Curriculum Part 1
HOW TO GET STARTED HOMESCHOOLING…
Step One: South Carolina homeschool law requirements
Step Two: Picking an Accountability Association. (That’s covered under Option 2 and Option 3 outlined in SC Code of Laws 59-65-45 and 59-65-47)
Step Three: Find your Homeschool Style Method or Approach
Step Four: Find you and your children’s Learning Style
*YOU CAN FIND BOOKS TO HELP…
Ex. Cathy Duffy- Cathy Duffy Homeschool Curriculum Reviews Cathy Duffy Homeschool Curriculum Reviews (cathyduffyreviews.com)
Discover Your Child’s Learning Style is, in my opinion, the most practical and comprehensive book on
learning styles for home educators. The approach to learning styles is very similar to the one I use
in 102 Top Picks for Homeschool Curriculum, except it uses five categories rather than the four I use.
They correspond in this fashion: Order Cathy Duffy’s Books (cathyduffyreviews.com)
- Wiggly Willy = Performer
- Perfect Paula = Producer
- Competent Carl = Inventor
- Sociable Sue = Relator/Inspirer
- Their fifth category is Thinker/Creator
*OR A QUIZ…
Quick Quiz: Which Learning Style Best Suits Your Child? (blessedhomeschool.com)
Learning Preferences Homeschool Quiz | Homeschool .com
The Learning Style Quiz (homeschoolon.com)
*THEN ASK YOUR SELF THESE QUESTIONS…
1.Do I want a curriculum that is Religious or Secular- Secular means not concerned
with or related to religion. Religious means relating to or concerned with religion.
2. For your Math Curricula for ex. Do you want Spiral or Mastery Spiral vs Mastery: The 1 Essential Difference You Need to Know – Nicole the Math Lady
The Definitions:
Spiral Method: “How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time!”
The spiral method focuses on the introduction of concepts in small, bite-size chunks. This is followed by
continual review of the skills. Meanwhile, new information is introduced in similarly small pieces. Picture a
penny in one of those science museum centripetal force exhibits. It starts slow and wide and gets faster
and faster as it hits the sides of the container until it’s going very fast at the bottom.
With a spiral method your child gains math momentum as they hit concepts over and over and deepen their knowledge.
Mastery Method: “Keep at it till you’ve got it.”
The mastery method approaches concepts in a more sequential way. A student may work on one concept
exclusively for days or weeks before proceeding. They’ll work on many similar problems and take tests to
see if they have “mastered” the concept, then move on to the next.
FINALLY STEP FIVE: Choose your Curriculum. Uses all you have gathered: Homeschool Style, Learning Style,
Religious or Secular, Spiral or Mastery. Talk with other homeschool parents and look up reviews. Take into
consideration the price of the curriculum. Also take advantage of the free samples a lot of these websites
will have. Lastly remember a lot of time this is a trial and error process.
- I know this can be overwhelming BUT you got this!
CURRICULUM USED BY LOCAL FAMILIES
- Abeka-Abeka | Excellence in Education from a Christian Perspective
- BJU- Christian Textbooks | BJU Press
- TGTB- Home – The Good and the Beautiful (goodandbeautiful.com)
- Simply Charlotte Mason-Charlotte Mason method homeschool curriculum and helps (simplycharlottemason.com)
- Life of Fred-https- Fun math though a story
- McGuffey Readers- McGuffey Readers – Wikipedia
- 100 Easy Reading Lesson- How to teach your child to Read.
- Beautiful Feet Books- Homeschool Curriculum Through Literature (bfbooks.com)
- Master Books- Homeschool Curriculum (masterbooks.com)
- Novare- Novare Science | Science textbooks that are true to the Christian faith (novarescienceandmath.com)
- Pentime Handwriting Series- Handwriting Program
- A Year of Playing Skillfully- A Year of Playing Skillfully is a wonder based, developmental school-year
curriculum designed for children ages 3-7. - Wee FolkArt- Wee Folk Art – Patterns and Crafts
- Jump In- Middle School Composition
- Spanish for You- Elementary Spanish School Curriculum | Spanish for You! (spanish-for-you.com)
- Cadet Academy- Bible Lesson Options – Cadets (calvinistcadets.org)
- Sonlight- Sonlight Christian Homeschool Curriculum & Programs
- Guest Hollow- Guest Hollow
- Easy Grammar- Grammar Lessons for Students – Easy Grammar, Daily Grams
- Daily Grammar Wedsite- Daily Grammar – Improve your writing with our free grammar lessons
- Teaching Textbook- Teaching Textbooks — homeschool math curriculum free trial
- Memoria Press- Home – Memoria Press: Classical Education
- Alpha Omega LIFEPAC- Student-Paced Homeschool Program
- Tuttle Twins- The Tuttle Twins – Teaching your kids the ideas schools no longer do
- Veritas Press- Veritas Press | K-12 Live Online Christian Education and Homeschooling
- Beast Academy-Beast Academy | Advanced Math Curriculum for Elementary School
- Dimensions Math- Dimensions Math® – Singapore Math Inc.
- Curiosity Chronicles (secular)- History | The Curiosity Chronicles
- Torchlight (secular)- Torchlight Home | Torchlight Curriculum
Asked on Facebook
Favorite, YouTube or Books or websites “people” that you follow for curriculum advice…
Julie Bogart and Carol Joy Seid on IG. I would also say Ainsley Arment (Wild and Free) and 1000hoursoutside influence my homeschool choices as well, but not directly on curriculum recommendations.
On Instagram I follow: Julie Bogart (writing of The Brave Leaner and creator of A Brave Writer; she also has a podcast), Wild & Free, Books and Willows, Harbor and Sprout (they just started a podcast too), Growing Roots Discover, Stephany Hathaway who is a unit study creator. I follow SEA Homeschoolers : Secular Homeschooling & Resources (They also have a Facebook group and homeschool magazine), Soul Sparklettes Art for art ideas and freebies, I follow Wild + Free on both Instagram and Facebook, For the Love of Homeschooling which does weekly freebies.
I follow anything put out by The Good and The Beautiful.
Home – How Do I Homeschool? New Learn How to Homeschool HERE!
Simply charlotte mason
Rod and staff homeschool curriculum
Mastery genius
Bridgeway academy
Classical academic press
Mentoring minds
Five in a row
Life pac
Mater amabilis homeschool curriculum
A gentle feast
Rosetta stone homeschool
Calvert education
Apologia curriculum
Waldorf essentials
Horizons curriculum
Gryphon house
Living books curriculum
Northgate academy
Wildwood curriculum
Charlotte mason institute
Aclirondack learning academy
Free classical homeschooling curriculum
My homeschool
My father’s world
Konos
Outschool
Power homeschool
Moving beyond the page
Ambleside online
Veritas press
BJU Christian
Compass Classroom classical charlotte
mason
Memoria press classical approach
Schoolhouse teachers traditional
Alpha omega
Abeka
Bob jones university
Sonlight homeschool curriculum
Easy peasy all in one
Time-4-learning
The good and the beautiful
Classical conversations
The great course plus
Little house kindergarten
My educate
My teaching library
Easy grammar systems
Higher up and further in
An old fashioned education
A world of adventure
Charlotte Mason College
Puritans Homeschool
The khan academy
Hippocampus.org
Notgrasshistory.com
Heritage-history.com
IXL
Starfall education
Gather round unit study
Campfire unit study
Quizlet
Globle globle-game.com
Seterra and the stack the countries
Wordle
Education.com
World and US bingo
GeoGuessr “geography game”
Trivia games
Risk
Ticket to ride
Game of the states
Jetpunk “quizzes”
World capital song 2 for kids
Countries and capitals of the world
Kathy Troxel “songs”
Night Zookeeper
Duolingo ABC
Reading Elephant “Phonics Books”
STEP SIX: Decide where you will homeschool and create your unique school schedule.
Some ex. How Their Homeschool Day Looks
Jessica A
- Age of student- 10
- Homeschool Style- Classical with a tad of CM (English and Math)
- Homeschool CurriculumLatin: Memoria Press
Math/LA: The Good & The Beautiful
History/Literature: Veritas Press
Science: Masterbooks
I also do a random elective daily like: Cursive, Typing, Art/Music, Poetry
4: Average Daily Routine:
We have a 5-day schedule. We start out with Bible and read a chapter a day. We go in order of the books. Then we move on to whatever the next subject is or what she wants to do first. Depending on the subject, each course can last up to 30 minutes, 45-1 hour if it involves reading (History & Literature). The exception is Wednesday when we have AWANA and then we usually have a short day of 2-3 subjects.
Nicole H
Hi. Happy to help 😊. My son is 14 in 8th grade and this is our 6th year homeschooling. He was in public school thru 2nd grade. Over the years we’ve used a lot of different curriculum. Some didn’t work for us and others work for a season but then we needed something different. I guess you would call me eclectic, I use whatever works best, a little of all styles. At first I used a box (all in one) curriculum but now I use something different for each subject.
Current curriculum:
Bob Jones-BJU for Bible
Sonlight for History/Literature
Easy Grammar
Sequential Spelling
Jump In for writing
Teaching Textbooks for math
Journey Homeschool Academy (online) for science
Some things I’ve picked out for next year:
Guest Hollow for history & science
7 Sisters for writing & electives
Some things we used in the past that I really liked (just in case no one else mentions them):
All About Spelling
All About Reading
My Father’s World
Apologia young explorers science
Not Consumed bible devotions
IEW writing
Our current daily routine is that I read aloud while he has breakfast, then we do our Bible and history lessons. He usually runs outside to play for a break then we do spelling. He then does grammar, writing, science, and math independently (mostly).
Erin A
- 7, 5, and 1 1/2 (not a student, but she is always toddling around)
- We are eclectic but lean toward Classical and Charlotte Mason
- Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic: For math, we use Life of Fred and supplement with flash cards to memorize math facts and Family Math once a week or so for hands-on activities. For language arts, we use Delightful Reading kits from Simply Charlotte Mason to learn to read, then we switch to the McGuffey Readers to reinforce phonics, as well as to teach spelling, grammar, composition and other language arts topics. For handwriting, we do copy work, as well as Delightful Handwriting from Simply Charlotte Mason and the handwriting program from The Good and the Beautiful to work on letter formation. Core Curriculum: We are members of Classical Conversations and rely on that program for community, hands-on science, fine arts, and memory work. For History, Bible, and Geography, we use the guides by Simply Charlotte Mason. They have really gone along well with the history rotation we go through in Classical Conversations. For science, we read age-appropriate living books and do nature study. For example, we are currently reading a book called “Little Mitchell: The Story Of a Mountain Squirrel” by Margaret Warner Morley. I also like to cover habit training and good character by going through “Laying Down the Rails” by Lanaya Gore and reading books like “Missionary Stories With the Millers” and the YWAM Christian Heroes series. We also read other living books that include fairy tales, American and world history, geography, and other topics. Some of our favorites this year have been “The Dutch Twins” by Lucy Fitch Perkins, “Fairy Tales Too Good To Miss: Around the Fire” by Lisa Ripperton, the Winnie the Pooh series by A.A. Milne, and “My Father’s Dragon” by Ruth Stiles Gannett. In all of these books, we constantly encounter our memory work from Classical Conversations. For example, in reading through “Little Mitchell,” we encountered a baby squirrel and some friendly neighborhood cats and were able to talk about the types of consumers they were because we had memorized the science statement, “What are some types of consumers? Some types of consumers are herbivores, carnivores, and omnivores.” A typical day starts with us going through our Morning Menu that I put together that includes a Bible memory statement, memory scripture, hymn, folk song, poem, historical artifact, and picture study for the month. Then, we do review one item from a past Morning Menu that I keep in a binder, as well as our memory scriptures. All that takes about 10 minutes. Then, we jump into literature. We read some classic nursery rhymes and a poem by the poet we’re studying for the current term. This term is A.A. Milne. After poetry, it’s a selection from our “literature loop.” Today, it was a classic fairy tale (Beauty and the Beast), but I also include Aesop’s Fables, picture books, and other things. It’s just all on a loop so I pick up whatever is next and read. This reading usually takes 10-15 minutes. Next, we do a lesson from our Genesis-Deuteronomy and Ancient Egypt guide. Today, we reviewed what we read
yesterday, read a short excerpt from the book of Numbers, and narrated what we read today. This usually takes 15-20 minutes. Then, we read one of our other books. Again, I have these on a loop, so we’re never “behind,” I just pick up whatever is next and read. Today was geography with “The Dutch Twins.” The chapter was long, so we read about half today. I use audiobooks a lot for these books. I keep the reading to about 10 minutes. Then, we narrate what we read. I also have a note booking loop set up, and today, this reading was next on the loop, so the kids drew a picture of what we read and my older son (7) wrote a couple of sentences about it. Today, the twins went walking with their father past some windmills and talked about the history of Holland. It was very interesting, and the boys enjoyed drawing windmills. The reading and notebooking takes around 15-20 minutes.
Finally, we rounded out our morning with a lesson on truthfulness from “Laying Down the Rails,” which usually takes only 5-10 minutes, then the kids and I played outside, fed the animals, and had lunch. During lunch, I put on the audio of our current week’s Classical Conversations memory work, as well as some review of past weeks. I will usually also put on a video Biblical Hebrew lesson. We use Aleph With Beth, which is free on YouTube. After lunch, we usually power through our individual subjects. My older son does his handwriting, flash cards, Life of Fred chapter, reads his assigned reading (usually a classic book or story), narrates his reading to me, and does his McGuffey
lesson. That could be a picture study of the illustration in the book, an articulation/phonics exercise, or simply reading the lesson. I have it all on a loop that he goes through for each lesson. He usually only takes 30-40 minutes to complete his individual subjects. While he goes through that, I work with my 5-year-old on his lessons. For kindergarten, I cover handwriting/letter formation, learning to read and reading practice, and math. But, I only do two of those things a day. Today, he read a
lesson from The Early Reader’s Bible and we read a chapter from Number Stories, which is a very old but adorable math book, and used colored clothes pins to count out our numbers. He is learning the numerals 1-6, so I gave him some number clip cards to practice counting and clipping the right number with his clothes pins. All that took about 15 minutes. After individual lessons, it’s free time until about 1:30-2:00, when we have “quiet time.” When they get up, they like to listen to audiobooks, do crafts, play outside or in their room. We don’t do screen time during the week so they have to occupy themselves. Then, dad gets home, we have dinner, bath, and bed time. Intermingled in all of this are lots of disruptions from the baby, so every day is different. We may not get to everything or cover every subject the way I would like, but I do my best to keep things light and fun!
CAN YOU SAY CUTENESS OVERLOAD!!!!!!
Summer L
Age of student – 10 Homeschool style – Eclectic/Unschooling (if that makes sense) Homeschool
curriculum – Life Fred and math is fun website for math, Daily Grammar website, Tuttle Twins for Reading
and Social Studies, and Cadet Academy books for the Bible, and generally put my own stuff together for
science and other Social Studies. Average daily routine – We generally do one or two subjects a day
Monday-Thursday. The subjects vary because we don’t do any one subject on a daily basis. Some days we
only do math and grammar, other days we’ll fit in our Bible learning, then science and Tuttle Twins. It’s
pretty much what Hailey wants to do for the day. For Tuttle Twins we read the book one day then do
activities on the days following for a week or two, depending on what I find. Fridays are generally our off
days or Adventure Academy, but some weeks it ends up being another school day and our off day is
somewhere through the week. Whoo!! I didn’t realize just how nuts it sounded til I wrote it out.
We don’t do science every week, Hailey always chooses what we do when we do science. And that’s
generally a week or two and can almost always attach other subjects to it.
I try to be an open book. I don’t try to hide what we do or anything. If it’s nuts I’ll tell ya straight up. I don’t want anybody thinking it has to be a certain way or that they have to push every single subject in one day because that’s definitely not how homeschool works.
You definitely do what works best for your household. When we first started, I was all about scheduling
everything out and upset if we didn’t get it done. Because of that, I was actually sucking the joy of learning out of Hailey. It wasn’t until I stepped back and let her have a little more control of things that she started to love learning again.
- Step Seven- Enjoy the learning process. …
Celebrate and highlight your student’s growth and achievement…