away from full boxed sets. I find that many of them can be very dry with all the lessons looking exactly alike. Plus, the price tag can be pretty scary, especially when you have multiple kids. With piecing together different curriculums, you can find used versions, the kids (hopefully) don’t get as bored, and if its not working out its easier to swap it out mid-year.
Disclaimers
Every state has different homeschool laws and you should review them before making your choices. We currently live in Idaho that literally has no homeschool laws. Some states are stricter, so before you choose a cute curriculum off a Pinterest blog, make sure your state doesn’t require certain accreditations.
Try to find placement tests for any curriculum that you are starting because starting too high or too low can be a fast track to failure.
We teach secular, neutral, and Christian curriculum. We are a Christian family but feel that many curriculums meet the needs of our families. My reviews and suggestions below are not sorted by religious perspective, so you may want to double check them.
My older children all struggle with ADHD, ODD, dyslexia, dysgraphia, or autism. So many of these choices may work wonderfully with neurotypical children where my kids hit many roadblocks.
Also, the more important! You’re not doing it wrong; you’re doing what works for your family. Its ok to take a break, its ok to switch curriculums, its ok to spend a week studying dinosaurs!
Here are some of my favorite and not so favorite curriculums...
Math
Saxon – I will always be loyal Saxon! I adore math and in school Saxon was my first love. My kids, however, were not nearly as impressed. They found it blah and repetitive. We switched to a computer based for a year and surprisingly enough, they asked to switch back to Saxon because it made more sense to them.
Teaching Textbooks – The kids tried this for a year, and it was ok. Much easier for me because they would get their lessons online. It made it where I didn’t always know what was going with there lessons to help and kids would try to skip things and get frustrated.
IXL – This isn’t exactly a curriculum, more of a skill builder. I have my whole crew using this app this year. My twin seventh graders were so advanced in math that they skipped a few math grades (along with the skills associated with those years). So, we decided to take a year and rebuild skills before heading into advanced maths. My four-year-old asked to try it and loves it too. It will read the questions to him so it’s a great activity for him while the older kids need my attention.
Language Arts
LLATL (Learning Language Arts Through Literature) – I love that this curriculum is easy to follow and covers many aspects of language arts. It has literature, spelling, grammar, handwriting, and composition. Its easy to teach and they kids are reasonably happy with it. We have used it, tried different ones, and came back to it.
All About Reading/All About Spelling – We have used multiple different levels of this program to help with learning to spell and read. I am a pretty decent speller and was surprised how much I learned from this program myself.
LifePac
– We have tried LifePacs for language arts and history. I think that they are beautifully put together and easy to follow. My kids did not feel the same and after multiple tries, I don’t know that I will try these again, at least with my older kids.
Teachers Pay Teachers – This is great site with thousands of free and low cost printables. I put together an entire year worth of lessons using just this site and will probably write a whole post one day just on how to use this site.
History
LifePac
– As mentioned before, I think they’re beautiful. My kids think they’re lame. Please form your own opinion.
Time Travelers and Passports (Homeschool in the Woods) – I loved these two curriculums! They were a little labor intensive and required a lot of printing. They were so fun though! These are something called living history where you learn by doing. So there were lots of time period projects and at the end you have lovely lapbooks and lots of experiences with your kids. Time Travelers covers US History and Passports covers ancient history. I strongly suggest these curriculums and I will be using them again once my toddlers are the right age.
Movies – This year we are watching historical movies and documentaries from many time periods and then using Teachers Pay Teachers to get movie guide questionnaires for an assignment. They are fun and gives me a little bit of a break due to my more intense work schedule.
Science
*Warning, I was a science major and get super excited about these curriculums. This year my kids are actually doing two science curriculums and loving it.
Exploration Education (Physical Science) – My boys loved this science from the get-go. Its partially online and partially a workbook with super exciting experiments. There are three levels for each of the different age groups.
Sassafras Science– While the boys were building friction cars in Exploration Education, my daughter was absolutely loving Sassafras. In fact, she used this curriculum for 3 years. She covered zoology, anatomy, and botany while reading a living novel about twins who spend their summer with their scientist uncle. She still talks about how much she loved this curriculum.
Elemental Science– Is the one that publishes Sassafras Science and has options for several different sciences. It focuses on the kids seeking out the answers and then documenting them. I thought it was a wonderful modeling of the scientific method. My kids were not very enthused that the answers were not easily provided to them.
4-H Curriculum – At shop4H, you can get curriculums for every subject that they offer and more! Unfortunately, they provide more of an outline and as the parent you would need to seek out the information. We have used these for science and life skills/extras.
Apologia General Science – This is one of the ones that my kids are currently doing. My seventh graders are using this one because I love the way they teach the scientific method and proper notetaking. This will make future sciences easier for my daughter who wants to pursue a biological science in science.
Good and the Beautiful (Mammals) – This is the other one that my kids are doing together this year that includes my preschooler. It is rated for K-8, but he is advanced and starting to want to do more than basic numbers and letters. He is enjoying getting to do school with his older siblings and they are enjoying a slightly easier science where I read to them. We are looking forward to trying Marine Biology and Geology next. Also, this company has curriculums for other core subjects and many of them are free!
Preschool
Gentle Classical – We have only tried one program for preschool, but we found this one sweet and fun. I liked it when my son was about 3-4 years old. Now that he is closer to five, he is requesting more in-depth learning. This particular curriculum has options up to about 7 years old I think and I am not against circling back to this one especially as my 2 year old reaches an age to use it.
Extras
We have tried so many different curriculums under this category. In fact, we have tried so many, I will be writing about them on another day. However, I will say that I like to focus Life Skills when reviewing options for this topic and I try to let this be as student led by their interests as well.
Some of the topics we have covered are:
- Art
- Small Engines
- Career
- Computers
- Sewing
- Entrepreneurship
- Gardening
- Livestock
I will continue to try new curriculums and subjects every year to give my kids the widest variety of education that I can.
The Inspiration for my Homestead Curriculum
After experiencing all these curriculums with my kids along with my agriculture education and history of ranching I really feel that what has been missing from homeschool options is a full homestead or farming curriculum. There are many individual unit studies or high school level agriculture sciences. These are wonderful curriculums in their own right, but I wanted to provide my kids with a well-rounded, full curriculum on small scale farming. After years of piecing together information or half-hazardly teaching myself, I decided it was time to write my own curriculum.
Homeschool Curriculum Available Now!
Build Your Own Homestead – Little Learners Edition is an interactive homeschool curriculum that will introduce your child to small scale farming. This curriculum is designed for pre-school through to 3rd or 4th grade depending on your child and weather this will be used as a full curriculum or supplemental to another curriculum.
Build Your Own Homestead is designed to give your child a better understanding of were their food comes from. This allows them to take ownership in providing food for the family weather that’s understanding what they are choosing at the grocery store, helping you tend to the garden, or gathering eggs from your chickens.
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4 Comments
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Ashley Wright
Great read!! Thanks for sharing such a great blog.
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Kody Hanner
Thank you!
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Ashley Wright
Great read!! Thanks for sharing such a great blog.
Kody Hanner
Thank you!