‘Tis the season for all things back to school. I’m seeing LOTS of new homeschoolers around here (which I love) and receiving lots of questions about our homeschool curriculum.
This will be our 15th year of homeschooling! Say what?!? I cannot believe it! Our oldest left for college one year ago (again, cannot believe it) and our second oldest is now a junior. To say we have tried a lot of different homeschool curriculum over the years is an understatement. We have even switched up curriculum in the middle of the school year because something wasn’t working for us. When we first began homeschooling, I was all for the boxed kits where everything comes shipped to you in a box and you don’t have to do anything else to prep except open the book on the first day of school. Those are wonderful, and so helpful those first few years of homeschooling.
But, over the years we have learned what has worked and doesn’t work for our family. Each child is different and enjoys different things and learns differently, so after those first few years, we branched out and tried other options and pieced together our own curriculum. We ended up loving Masterbooks and have used it for almost every grade level now. Yes, we’ve added in other curriculum and resources, but we cannot say enough good things about Masterbooks. There’s very little planning involved (and all the homeschool moms said, “Amen”.) Each subject has it’s own lesson plan laid out for you and your student in the front part of the book. The only thing you really need to do when it comes to planning is to take a look at what supplies you need ahead of time and gather them. Masterbooks is also a good curriculum for families who would like their children to do some independent work to prepare them for later on in their schooling to get to all independent work (and let me tell you how wonderful it is when your kids get older and can do the independent work).
So what are we using this year? Here’s a line-up of our curriculum for our 11th, 8th, and 3rd grader (it still seems weird to not have four grade levels listed here, since our oldest is off at college):
11th Grade:
- English/Writing: Writing Strands – Masterbooks
- Computer Science – Khan Academy
- Integrated Math – Khan Academy
- Personal Finance – Khan Academy
- US Government – Khan Academy
- Wellness/Health – Outschool
- Music/Guitar Lessons
- Keyboarding – Keybr.com
8th Grade:
- Intro to Astronomy – Masterbooks
- Grammar/Composition – IEW Level B, Year 3
- Keyboarding – Keybr.com
- 8th Grade Math/Pre-Algebra – Khan Academy
- World History – World Story 2 – Masterbooks
- Intro to Logic – Masterbooks
3rd Grade:
- Bible – More Than Words (Level 1) – Masterbooks
- Art – Creating a Masterpiece
- Math – Masterbooks Math Lessons for a Living Education & Komodo.com
- Science – God’s Design for Life (for beginners) – Masterbooks
- Handwriting – A to Zoo – Masterbooks and A Reason for Handwriting
- Language Arts – Language Lessons for a Living Education – Masterbooks
- History – My Story – Masterbooks
There you have it – that is our curriculum for this year. I love talking all things homeschool and curriculum and am here to help you, so please don’t hesitate to reach out on social media or by commenting on this post.
Also, make sure to check out some of our favorite homeschool supplies + books and follow me on the LiketoKnowIt app for more of our favorites. You can see more daily homeschool posts and more info on how we homeschool in the “Homeschool” highlight on Instagram.
What homeschool curriculum are you using this year?
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