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 Resources, Ideas & Tips

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 Resources, Ideas & Tips weekly planner printables
Homeschool Curriculum Resources, Ideas & Tips weekly planner printables
Homeschool Curriculum Resources, Ideas & Tips weekly planner printables
Homeschool Curriculum Resources, Ideas & Tips weekly planner printables

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 Resources, Ideas & Tips

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.

SECULAR CURRICULUM

I have not used any of this curriculum, so I can’t speak to its contents.

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!

*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!

Free Language Arts Curriculum

Free Math Curriculum

Free History Curriculum

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, Ideas & Tips

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.

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.

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!

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.

Here are some programs if you don’t want to make your children read every day.

ENGLISH & LANGUAGE ARTS

Homeschool Curriculum Resources, Ideas & Tips

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.

Good Luck in your homeschool journey!

Homeschool Curriculum Resources, Ideas & Tips
Homeschool Curriculum Resources, Ideas & Tips









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