Homeschool Curriculum Choices 2024-2025

I'm down to the final three kids at home. It's my seventeenth year of homeschooling, and with two kids in high school and one in middle school, I feel nearly obsolete. They may all be fairly self-sufficient, but they still need me—just in less acute ways. And isn't that the goal? Homeschool mothers should always aim to work their way out of a job. 

Here's a peek at how I'll still be involved in their day-to-day learning.

Learning American History Through Literature: An Open-and-Go Charlotte Mason History Progam

In the past fifteen years of homeschooling, I've used three different phonics/grammar programs and two different spelling programs. I've started a math curriculum, switched to something else for a few years, and then switched back again. I've thrown together a hodge-podge assortment of various books, kits, and even textbooks to create an a la carte science experience. I've cobbled together many different resources for both art and Bible.

Homeschool Curriculum Choices 2020-2021

Curriculum planning is normally the perfect preamble to the lovely year ahead. I head to my local homeschool convention and spend hours slowly sauntering through the vendor hall. I always go with a tentative shopping list in hand, but usually leave with several fun extras that were not originally on it. 

There's just something about getting to see, touch, and flip through curricula that can't be replicated by looking through a catalog or shopping online.

Homeschool Curriculum Choices 2019-2020

With a curriculum shopping list firmly in hand, I scoured the shelves of my state homeschool convention determined to find great books at great prices! I'm fairly certain that I lugged home my body weight in GOOD READS...but that's between me and my chiropractor.

Our homeschool has always been defined by learning-a-la-carte. We are eclectic and refuse to be boxed in by any one method or mantra. Naturally, my curriculum choices for 2019-2020 reflect my pieced-together style.

In the upcoming school year, I'll have one child taking college classes for dual credit, two kids in junior high, and two in elementary.

My homeschool planner is heavy with my big plans! No doubt, it will be a full year.

Top Living History Museums and Tips for Visiting

Written by Chelsea Gonzales.

I adore museums. Visiting them is a fabulous way to introduce new concepts and an even better way to dive deeper into a child's interests.

As a history nerd, living history museums are definitely my top pick when it comes to choosing an educational attraction, and my son and husband both quite enjoy them as well.

Unlike regular history museums which have traditional tour guides and only display artifacts and photographs, living history museums are interactive, have actors wearing costumes and reenacting the lives and livelihoods of the past, and usually focus on one particular place or event in history. While at a living history museum, you don't just look at and learn about the past, you actually step back into it.

Homeschool Curriculum 2018-2019

Like a shock of cold water, my 11th year of homeschooling (12th, if you count preschool) has awakened some renewed excitement in my bones. We're trying a few new things this year and returning to a few very old things. Like a 1990s DJ wearing neon colored Zuba pants, I'll be mixin' it up come fall. (Only without the neon colored Zuba pants because let's face it, those weren't flattering on the 13-year-old me, let alone the 38-year-old me.)

100 Childhood of Famous Americans Biographies in Chronological Order

In a letter to his friend Robert Hooke, Sir Isaac Newton wrote, “If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.” Newton understood the importance of reading biographies: they provide mentors from different times and different places. They inspire bravery, ingenuity, and greatness.

5 Sneaky Tricks for When You Can't Teach All-the-Things In Your Homeschool

In my first few years of homeschooling, I tried to cram all-the-things into every single moment of our days. I was so afraid that I'd miss something, that I'd forget to teach a crucial element, that I'd leave gaping holes in my kids' learning. I felt the full weight of their education and wore it like a burden around my neck.

But, I'm soooooo over that guilt. It's not mine to carry. The truth is, I can't possibly teach them everything there is to know about everything. Learning is a life-long process. I'm thirty-sevenish and I still don't know all-the-things. But, I keep learning. I keep growing. I keep searching for right answers. And if I can inspire a love of learning in my kids, they will keep searching too -- at ten, at twenty, at one hundred twenty.

Medieval Unit: Historic Feast

A glimpse at the daily-life-and-times of the middle ages is a study of societal extremes. For the most part, people were either wealthy or impoverished. There wasn't a middle class. 

After reading about the lifestyle differences of the lavished and the lowly, we decided to live it out...for at least one meal. We invited one of our favorite homeschooling families, who just also happened to be learning about the medieval period, to join us for a historic feast.

Medieval Unit: The Vikings

My kids have Viking blood in them...or so the story goes. The Hubs is a mix of Norwegian and Danish with some Irish and German thrown in for good measure. He's got the freckled skin and ruddy beard that mark Scandinavian ancestry, and he's passed them down to all five of our children. 

So, I've got six modern-day Vikings roaming my house. In fact, one of them actually has a Viking name. (We don't call him Blonde Warrior for nothin'. That's actually the English translation of his real-life Norse name.) Fortunately for me, he doesn't ever go around wielding a bloody ax and such (at least not that I know of!)

Not surprisingly, when we came to the Viking era in our Medieval History study, we camped there for several weeks.

Here's a list of books, activities, and field trips that gave us a peek into the lives of the ancient Norsemen.

Top 25 Living Book Series for Learning History

Dry-as-dust history textbooks have never been for us. We prefer learning through living books. Living books are REAL. They are seeped in literary-rich language. They focus on the bigger picture, not just names and dates. They provide a third dimension to an otherwise two-dimensional study.

In short, they're just more interesting.

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While I usually use TruthQuest history as a guide in my history plans each year, I've also been known to veer off the beaten path. I often find myself coming back to one of these foundational series. They make for great segues from one section of history to the next. And since many of them are biographical, they add a lot of "personal" to some difficult-to-relate-to people and places. 

Medieval Unit: Illuminations

Every stage of creating the lavishly designed books of the middle ages required hours of labor and meticulous craftsmanship. Many manuscripts took years to complete and were cherished works of art. Some were made even more precious with the addition of illuminated illustrations highlighted by thin strips of gold or silver leaf. 

A study of the middle ages would not be complete without a look at the time-consuming and costly process of creating the beautiful pages of medieval books. 

The Truth about TruthQuest History

When my homeschool days are boxed up and beautifully archived in family scrapbooks and digital iMovies, I know there will be certain bits and pieces of these years that stand out more than others…moments that are permanently etched in my mind…memories of learning and laughing together that not only molded the minds of my kids but also shaped the content of their character and helped to forge our relationship. 

Why I Don't Teach History Chronologically

I know what you're thinking. 

You don't teach history chronologically? Surely you're not playing with a full deck, Lady. History is NOTHING if not chronological!

Well, yes. And no. 

I think history is chronological. But, I don't feel compelled to teach it EXACTLY in order. At least not to very young kids. If I was going to teach it to students in upper elementary and above, then sure. I would make it chronological. I would begin at the beginning...I'd start with the Ancients. 

50+ Living Books for an Ancient Rome Unit

Photo Credit

When we started our Ancient Roman unit using Tapestry of Grace, Year 1 Unit 4, I had high hopes of a wonderful year filled with historical adventures centered upon great living books. And although Tapestry of Grace quickly became lackluster, the Roman unit did not. A few weeks into our studies, I tossed PLAN A out the window and carved a new path. I decided to create my own living-literature based unit by piecing together books we currently owned, titles I came across at the library, and older-and-harder-to-find gems that I found inventoried on other Ancient Rome reading lists.

I divided the unit into six main time periods and then listed the books, to the best of my ability, in chronological order within each period.

Ancient Rome Unit: DIY Roman Road

As the old saying goes, at one time, all roads really did lead to Rome. One of the largest was the Via Egnatia where the apostle Paul and his friends Timothy and Silas traveled on to spread the Gospel to the uttermost parts of the world. It was in large part due to this and other "modern" roads that we have Paul's letters.

Roman roads were impressive 4-layer highways complete with water-drainage plans. They were built by Roman soldiers during the empire's expansion and used for military travel and eventually trade. Covering over 85,000 kilometers, the road system first began around 500 BC with the Via Appia and can still be seen meandering across Europe today.

The Hatmaker's Sign: A Colonial Mini-Unit

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Our homeschool co-op book club stepped back in time through the pages of The Hatmaker's Sign by Candace Fleming. This living-literature book is a parable as told by "Benjamin Franklin" who attempts to encourage a downhearted Thomas Jefferson during the drafting of the Declaration of Independence.


Since our book club consists of the six and under crowd, this story made for a gentle introduction to colonial life and history.

Pros & Cons of Using Tapestry of Grace

Can I be honest with you? I mean r-e-a-l-l-y honest...the kind of honest that might offend some and anger others?

I wanted to like Tapestry of Grace. I wanted it to be the curriculum that would carry us through the rest of our homeschooling years....an anchor to keep us firmly-rooted in schedule and habit and cadence.

I wanted it to be the "tapestry", shall we say, for which all academic threads of our schooling were woven in and through.

But, after only six weeks into this looks-really-great-in-theory dream, I realized that Tapestry of Grace was definitely not for us.

12 Christmas Books for Living Literature Learning

The books are wrapped. The basket is packed. Our Christmas countdown with books has begun. While most of the books I've chosen are simple, but Scripturally accurate retellings of the first Christmas story, there are also a handful of living-literature books that depict Christmas celebrations and traditions from Christmases past. Incorporating historical fiction during this season of extravagance provides perspective. When reading about humble Christmases filled with simple pleasures like peppermint sticks and corn cob dolls, it's only natural for a child to look around at abundance and be grateful.

30 Character-Building Books for Young Boys

I'm no builder.
I can count on one hand the times I've put a hammer to a nail.

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But, logic and common sense tell me that if I want to construct a quality house...one worth living in...I have to study a quality blueprint. I have to follow a plan that has been previously laid out. One that has been tested and tried and has proven to provide a superior end result. No shoddy blueprint will do. I want the best-of-the-best. A blueprint...an example...of high quality.