I had a request last week for an article sharing the homeschool curriculum that we are using this year.
Somewhere along the way, I stopped sharing our curriculum online. When my kids were younger I loved reading about all kinds of curricula, and subsequently sharing my own choices. It was exciting to see what was out there and get ideas!
However, as the years went on, a couple things happened. First, I settled into the day-to-day of homeschooling, and there wasn’t as much to be said about curriculum from year to year. But also, I started to realize how subjective choosing curriculum really is. Just because this curriculum works for my child, doesn’t mean a different one won’t serve your child just as well. Just because I happen to align with one curriculum, doesn’t mean it’s going to be one that anyone I know likes.
I’m not even always sure I love all my own curriculum choices absolutely. There actually is no perfect curriculum out there. I’ve been around the block enough times now to know that a different curriculum does not solve every problem, and almost any decent curriculum will do the trick if it’s diligently applied.
Even though I have mostly figured out what works for us, many people are still in the getting-ideas-and-reading-reviews stage, and so this post is for them.
Just a reminder, I have five kids, spanning from 2nd grade to a freshman in high school. We are eclectic homeschoolers in our family, meaning we make use of varied curricula and resources for different subjects. I’m drawn to classical and Charlotte Mason influences, and I am familiar with both educational philosophies without being a purist of either. We don’t read Plutarch and don’t intend to, and we like a workbook now and then.
Math
What We Use Right Now: Rightstart, Apologia, Denison
All of my kids have been taught their initial math concepts with the Rightstart Math curriculum. I like Rightstart because of the emphasis on mental math, understanding why certain math tricks and formulas work, and the abundant exposure to geometry from early ages. The way Rightstart teaches math has always matched up really well with how I think about math myself, so it’s been a good fit for the elementary years.
However, late elementary is always a period of trial with this particular curriculum - some of my kids have continued on and are doing well with it, and with other kids it became really apparent that we needed to try something else. Rightstart only goes through 8th grade, so I have always known we also needed to find something else for high school. This year half my kids are continuing on with Rightstart, and the other half are trying something else.
Apologia’s Exploring Creation With Mathematics is new to us this year and its lessons are much shorter than Rightstart. But it has been covering all the grade-appropriate basics and has been a good transition to becoming more proficient at procedural math.
Denison is our choice for Algebra this year, and it has been a dream so far. While the upper levels of Rightstart had been taking up to 2 hours per lesson (perhaps they were meant to be split into two sessions), Denison has hit the sweet spot of a reasonable amount of time and the right amount of challenge. This curriculum is written specifically for homeschoolers - my husband and I sat down to research different Algebra curricula, and as soon as we watched the sample lesson and saw how well the instructor understood homeschooling, we were sold.
History & Geography
What We Use Right Now: Living Heritage, Biblioplan, Story Of The World
Last year I made the switch to a more “true” Charlotte Mason curriculum, called Living Heritage, and it has overall been a really enriching choice for our family. Living Heritage is a guide more than a curriculum - all the chapter books and other resources must be purchased separately (similar to Ambleside Online). It follows a four year history cycle, and tailors all the resources around the history “streams”.
We mostly use Living Heritage for the history, literature, and art and music book choices, with an occasional science read thrown in. We don’t follow their recommendations for math or science, and we are about half-in with grammar. I retain the right to nix any book that I just don’t find worthwhile for whatever reason. However, even using the guide only partially, it has been worth the money to me. We have read so many wonderful books together, and my kids’ “independent history reads” from the booklist are one of their favorite parts of the day. It has really brought different historical periods to life, especially ones that would otherwise feel a little dry.
We are also part of a somewhat classical co-op, and for that we are going through Biblioplan for middle and high school, and Story Of The World for younger students. Though I didn’t choose the curriculum, I am actually teaching Biblioplan for middle and high school at our co-op, and I’m still becoming familiar with it.
I will say this for it - Biblioplan is very thorough. If you try to poke around on the website you will see how overwhelming it can feel. We are still getting our feet under us, but I think it’s actually nice for my kids to have a history “spine” textbook, and then to have the Living Heritage choices at home to add the color. It ends up being alot of history work each week, especially for high school, but we are making it work.
I feel ambivalent about Story Of The World - my younger kids enjoy it at co-op, but all we do at home is read the chapter to keep up with it.
Science
What We Are Using Now: Berean Builders, Apologia, a little bit of Living Heritage
We have used Apologia Young Explorers series for my elementary kids since the beginning, and they quite enjoy it. My 2nd, 4th, and 6th grader are doing Land Animals Of The Sixth Day (1st edition) with co-op right now, and because that is the science we would have chosen with or without co-op, it’s been working out really well.
My 7th grader is using an older version of Exploring Creation With Earth Science from Apologia. This is a textbook written by Jay Wile, and I much prefer his middle and high school science texts to the more recent editions from Apologia. I could go into more detail in the comments if anyone wants more information.
Because I don’t like the current Apologia editions as well, I’m okay with my 7th grader doing an older textbook for middle school. I already had the curriculum, and even though scientific understanding is always changing, middle-school level earth science is unlikely to have changed too terribly much in only 20 years since the text was first published.
My high schooler is doing Berean Builders, Discovering Design With Biology, at home. Berean Builders is a newer curriculum company from Jay Wile, the same author of the older Apologia texts that I like so much. One of the things I love about Wile’s approach to teaching science is how he guides the students in keeping a scientific notebook in which to record experiments according the scientific process. You don’t buy a separate “student journal” that hand-holds your kids through recording observations, or worse, just gives them busywork. Instead kids learn how to keep a notebook like a real scientist would. I was once a homeschool student learning from one of Wile’s courses, and that skill of writing up experiments served me particularly well when I got to college.
My kids are also reading an occasional science living book to go along with their studies. For instance, my high schooler is reading All Creatures Great And Small to go along with biology.
Language Arts
What We Are Using Now: Living Heritage, Fireworks Press, Spelling Power, Generations, All About Reading, IEW, copywork, and a bunch of other random books
We now come to the behemoth category of homeschool curricula, “language arts” - which is somehow supposed to cover phonics, handwriting, reading comprehension, spelling, grammar, vocabulary, and maybe even literature too. Is it any wonder I have such a long, hodgepodge resource list?
My 2nd and 4th grader are making their way through All About Reading, which is the best phonics-based reading curriculum on the market, in my opinion. Well worth the slightly high price tag, especially if you have multiple budding readers who will use it. My 2nd grader also has the English 2 workbook from Generations, which has been nice for extra handwriting, spelling, and light grammar. Both my little girls are also doing their respective books in Handwriting Without Tears.
My 4th grader is going through Royal Fireworks Press’s Grammar Town with my 6th and 7th grader. It is a discussion-based approach to teaching grammar and sentence analysis. This is our first year trying this, so the jury is still out on how we feel about it - in previous years we have used Rod & Staff grammar, and that has given us a good foundation from which to try something different.
All my younger kids do weekly spelling tests using Spelling Power, and I am reminded that sometimes the most boring resource is the one that gets the job done. There are no fancy pages or cards or tiles to keep track of here - just literally a book filled with lists of words. It is the only spelling curriculum that has made a lick of difference.
My kids are reading various literature books at their individual levels from the Living Heritage curriculum lists. My youngest two narrate their books orally, and my oldest three write narrations on the books they read - one each day for my high schooler, 2 or 3 per week for my 6th and 7th grader.
We are also going through IEW’s theme-based writing books with co-op, so my big kids are writing a short paper (1-3 paragraphs) for that each week.
Bible
What We Are Using Now: Answers Bible Curriculum, the Tune My Heart catechism, devotional and theological books, and the actual Bible
We have hopped around to different Bible curricula over the years. We really like Answer Bible Curriculum, and it’s something that can be done with the whole family. We have unfortunately used it a little sporadically because we are typically using alot of other resources at the same time. But every time we pick it up the lessons are so rich.
My kids are reading various devotional and theological books as part of the Living Heritage curriculum, and I have been so pleased with the choices so far. We have covered alot of really deep theological topics that I’m not sure how we would have discussed otherwise. We also work on a catechism question (I’m partial to the Westminster Shorter Catechism, but we are trying the Tune My Heart catechism this year) and we read through the Apostle’s and Nicene creeds during our morning time, all of which are full of biblical truth.
However, my best recommendation for studying the Bible in homeschooling is to just pick up the Bible and read it together. You actually don’t need anything fancy to study the Bible with your kids. Just read it, and discuss it, and pray over it together. You will be surprised how enriching that is. This is my favorite discussion guide if you need a little guidance.
Extras
What We Are Using Now: Living Heritage recommendations, Art classes
By extras, I mean things like art, music, Shakespeare, and poetry. There are so many good books and resources for doing picture study and composer study. There are tons of online art tutorials, and books filled with collections of poetry for kids. For Shakespeare we just listen to the play with a copy of the text on the table and a highlighter in hand.
This year we are using alot of guidance from the Living Heritage resource recommendations for these areas of study, and my kids also take an excellent art class at co-op. In the past we have made good use of the Simply Charlotte Mason website, the library, and Youtube. Here are a few favorite resources:
How To Teach Your Children Shakespeare
Simply Charlotte Mason Picture Study
Simply Charlotte Mason Composer Study
Ark Angel Shakespeare Productions
Humility and Doxology Poetry Lists
Homeschool Compass Poetry Lists
As you can see, it’s never a simple answer when someone asks me what curriculum we use! I almost envy those people who can simply reply “Abeka” or something. However, piecing our curriculum together over the years has been a joy to me, and has allowed me to customize our curriculum - not only for my particular kids, but also according to our own family values and educational priorities.
That’s the wonderful thing about homeschooling isn’t it?
I’m happy to answer any questions about why I do or don’t like a curriculum, or give more thorough reviews of individual curricula in the comments!
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