History/ Geography
It breaks my heart when people say they don’t like history. The truth is usually that what they really don’t like is names and dates that don’t matter to them. As Christians, History is one of the most important subjects we teach our children. Moses commands the Israelites to tell their children of the many things God has done and we need to do the same. The trick is to teach it in a way that our children understand it’s relevance.
I’m a firm believer that before you can care about history you have to care about the people it effects. Start teaching history by introducing your children to the world.
Go Global: This literature based, movement rich, curriculum will take your 5-7 year old around the world. You will spend time on each continent, traveling country to country and read about the people and animals who live there, the cultural similarities and difference, along with finding several recipes to try. This is a unit study style of curriculum where just about every subject is included, but you could always add more as you see the need. It is relaxed, fun and focused on your relationship with your child.
Gather Round: While nearly every unit from Gather Round includes some form of History with a Biblical world view, my personal favorites are the Connecting Continent Units. These units take twenty lessons per continent and introduce your children to the people groups, culture, political relations, majority religion, regional sciences, and more. Covering so many regions all at once could become confusing and overwhelming. You do not have to do a exactly as written nor do you need to do it consecutively. You could chose to do one lesson a week.
Generations: As a Christian I am more concerned with my children knowing the history of God’s people and the events that have shaped society through a Christian world view than I am about them knowing names and dates just to pass a test. Each grade level of Generations focuses on the spread of the gospel throughout different regions. They spend more time on hero’s of the faith than on big names or conflicts.
Many people ask, “Is this enough?” My response is this, it depends on what standards you are trying to achieve. Is it enough for the state, no, but you can always include additional reading when you get to a specific time in history. I would also challenge you, are state standards enough if your goal is heaven, not Harvard.
Social Studies
World Watch News is a family friendly, every weekday, 10 minute biblical worldview of current events. Our family loves this supper affordable subscription. I truly believe this should be part of every families daily rhythm.
Health and Physical Fitness
F.O.R.M. Health and fitness from a Christian perspective. Get 36 modules, each containing an 8-12 minute and followed with movement videos that teach your children life long functional fitness. Get 15% off with code: FAMILYSTYLELEARNING
Art
We are loving this Art curriculum currently available for k-5 but soon will be available all the way through 12th. This is an online subscription. You gain access to every level and each grade has a full year available. There is an optional additional teachers guide you could purchase. It gives you a heads up on what materials you will need and forms to fill out for assessing and grading if your state requires that. It’s only $7.99/ month or you can get a year subscription which I would recommend going for.
Language Arts
All About Spelling: Were you told “That’s just the way it is. You just have to memorize it”. Well, turns out there are reasons words are spelled the way they are and you were just never taught the rules. this curriculum is a must in our homeschool. It has been key, not only in my kids spelling but also for teaching them to read. I’m so thankful for AAS!
Disclaimer: I own the old black and white editions. As a mom with dyslexia I do better with fewer distractions on the page. You can purchase older editions on used curriculum sites but All About Learning no longer provides them.
Science
Generations: “Science must never be boring because if science is boring than God is boring and that is never the case.” This is a quote I read in one of Generations science books and it has deeply impacted the way I approach teaching science to my children. Generations science is packed full of relevant scripture and comes from a strong Christian worldview. Every subject is brought back to the conversation of God’s design, plan and reflection. Generations has made me excited to learn science which in tern makes it easy to teach my kids.
Lessons can be short and offer workbook pages for review along with video recommendations and suggested activities. We tend to go hard and complete chapters at a much faster rate, using these more as a unit study than a full year curriculum. Always remember that the curriculum is just a tool you get to customize it to meat your families needs.
Apologia: I have a deep appreciation for Apologia even though I have chosen not to use it for our family. This curriculum is best suited for Christian families that take a mastery approach to homeschooling. You will select a topic, like Astronomy, and focus on that specific topic for the full year of science. It goes in depth, covering every aspect of the topic and insuring your student will be well versed in that subject matter. They do incorporate a Christian world view and give God glory for his creation.
Along with the textbook, which you can read to the whole family, the student journals will need to be purchased individually and there are additional activity books that you could incorporate as well.
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Gather Round: Unfortunately, the truth is that not all Gather Round units are created equal. When they started out there were several different writers with different styles. While we have LOVED some units others have fallen short for us. So I need to be a little more specific here. We really, really enjoyed: Dinosaurs, Rocks and Minerals, and North American Forest Animals. We found Space to be fine but a little boring after a couple of planets. Human Anatomy is probably my least favorite of all Gather Round units. In my opinion it was written as a college level. I had to skip so much I quit using it all together. We have purchased several other science units and intend to complete them in the future.
Math
Life of Fred: This narrative approach to math is not for everyone. In fact, I rarely recommend it. Life of Fred is the story of a 5 year old mathematician who reaches in a university. Through his daily encounters and activities children get to see how math is applicable. At the end of every chapter there are about 6 math problems for your child to complete. This is not a drill and kill method. It is based on the philosophy that if you explain something well enough then a person will be equipped to solve the problem when they need to.
My boys tend to naturally be good at math and so these books have been our main math curriculum. That being said, we enjoy them so much that we complete them at a very quick rate and so we have also introduced other math curriculums to keep them practicing.
Generations: Math from a Christian world view. This is my number one recommended math curriculum. It is far more traditional than Life of Fred yet still does a great job at explaining the application, describing the logical approach, and somehow it also brings God into just about every lesson. Our God is a God of order and design. He had purposes for his creations. Math reflects truth, it does not change based on opinion. I am continuously impressed with how well Generations in able to share the Bible while teaching math and not make it cheesy.
Gather Round: The newest Math on the market is by Gather Round and it’s called Modular Math. We participated in there beta testing. My opinion is this: Pros: I love the small workbooks. While most curriculums love to set a massively intimidating book in front of your child Gather Round has broken their math into 20 lessons /book which helps the child feel like they can complete what has been given to them. Lessons are short and a mixture of spiral and mastery. There is a great Biblical application portion given, which is again impressive at how they are able to incorporate scripture and math, something I don’t think I would be able to do on my own. Con: at $10/book +$6 for shipping and handling I can’t afford to keep using it. Maybe when I can buy a year at a time it will be more worth it and they will have the kinks worked out.
Apologia: This is an exhalent curriculum if you like the mastery approach to mathematics. Each lesson begins with a short game or simple demonstration for what is being taught. My twins have loved levels 3 and 4. They do it together quickly without complaints. The down side for me is they teach common core multiplication and the mastery approach is so long that I feel like my 5th grader was loosing other skills. I had my oldest go back to Life of Fred.
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