When you mention you homeschool one of two things happens. People just reply with an “Oh.” or they start asking questions. Either response is fine with me, I don’t get ruffled either way. I’ve also found that most are extremely supportive of our decision to home educate and many have ties to homeschool in one way or another.
A few questions that have repeatedly came up:
“What do you do?”
“Does the state send you the books?” (Insert praise hands for that NOT being the case!)
“What curriculum do you use?”
So today I thought cover those questions.
Our reasons for homeschooling really deserve their own post. So that will come another day. This time I really just want to show you the materials we use daily and why they are working for us in this season.
Affiliate links are included for your convenience.
Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons– My cousin suggested this book to me. She homeschools her three children and has used this method. The title is true when they say “easy lessons”. They really are simple and take little time. Millie isn’t crazy about this book but once we added our other reading curriculum things started to click. We use this book more as a supplement.
Math Lessons for a Living Education-Our girl is so her fathers daughter. She loves numbers and math concepts. She’s a quick study and Math was the first subject that I knew we needed to challenge her a bit on. I settled on this book because of it’s way of teaching through a life story. I felt it aligned with our other curriculum choices. I could get it on Amazon and the price was very reasonable. Millie loves it and asks to do Math everyday. I try very hard to stay out of a text book, but she enjoys this one so very much.
Dash into Learning– This is our reading curriculum and I love these little books! They are pretty and simple. They are literally open and go-no prep work necessary. I loved that I could hand Millie these books and say “These are yours. You are going to read them to me. Let’s get started.” She just finished book one. Now on book two! She’s cruising! She enjoys practicing her sounds and blending the letters. Teaching your child to read is one of the most challenging things I’ve ever done, but it’s incredibly rewarding.
Mountain Guide -This is a 4 week guide from the Peaceful Press, we used their preschool curriculum too! This school year we have completed the Tree Guide, Christmas Guide, and now half way through the Mountain guide. I love like how the guides can fit seasonally into our lives. It also keeps us out of text books and in keeps us in the real world. We desire a living education for our children.
Kiwi Crate– Maybe a bit unconventional, but I included Kiwi Crate in the curriculum round up because, well, we love it. Millie is constantly building and creating things, inventions, and messes. I thought this would be a great addition to our lessons and tap into that part of her brain intentionally. I’ve seen STEM apps and online activities but I’d like to keep her off a screen for as long as possible too. We are old school like that. Kiwi crate comes monthly in the mail, the activities inside are all ready to go and they include extension activities as well. You can get pretty much any age group you need, be we’ve found that August can get something out of Millie’s crate. Jerrel has enjoyed this addition to the homeschool too! If you want to get your first Kiwi Crate for 50% off use this link!
And thats it! If you made it here. Good for you and thanks! All of these resources would be great additions to your family time weather you plan to home educate or not. We’ve pieced together items that work for us, right now. If at some point something’s not working or if we need a more all-inclusive curriculum we can reevaluate. That’s the beauty of homeschool.
Thanks for stopping by.
-Jess