Homeschool Curriculum Resources, Ideas & Tips
Looking for homeschool resources, ideas, and tips for selecting the best homeschool curriculum for your child? I have compiled a list of Homeschool Curriculum Resources and Ideas to assist with the decision making this year.
HOMESCHOOL CURRICULUM IDEAS & RESOURCES
STATE HOMESCHOOL LAWS
First up is to check with your state homeschooling laws. Each state in the United States. has its own set of homeschool laws and requirements. Be sure to check out what your home state requires before you make any purchases. The quickest place to find out what your state requires is the Homeschool Legal Defense Association (HSLDA) website. We reside in Illinois and there are zero requirements for us.
Secondly would be the planning process. I have some free downloadable printables to aide in the planning process. These printables will also help all year with keeping on track. Included in the Weekly Planner printables are a Weekly Schedule Page (1 page), are Weekly Planner Pages (2 pages), and Week at a Glance Pages (2 pages).
HOMESCHOOL CURRICULUM: PLANNING
Before you start purchasing any curriculum, the first step is to make a plan. Do you want your entire school year planned out prior to even beginning the school year? Or do you want to plan the first semester and then over the winter break, reevaluate and adjust and make the plans for the second semester? Do you want teacher’s manuals to completely guide you or do you want to do everything yourself? Perhaps you like the idea of a bit of both?
I read loads of reviews on the curriculum. I went to homeschool conventions. I ordered textbooks and returned textbooks. I borrowed textbook . . . all the while gathering information about what curriculum would work for my family and my kiddos. I have to tell you if you are committing to homeschool for one year, one semester, or a few years, you will likely make some purchases and find out later that the books simply don’t work well. It is going to happen and use, it stinks. But, that is just the way it is. That is why I try to really look at the books before I purchase anything. After a year or so, you will find out what type of curriculum works for your family and the planning stage will go much smoother the next year.
HOMESCHOOL CURRICULUM:
FULL CURRICULUM PROGRAMS OPTIONS
I have some homeschool friends who only use full programs. What this means is that they purchase an all-encompassing school program from the same publisher. The publisher sends an entire grade package(a boxed set of the curriculum) of their curriculum with the teacher’s guides. These types of programs didn’t work for me. My kids like too many different things for me to select one program. However, my friends who use a full program LOVE them.
A full curriculum is great for any parent who is unsure where to begin. You can always tweak the weeks and months of schoolwork as you get fully into the school year. A boxed set of curricula definitely gives a starting point for any parent.
Here is a list of the faith-based curriculum. This is not by any means an all-inclusive list. There are so many options available today. This list, however, does detail companies that can provide a complete boxed set of curricula to you for a particular grade level. I have used some of these companies, but not all of them. I will put an asterisk by the curriculum I have personally used.
FAITH-BASED CURRICULUM
BJU Press: Homeschool curriculum sets. I used BJU in middle school and high school and have been very pleased with the curriculum. But, I never ordered the entire sets, but simply what we wanted.* Video Courses Available.
Memoria Press: Classical Christian Curriculum - I have used a number of the curriculum from Memoria Press over the years, but have never purchased the sets.* Full Schedule Online Academy Options Available for Grades 3-12.
Sonlight - An instructor-led, literature-based curriculum. Good for combining kids together.*
Abeka - Mix And Match Video Lessons, Individual Books, And Teaching Aids, Or Simple-To-Order Kits. Online School Option Available.*
Alpha & Omega: Offers workbook, self-paced LIFEPAC. I began with LIFEPAC for my son in Kindergarten and then used the Math curriculum through grade 1 and then decided it wasn’t for us.* Digital and Online Available.
Timberdoodle: Curriculum Kits.
My Father’s World: Unit Studies
The Good and the Beautiful: All-in-One Curriculum. Combines Many Subjects. Full-year.
Gather ‘Round Homeschool: Unit Studies.
Master Books - Complete Sets.
SECULAR CURRICULUM
I have not used any of this curriculum, so I can’t speak to its contents.
Blossom & Root: Nature-based curriculum.
Oak Meadow: Literature-based curriculum.
BookShark: The secular literature-based version of Sonlight.
Build Your Library: Literature-based curriculum.
COMPLETE ONLINE COURSES FOR GRADES K-12
WHAT IS AN ONLINE SCHOOL?
An online school simply means all courses, including teacher-to-student and student-to-student interaction, happens via the Internet.
If you are not sure if you can teach your child OR if you are working from home and need some assistance — here are some options for complete online courses for grades K-12. Most of these sites offer full courses for all levels for pretty much any class. However, some are just elementary and some are just high school.
You can enroll your child in one course to try to see if it works for your family. If perhaps you are unsure about teaching a subject, like Math, for instance, you can enroll your child in an online Math course and teach the remainder of the classes. Also, if you simply want your child home and are working full time and are unable to teach, online courses are the perfect solution.
FREE CURRICULUM RESOURCES
This list included websites that host free curricula. COMPLETELY FREE CURRICULUM. Some of these sites host complete units, and complete subjects, and some are simply worksheets you can download. If you spend some time investigating and researching these websites, you could easily create an entire year of schoolwork for your children per subject. AND FREE!! If you have done any scouring yet, all you need to do is type free school printables into google and you will receive pages and pages of sites that offer free school printables!
Super Teacher Worksheets (I paid for the yearly $25 subscription to this site for years)*
Enchanted Learning (I paid the yearly $20 subscription to this site for years)*
*the 2 sites above were my go-to sites for the first couple of years - they were super economical and had loads of printables you could save to your own computer!
All in One Homeschool or sometimes called Easy Peasy Homeschool
Teachers Pay Teachers (not everything is free)
SAS Curriculum Pathways - old site retired in 2021 but has new links
Free Language Arts Curriculum
Daily Grammar - Grammar only
The Good & The Beautiful - Language Arts and Literature course sets levels 1-5 are offered as free downloads
Progressive Phoenics - Phoenics only
Free Math Curriculum
XtraMath - Math Facts
Learn with Math Games - Math Practice
Ray’s Arithmetic - Math Books to download
Free History Curriculum
Digital History - History Lessons
Heritage History - History Lessons (this website is AMAZING)
Georgia Virtual Learning - History Lessons
If your family is feeling the push to home educate your students during this uncertain time and you don’t want to invest in a full program or are unable to, these free resources are great. You would need a printer, ink, and paper. You would need to investigate a bit to see what would work for your child.
Homeschool Curriculum Resources Per Subject
MATH
Teaching Math has always come easy to me as I was a Senior Financial Analyst prior to having children. My son was a little genius in Math and learned quickly and easily. He literally gobbled up Math so fast! My oldest daughter was completely different. She needed loads of repetition and review and still struggled. She would cry every day during the Math period and just decided she didn’t like Math and would never understand it. However, I am happy to say that through all her hard work and perseverance and review and repetition, she is great at Math today — but still doesn’t’ not like it! LOL! My youngest daughter was a bit of both. She doesn’t dislike Math, and is not a genius, but only needs minimal review and understands concepts quickly.
I used LIFEPAC for my son when he was in grades K-1. I then switched to Saxon Math for all of my children. I used Harold Jacob’s Algebra for all of my kids. I used Math-U-See Geometry for my daughters. I tried Singapore Math and Christian Light with my middles child and those did not work for her.
Saxon Math - Incremental, Loads of Review Problems*
Teaching Textbooks - DVD lessons, online
Singapore Math US Standards Edition - Mental Math, Concrete. Pictorial. Abstract approach*
LIFEPAC - small unit packets*
Horizons - concepts through introduction, review, and reinforcement*
Math-U-See - Concepts and comprehensive review, skill-based*
Life of Fred - DVDs and Literature-based
Christian Light Mathematics - Math Units*
HISTORY
If you select an amazing History curriculum, your children will fall in love with the history of our world! I learned to adore and love History by teaching my children History. I despised History as a child because it was so boring! If you are excited about teaching History, your children will adore learning about the history of our Earth!
Be sure to check out my in-depth review of History, Social Studies, Omnibus, and Geography curriculum.
The Mystery of History - Christian, young-earth, perspective, teaching children to see God’s hand throughout history.* Companion Books available as well, contain numerous activities. We used Mystery of History for about six years total and I have an entire post about how to put together a Mystery of History Binder for the school year.
Story of the World: Classical, literature-based. It does have activity books you can also purchase. There are also FREE downloadable pages to complete lapbooks — which my kids LOVED for years! Activity Books are also available.
Volume One: Ancient Times: from the Earliest Nomads to the Last Roman Emperor
Volume Two: The Middle Ages: from the Fall of Rome to the Rise of the Renaissance
Volume Three: Early Modern Times: from Elizabeth the First to the Forty-Niners
Volume Four: The Modern Age: from Victoria’s Empire to the End of the USSR
A History of US (I purchased the entire 10 book set and used as a supplement)
Give Your Child the World (reading lists to supplement history lessons by region, country, and age range)
BJU Press - BJU Press names their History Curriculum Heritage Studies.
Tapestry of Grace - Instructor-led comprehensive, classical in scope, economical, able to be used across different age ranges and learning styles, but not entirely grade level based.
SCIENCE
I have not veered from the Apologia curriculum for many years. I really like Apologia Science curriculums and my kids really enjoy it as well. We tried BJU press for a year or so and my kids did not like BJU Press Science curriculum and requested to go back to Apologia very fast! I wrote an entire post compiling the Science curriculum for homeschooling.
Apologia's Young Explorer Series is great for Elementary Homeschooled Science students. We have used Exploring Creation with Human Anatomy and Physiology, Exploring Creation With Astronomy, Zoology 1: Flying Creatures of the Fifth Day, Exploring Creation With Botany, and Exploring Creation With Chemistry and Physics. These are the perfect science curriculum for grades 3-6 and my personal favorites at these grade levels.
With Apologia, there is little to no teacher prep required (except for gathering materials perhaps for experiments). The student is actively involved in the learning process by reading the lessons themselves. There are not any teachers manuals and parents who are not confident with the material being covered may feel they need more help in teaching the material than what is presented in the book. BUT, I will tell you, don’t fret! I used Apologia from the very beginning and learned alongside my kiddos. I would read the assignments to them and we would work through the workbooks together. It is so much fun learning alongside your child!
Apologia /Berean Brothers*: Apologia's Young Explorer Series: Christian elementary, middle school, and high school curriculum.* There are six different programs exploring each day of creation. You can get either a junior notebook (k-3rd grade) or a regular notebook (3rd-6th grade) to go with the textbook.
BJU Press*: Christian based Science Homeschool curriculum that is quite traditional and aligns with most common core standards
R.E.A.L. Science For Kids* SECULAR - Real Science Odyssey Life (level one), RSO Earth & Space (level one), RSO Chemistry (level one).
Christian Kids Explore by Bright Ideas Press* Earth & Space* and Chemistry, *, but we definitely preferred RSO over this book and these were used as supplemental only.
Prentice-Hall - SECULAR often used at public schools
ACE Science PACEs - Units
Centripetal Press - Secular
Master Books - Christian Elementary, Middle School and High School Curriculum
Homeschool Science Tools: Science kits for most popular homeschool science programs I always ordered all my supplies for Science experiments through HomeSchool Science Tools
Mr. Q’s Science – affordable, non-religious, classically based science curriculum
Science For High School - SECULAR
ENGLISH & LANGUAGE ARTS
I happen to believe that if your child becomes a various reader whilst young, they will naturally build amazing English and Language Arts skills. I read to my children from the time they were born, every single day. I read to my kids when they were toddlers, in elementary, in middle school and I still read to my kiddos in high school. I think this is vital to building grammar, spelling, and vocabulary skills. I instituted reading time every single day for years in my children’s lives. My kids are assigned books to read every day throughout the school year.
Sonlight* - curriculum to make excellent readers & writers
Classical Composition - Writing Skills
Here are some programs if you don’t want to make your children read every day.
Brave Writer – Literature-based. Learn grammar, spelling, writing through reading amazing books. More of a lifestyle than a curriculum and completely different than any other English curriculum you will see.
Institute for Excellence in Writing - Spelling, Grammar, Writing, College Prep
ENGLISH & LANGUAGE ARTS
All About Spelling* – Spelling through memorizing words and using tiles to build words
All About Reading* - Reading through memorizing words and using tiles to build words
Growing with Grammar* - Levels 1-8. Equates to Grades. 3xs per week. Learning & Exercises
Soaring with Spelling* - Levels 1-8. Equates to Grades. 3-5xs per week. Learning & Exercises
Winning with Writing* - Levels 1-8. Equates to Grades. 3-5xs per week. Learning & Exercises
Shurley English* – Grammar & Writing, Repetition
Spelling Power* - multi-level spelling customized program
Grammar Ace – Grammar upper elementary/early middle grades
Winston Grammar – Grammar middle school
Spelling You See – Spelling through copy work
Sequential Spelling – Spelling
Wordly Wise 3000* – Vocabulary
Handwriting Without Tears – Handwriting
English PACEs -Language Arts curriculum Units.
Homeschool Curriculum Resources, Ideas & Tips
There are so many options available today it can be overwhelming. When I first began homeschooling over a decade ago, there were not as many options. Honestly, there were very few options open for the curriculum to order online and have delivered to my home. It was almost impossible to find a curriculum willing to ship to my home. Can you believe that? Now, every single publisher is using to get their curriculum into the hands of homes educating moms!
Since there are so many different options available today, I obviously can’t include everything on my lists here. I have spent hours upon hours — even years, investigating, reading, scouring, researching curriculum. As a home educating mom for the past 11 years, I feel as if I know what is good, what is great, and what is meh. I only want to recommend what is good and usable. Why waste the same amount of time and money that I have.
Finally, I have to say there is no one right choice of curriculum for every family or child. As the home educating parent, you will need to find what works best for your family.