It’s that time again!
I am the quintessential nerd. I grew up with my nose perpetually in a book. Belle was always my favorite Disney princess. I adore the smell of newly printed books, and shopping for new school supplies was always a highlight of my year.
Is it any wonder, then, that selecting curriculum for the new school year has become one of my favorite pastimes? My one regret is having to narrow down all these amazing resources.
Of course, it wouldn’t be a good curriculum if it wasn’t manageable enough to execute elegantly, and so narrowed down they must be. With no further ado, here are our curriculum picks for the 2024-2025 academic year:
2-year-old
To keep my little one occupied during school hours, I have gathered an arsenal in the form of busy bins. (For my best tips on homeschooling with littles, check out this post.)
Preschool
I am of the Charlotte Mason, free-range set who believe that no formal education in the preschool years is necessary, and what children at this age in fact need is lots of time outdoors, baking muffins, and snuggling up to great picture books.
However, as a mom of many little ones, I also recognize the value of each having his own turn, his own special time with mom as his older siblings. If I had all the time in the world, I would use My Father’s World preschool program. I love the social-emotional development and how well every little thing ties in, especially the Bible component. Instead, I just use the character book (a MUST!), a finger tracing book, and he will join us during family Bible time.
We will also use Kate Snow’s Preschool Math at Home, and from the Good and the Beautiful we use the handwriting and preschool program daily and continue with the kinder prep when that is complete.
Kindergarten
My son has a late birthday, so he has actually already started kindergarten and is progressing with his reading very well. He is so self-motivated, even breaking out his reader to struggle through independently at night. The reader has been discontinued by The Good and the Beautiful, but you can still find it on ebay. I will say that it is not magic so much as a personality thing; my daughter is an avid reader now, but she fought me on that same reader tooth and nail when she was in kinder!
He will continue with The Good and the Beautiful Language Arts K, and I am still on the fence about Math. We switched to Math with Confidence last year, which was absolutely the right call for my 3rd grader (better organization and teaching instructions, better foundation of conceptual math), but my son is missing the fun and silly nature of The Good and the Beautiful, and at this age, that might be more critical. We will see. Either way, we will definitely switch to MWC by Grade 2.
He is loving the Magic Treehouse books and itching to be able to read them independently, so I am excited to see where he goes with it. He is also excited to begin writing his own stories, and spends hours building Legos. Such a fun age! I have a hunch he would really enjoy Minecraft, but I’m not sure what we’d be getting into.
Should we? Shouldn’t we? What are the pros and cons? Let me know!
Third Grade
Language Arts
Our third grader reads voraciously of her own accord, so I don’t assign any reading other than what we read aloud together. We have fallen in love with The Good and the Beautiful Language Arts, and I was really on the fence about whether to bump her up a grade as she doesn’t need the extra help with phonics at this point, but we are sticking with grade level as I think the writing component is more her speed, and why rush?
Spelling
The only thing we skip is the spelling component, as we both prefer a more traditional, straight foward approach (I actually didn’t even realize there were spelling rules until I started teaching this curriculum, and memorizing them felt burdensome even to me. I got nearly perfect verbal scores, graduated valedictorian, and became a published author all before learning of the existence of these rules, so I figure if I can make it work, so can she!). We use Evan-Moor for spelling, and I wouldn’t say she loves it, but she prefers it and does enjoy testing each week.
Math
As stated above, Math With Confidence all the way! I also love that I will only have to repurchase the workbooks, as the text and manipulatives will be the same.
Typing and Handwriting
We are using The Good and the Beautiful. I honestly love their handwriting and so do my kiddos. They don’t always do the extra little connect the dots, drawing and coloring, but sometimes they are drawn to them and it brightens the day and takes the fight out of homeschooling (which I will say G&B does shine in that arena in general). She will finish early and move on whenever she is ready, and we both like it that way.
I am not married to this typing program and still searching for something better (send your suggestions). I feel that electronic feedback would really help with this subject. Then again, I never actually took a formal typing class. I learned in the wilds of MSN Instant Messenger. If you have a suggestion (that isn’t an online chat or forum) let me know!
Family Subjects
Hymns
We will be using a selection from this hymnbook. I absolutely adore the historical blurbs. We usually take one verse a week, and by the end of the month we are familiar with the chorus and melody, which is my goal for my kiddos at this age.
Latin
We are just dipping our toes in this year by learning our prayers in Latin using this beautiful book (honestly, I will buy anything by Kate Warner, sight unseen), which we will do during our morning tea time. They already know most of the essentials in English, so this year we are focusing on Latin (again, probably one per month — or however long until we know it well).
Read Alouds
I am still compiling our official list, but they will all come from my American History Read Aloud booklist, which I promise to publish in the near-ish future.
Bible
We have loved using Bible resources over the past few years. The Jesus Storybook Bible is still my favorite, and the kids enjoyed the Read Aloud Bible (even if I have some theological qualms with minor bits of content). The activities from this one were mostly hits, with some exceptions (and some issues of execution on my part for poor planning).
This year, we are diving into the Biggest Story Bible Curriculum from Crossway, which I will verbally edit for theological errors as I go, but am thrilled with what I have seen so far. You can read from the Bible, use their Bible storybook, or watch the stories on YouTube before diving into your lesson. I am honestly so impressed with the quality and range of activities that go along with this, and you can basically access all the content for free on their website. No, it isn’t Catholic (please, somebody, make a quality Catholic Bible curriculum!), but I feel pretty confident in my ability to adapt this to be theologically accurate. I know it isn’t that way for all parents, so I definitely respect those who stick to Catholic-created resources.
Science
We are finishing up our K-3 living books curriculum (let me know if you are interested in the booklist and lesson plans I created!), and headed into a new frontier with Noeo Science. I love that it is based on living books and the science experiments are simple and integrated — the kids learn the content by doing, not just adding on — and that it came with a kit so I am not scrambling for materials.
I am definitely going to have mine spiral bound. I also liked the example pages I saw on flip throughs, but that wasn’t what came. I emailed the publisher and they emailed me a PDF for free right away, so A+ for customer service! I’ll keep you updated on how we enjoy it, but I am optimistic!
History
We are finishing up Notgrass 50 States, which was honestly a little repetitive for me, but the kids have declared it their favorite, and it has been fun to fill out our travel bucket list as we go. My oldest has become enamored of the Everglades and wants to hike to the top of Cadillac Mountain in Maine to be the first in the US to see the sunrise. It is helping to form our family culture to go through these together, so I suppose I can’t ask for more than that!
Once we finish, we will move on to Notgrass’s Star-Spangled History. I have flipped through it and I honestly love these stories. I am going to learn so much, and I am also a huge fan of the simple worksheets to check for understanding. My oldest will take the tests, while the littles will just listen along and complete the other activities. I am not going to use the literature component as I have a more ambitious, less realistic schedule of read-alouds in mind. I’ll let you know how it goes.
Supplements and Electives
Both our older kids take karate and piano classes. I love being able to outsource these as my skills, interests, and talents really all lie within the narrow range of academic subjects. Lucky for me as homeschooling mom, and lucky for instructors of the “fun” things I can pay them to teach my kids.
For writing, I am purchasing this little journal for my daughter and I as she is at the age of most intense interest in relationship with mom, or so my child development books tell me. We might also dive into this cute Writer’s Toolbox, and my son wants to write a book so we might get this kit for him as well.
As for the computer, my daughter adores Teaching Textbooks Math (which I attribute entirely to how wholly we have deprived our children of screens to this point), and plan to add Night Zookeeper which seems like a fantastic supplemental language resource.
We also get a monthly letter from Letters From Afar which is an absolute win for geography. If I had unlimited resources, I would add History Unboxed, Universal Yums, Saint of the Month, and The Mass Box to our subscriptions. But. I don’t. Hint, hint, gift-givers…
We might also add an art class or some kind of social meet-ups; those are all being formed and scheduled but still nebulous at this point. We will do what works with our schedule, with priority on forming friendships with other kids. If we don’t end up in an in-person art class, I will do art once a week with my kiddos based on this Usborne book that introduces different artists and has instructions for imitation and — what else? — living books.
I’m sure I’ve forgotten something. After all, we are living and breathing the education we give our kids. An atmosphere, a discipline, and a life. The most important lessons are often the ones we don’t even intend to teach, like how to calm down when we’re angry, and how to apologize when we lose our cool (if only someone could teach their mom how not to lose her cool in the first place…).
What are your curriculum picks this year??