All things homeschooling.
*~Changing the world, one little one at a time.~*
All-In-One Christian Curriculum
Homeschooling doesn’t have to be expensive. Some people say that you get what you pay for, but I would have to disagree. We have definitely put a pretty penny into our homeschooling venture in different years, but I would say that overall it wasn’t worth the cost – especially when there are some really awesome free curriculum choices out there.
These curriculum choices are the best, because most of them were created by homeschooling mama’s just like us! They aren’t in it for the money – they’re in it because they believe so strongly in providing a quality home education. These people are committed to helping others give their own children a quality education – and they believe that parents should be able to do so regardless of their financial situation. So, some would say you get what you pay for… but I would say some things just can’t be bought.
Below, you’ll find a list of free FULL curriculum choices. I tried to give an overview of each one and to provide enough information that you can sift through and decide if any of these options would work for you. If you like certain aspects about one curriculum and certain aspects of another, you can certainly mix and match which resources you use to create your own thing. That’s the beauty of homeschooling!
This page has a LOT of outgoing links. I want you to know that I have chosen to include these suggestions for your convenience and that I benefit absolutely nothing from sharing this information with you. So you can be sure that these opinions are 100% completely my own. 🙂
Easy Peasy All-in-One Homeschool
Overview
Easy Peasy All-In-One-Homeschool is an awesome, free curriculum that uses online resources to teach your students every subject from Pre-K and learning to read, to 8th grade (then you can use their sister-site for high school). The creator of this website considers this to be an eclectic style of homeschooling, which mixes ideas from different homeschool styles.
This curriculum provides 180 days (36 weeks) of instruction in all subjects, with the electives (PE/Health, Computer, Art, Music, & Thinking) being completed once weekly (or once each 5th day). The curriculum is designed with a focus on college preparedness.
Reading
Reading is taught beginning with sight-words, which can be effective for beginning to read, but not all parents agree with teaching reading in this way. My second child did wonderfully with this method – he was reading after only 8 days! I’m definitely going to have to backtrack and teach him a lot of spelling rules that got missed by using this method, but I’m totally okay with that. After beginning with sight-words, it does delve into teaching reading through phonics, which is great. If your little one is struggling to master those sight-words, it’s easy to ask an admin in their facebook support group where in the lessons you can go to try starting with phonics instead.
Easy Peasy’s reading levels are definitely above typical public school grade level, and also above suggested grade levels that I’ve found on books I’ve bought for my children. It’s challenging because most of the resources used are from books that have an expired copyright, so from around mid-1900’s and earlier, but my personal opinion is that it has made my children better readers to be exposed to these different styles of writing while reading.
Subjects
The list of subjects covered for grades 1st-8th includes Math, Reading, Language Arts, Bible, History, & Science, which are all covered daily. Weekly subjects include Music, Computer, Art, Thinking, and PE/Health. Starting as early as 6th grade, there is the option to add Spanish as a foreign language study, also.
History & Science are designed to be taught in 4 rotating themes:
- Ancient History & Biology
- Early American History & Animals
- Geography/Cultures & Earth Science
- Modern History & Chemistry/Physics
The idea is to start with one and to cycle through the 4 themes, completing one theme each year. History is presented on two levels – lower level assignments for grades 1-4 and upper level assignments for grades 5-8. So, after you cycle through all 4 theme years, the next time your child comes to that theme they’ll be in the next level up. The assignments will be more in-depth and on their new, higher level of understanding.
The rest of the classes are designed to kind of revolve around the History theme. For example, in the Ancient History theme, they’ll also learn about Ancient Art, and do things like rock paintings using berries; they will learn about Ancient Music and learn which instruments were used in those Ancient times. Designing their History and Electives in this way also enables a parent who’s homeschooling multiple children to be able to teach those not-so-grade-specific lessons together, which I absolutely love.
Homeschool Style
The way the program uses the idea of overlapping History ideas across different subjects in this way is similar to the way Unit Studies work. Depending on the theme chosen, there are also lots of lapbooks and hands-on activities for the lower levels, which is also common for Unit Studies.
The ability to teach History in a chronological order, and the idea of teaching topics by levels of understanding, can be likened to a Classical approach to homeschooling.
Some courses, such as Early American History, are designed in a way that reading books and biographies is the main format of teaching the events that unfolded. This can be likened to a Charlotte Mason approach to homeschooling.
Worksheets are also utilized frequently, which is in line with a more Traditional approach to homeschooling – but there’s no repetitive busywork, which is common with a Traditional approach.
Educational games are common in the online curriculum, as well, giving something a little more hands-on and engaging for children to look forward to, in addition to the other hands-on activities that are utilized.
The creator’s ability to incorporate all of these homeschool styles and learning methods is what makes this an Eclectic style curriculum.
Taking it Offline
If you would like to take this curriculum offline, you can buy some of the courses in offline versions, and it is still cost-effective to do it this way – most of them are available for under $10. The reading, language arts, and math courses for most grade levels are available in offline format – you do not have to use the computer for those subjects at ALL.
The offline versions are extremely helpful, in my opinion, because the assignments are still laid out by day and there’s not as much of a demand for the children to use my computer. It gets my children offline AND I don’t have to worry about whether or not I have paper or ink – or whether the worksheets made it into their binders.
The last I knew, they were still working on making some of the 7th and 8th grade books available for offline use. The 7th grade courses may be done by now. I believe only two of the History courses are available offline – they are currently working on making all 4 courses available offline. I’m not sure if they have plans for making the Science courses available offline. None of the weekly electives are available offline, so you will still need a computer if you’d like to include those in your homeschool instruction.
If your concern is that you don’t have an actual computer, most of the activities can be completed on a tablet, but not all of them. While they highly recommend using a chromebook as their suggested device, most have had success using a tablet instead. I have had my children use their tablets for this curriculum and they needed to switch to my computer to complete their lessons a lot less often than I expected.
If you want to go TOTALLY offline, the creator of Easy Peasy also has another curriculum called Genesis Curriculum that’s available. This curriculum is NOT free but it’s a great alternative for those who want to go offline. I highly recommend this curriculum – in fact, we will be using parts of it as one of our curriculum choices for this coming school year.
Lesson Tracking
They now have updated their site with a feature called My EP Assignments, which makes using this curriculum even easier – no more scrolling! This new feature tracks exactly where each child is on each subject and takes them directly to the lesson for that day. The ease-of-use with the new feature was a much-needed update and has moved this to the top of my list for it’s user-friendliness.
My Thoughts
I recommend Easy Peasy as a good starting place for new homeschoolers because it gives lots of exposure to different ways homeschooling can be done. It’s a good place to get your feet wet when you’re new to the homeschooling world. You can mix & match different levels for different subjects, too, so it’s very customizable to your child’s needs – without breaking the bank trying to figure out where they’re at.
Designed for your student to be able to work independently, this is the most user-friendly and in-depth free option for homeschool curriculum, in my opinion. It’s also the most parent-friendly in the way that everything is already done for you after the initial set-up. It’s a great guide when you don’t know where to start.
Getting Started
To get started with Easy Peasy, go to My EP Assignments, set up an account, choose your child’s level and the theme for the year and watch them go. If you are unsure of where to place your child, use their Placement Guides to help you make your decision. After figuring out where to place your child, you can be starting your homeschool journey in literally 10 minutes with this incredible resource! Your children can print the worksheets as they go. And did I mention it doesn’t take all day long to use this curriculum? You can be done with your homeschool day in 4 hours – at the lower elementary levels, most families are finished in 2-3 hours. Make sure you check out their About & How To Use pages before you start. If you are having trouble figuring out how to set it all up, the moderators on their facebook support group are incredible with helping with any issues you have, so don’t hesitate to contact them.
Ambleside Online
Overview
Ambleside Online is a free, Christian curriculum based on a Charlotte Mason style of homeschooling. Their goal is to stay true to Charlotte Mason’s high literary standards, while trying to use as many free online books as possible to help keep the cost of books to a minimum.
A 36-week schedule is provided for each grade level. The general idea of the program is that they give you a list of books for your child to read for each subject. Instead of using textbooks for teaching, your child learns the information through reading interesting books about those topics. You can learn more on their Introduction page. Before using this curriculum it would definitely benefit you to look up more about a Charlotte Mason style of homeschooling.
Reading
The approach to teaching reading using a Charlotte Mason style would be through a mixture of sight words and phonics. Early readers, reading materials, and flash cards are encouraged. The reading is heavy in this curriculum, as all of the subjects are taught through reading.
Language Arts consists of reading, copywork, narration (retelling of events), dictation, and grammar. They believe that the most effective way to teach language arts is to get your child reading their own school books as soon as possible – but they strongly discourage trying to teach your child to read before the child is ready.
Grammar in the lower levels really only consists of learning the four types of sentences and the eight parts of speech. The idea is that your child will learn most of their grammar, spelling, phonics, etc, through exposure – so teaching these things at a young age is not necessary.
Writing
Creative writing is considered a three-step process; there are three “stages” of learning. The first stage is learning how to form letters (copywork); the second stage is learning how to form thoughts and verbalize them (narration); the third stage is transferring those thoughts to paper (written narration).
By following these stages, creative writing (written narration) will likely not begin until the later lower years. These stages are not taught together or even at the same time in the learning process. They’re taught as different subjects- levels that build on one another. The child will not start writing creatively until they get to the third stage, which could be as late as level 5, or Year 5, (which would loosely represent 5th grade).
Writing mechanics are taught once the student begins the writing stage – the third stage of the process. Parents are encouraged to trust the process. I haven’t personally experienced this, but Charlotte Mason’s styles of teaching are considered to be a time-tested and effective method of teaching.
Subjects
Subjects included in Ambleside Online’s curriculum include History, Literature, Poetry, Geography, & Science. They also do Picture Studies for Art Appreciation, Composer Studies for Classical Music Appreciation, Folk Songs, and Hymns. For students that are Year 4 and higher, they also add in Shakespeare and Plutarch’s Lives (biographies of Greeks and Romans).
Language Arts, Reading, Writing, Spelling, and Vocabulary are assumed to be learned by exposure through listening to read alouds, reading on their own, doing their copywork, and dictation at their own level. They do not encourage buying supplements for these, but you can of course make that decision yourself, as it’s your own homeschool.
Math and Foreign Language are encouraged to be taught with their curriculum, but are not provided within the curriculum.
Homeschool Style
AO is definitely a Charlotte Mason style of homeschooling. The website boasts that they have tried to do everything they can to stick as closely to the ways of teaching and curriculum that Charlotte Mason used herself in her own PNEU schools. History is taught in chronological order in this curriculum, which lines up with a Classical style, but my understanding is that it may be taught differently. Read alouds (reading books to your children) are highly encouraged as a form of teaching in the CM style.
In a Charlotte Mason style of homeschooling, children are taught through the reading of “living books,” which are interesting books that mentally engage the child’s mind with each topic rather than presenting material and learning facts. So, the general idea is that they give you a list of books for the year for each level and subject taught and your student learns the information through reading those books.
For this homeschooling style to be executed “correctly,” there would be an emphasis on oral narration (retelling events from stories read), nature studies/outdoor life, nature journals, copywork, and short and focused lessons (no more than 20 minutes of focused learning at a time for younger students and no more than 45 minutes at a time for high-school-aged students). You can find more out about Charlotte Mason and who she was here. You can learn more about a Charlotte Mason approach to schooling here, here, and here.
Taking it Offline
Ambleside can very easily be adapted to be used completely offline by just buying all of the reading materials required. Of course, doing so will have costs associate with it, but it’s not uncommon for people to need to buy curriculum AND reading materials. So, by using Ambleside as the curriculum choice, you are still cutting out the costs of buying curriculum, even if you do have to buy or borrow the reading books.
If your concern is that you don’t have an actual computer, many of the reading materials can be accessed on a tablet as well. They use mostly books from the public domain, as most online free options do, so the majority of the books should be available for free online, which could also help with book costs.
You could also try downloading Google Books on an android device, as they have many e-book options for a low cost. The website suggests installing the Push to Kindle app to send online texts, e-books, articles, and AO book lists to your Kindle app for free. They have a tutorial video of how to do it this way linked on their website.
Content
I’m not sure how I feel about having my fourth grader learn Shakespeare or read biographies about Greeks & Romans. I would probably replace these with biographies about great Christian men and women, let them learn about Shakespeare when they’re a little older, and save the Greek & Roman biographies for that specific era of history only. These ideas seem a little more like a Classical style to me.
They also answer the question on their website of why they assign some readings that clearly support theories that many Christians are often opposed to, such as evolution. Their answer is basically that good reading materials trump Biblical worldview in some cases, and I’m sorry, but I disagree with this narrative. I believe that if our children have been taught scripture, and taught how to have their own personal relationship with God, that HE will be faithful to guide and direct them in ALL things.
My job as a parent is NOT to necessarily expose them to good literature, but to direct them to the Creator of ALL. I should not have to compromise, or be expected to compromise, for the sake of a specific book that was “well written.” And if I do compromise, I should ask myself which one I’m truly worshiping – God or well-written literature. If “well-written literature” trumps my call to teach and train up my child at all times in the things of God, as has been mandated in scripture, then “well-written literature” has become an idol in my life. I’m sure many will disagree with me on that, but to each their own. Forgive my frank words, the suggestion of the ideas behind their reasoning did get me a little riled up. All of that being said, you could certainly allow your children to read these books and use them as a topic-starter to discuss different beliefs, etc, which I absolutely believe is important. As parents, however, we would need to be aware of the content we are assigning our children so that we know when & how to discuss these topics when they come up in their reading.
You can read their response to this question here. I admit, I did not read the entire explanation due to my own frustrations. I want to be clear that I do believe these things should be adequately discussed with our children. I think the parent is the appropriate person to lead children through what others believe, different theories, and different worldviews – they should be exposed to these ideas and be able to understand them on some level. But I cannot discount the effect that a well-written book, written from a stance against the Word of God, would have on a young, impressionable mind without someone guiding them through those tough questions and viewpoints.
My Thoughts
While I think the workload and reading load sounds heavy, I’m intrigued to know how the workload would “feel” if it is being broken up every 20-45 minutes through nature walks, journaling, picture studies, etc. I guess what I’m saying is that since I’ve never tried a Charlotte Mason approach to schooling, I’m not exactly sure how the overall picture looks in the end. In theory, it sounds like a good mixture of rigorous teaching and low-stress learning activities (like singing hymns, and nature walks).
Each grade level is expected to do their own reading, so I’m not really sure if it would be necessary to adapt the curriculum if you have multiple children. If I decided to use this curriculum for teaching my own children, I think I personally would combine the history, geography, science, music & art appreciation, etc, so that we could do those subjects together as a family.
They do offer suggestions of which historical eras are covered during which “years” of the lower & upper grades, so that you can teach this way if you’d like. Doing it this way, you could match up lower level assignments and higher level assignments with one another, teaching multiple children the same information but at their own levels. I would probably do read-alouds for these books, but that’s my personal preference – my children are all 4th grade and younger.
I have no idea how long you should expect your school day to last using this curriculum. I did find a page on Ambleside’s website with scheduling tips, however. Most people seem to be suggesting that they start around 8:30 am and are done by around noon, just in time for lunch.
Getting Started
To get started with Ambleside Online, first you’ll want to check out the FAQ page to get answers about the curriculum before starting. Next you’ll want to figure out which year your student should begin. They suggest joining the AO Forum to ask these questions on their website.
Something else you could do is check the book lists and have your child try reading an excerpt from a few different years to see where to place them. You’ll want to choose the one that is the hardest for your child to read while still being able to understand what’s going on. It needs to be challenging, but not over their head.
One of the wonderful things about homeschooling is that you get to customize your curriculum and meet your child where they’re at. If your child is not at the “year level” you think they should be at, don’t worry – it doesn’t mean your child is behind! It just means that you have the opportunity to meet them where they’re at to help them grow. You’ll likely find that a child who was in public school will place lower than their grade level on many homeschool curriculum level equivalents – this is mostly because homeschooled children have more individualized attention and are able to move on quicker, not because your child is behind.
After you’ve figured out the year they are going to be doing, you can watch this video of how to use their curriculum. It gives instructions on how to get your weekly schedule for each child so you can get started. The website does NOT suggest watching this video until you’ve already read all of the FAQ’s, and joined the Forum to figure out placement for your children.
Freedom Homeschooling
Overview
Freedom Homeschooling is an awesome, free resource that has tons of suggestions for free curriculum options by subject. They separate the Christian and Secular (non-religious) options by placing a red “C” next to the Christian-based curriculum options so you can easily find what you’re looking for. They have suggestions for free all-in-one programs here. They also have suggestions for curriculum by grade-level for each subject, which you could use to easily build your own curriculum.
Because these suggestions are given with the intent of helping you build your own curriculum, they do not offer a schedule to follow. They do, however, try to give tips on how often per week, etc, for the suggestions they give for each grade level to help you make your own plan. The curriculum covers 1st-8th grade only.
Reading
Reading is taught through phonics. The free suggestion for Language Arts for grades 1-5 is The Good and The Beautiful’s language arts curriculum. Their LA curriculum includes phonics, reading, writing, spelling, literature, grammar, punctuation, art, and geography. The Good & The Beautiful focuses on teaching phonics through phonics flash cards to help your child become a better reader.
Through the phonics flash cards, your child is exposed to (and expected to memorize, bit by bit) all of the sounds that each letter and different letter combinations can make. You can find a video about their language arts program here. To learn more about how this approach to teaching reading works, you can find a video about their phonics flash cards here.
Some Christians are against The Good & The Beautiful and discount it as a Christian curriculum option, because it was a Christian Curriculum created by a woman with Morman beliefs. Her goal was to ensure purity in the curriculum’s reading content. This is a deal breaker for many Christians, so I want you to be aware of this. If this is an issue for you, you can find other choices on their website to replace this one in the Language Arts section of their page.
Many Christians use the curriculum and love it. They say they have never run into anything even remotely questionable as far as content is concerned. Others, however, believe that because it was created by a woman who is not Christian that it should not be supported. Many parents feel strong convictions about this; many others do not. If you have any convictions about this, you would need to look for other free options suggested on Freedom Homeschooling’s Language Arts pages here and here.
Subjects
Freedom Homeschooling offers suggestions for Language Arts, Geography, Art, Handwriting, Reading, Math, Bible, History, Science, Life Skills, Computer Skills, and PE/Recess.
While the focus of this curriculum is to offer as many free options as they can, they do give one curriculum suggestion per grade level which will require you to buy actual books and/or curriculum for that subject. If you do not want to have to buy curriculum for that subject, you can look at their page of free options by subject to easily find a no-cost alternative.
Homeschool Style
Most of the suggestions by grade level look to be suggestions for free curriculum options that incorporate a Charlotte Mason style of homeschooling. If you are searching by subject, instead of grade level, I’m sure there are a variety of homeschool styles mentioned as options.
It seems that the author favors a Charlotte Mason style of teaching, and has recommended those options when they are available. Because of the mixture of options, I believe this curriculum would technically be considered an Eclectic style of homeschooling that favors a Charlotte Mason approach to teaching.
Taking It Offline
Freedom Homeschooling offers a lot of options for downloadable workbooks, teaching guides, and textbooks. Taking it offline would be easy- all you would have to do is choose options that would include these downloads so you can print them off. After printing them, you could easily hole punch them and put them into 3-ring binders as your own makeshift workbooks and teacher guides. Another low-cost option would be to buy folders with the 3 binding clips inside them, or you could even look into those plastic clip binding options you can get online.
My Thoughts
Freedom Homeschooling is a great resource for those trying to homeschool on a budget. Giving people these options, all in one convenient place, helps people to have the freedom of picking, choosing, and customizing their homeschool curriculum. It gives people the freedom of choice while still allowing them to have the structure and security that following a curriculum provides.
The biggest struggle with using Freedom Homeschooling would be all of the choices, but I feel like this problem has already been tackled and solved by offering their own recommendations by grade level.
Getting Started
Getting started is relatively easy as far as choosing curriculum goes – the hardest part is getting your year plan together. Go to the Freedom Homeschooling curriculum website and choose which grade level you’d like to get started with. Look through their options for each subject and poke around to see if those options are the ones you’d like to use. Print off the workbooks and teacher guides (if applicable) and put them in binders for offline use. Make a note on your Homeschool Planner on the “General Year Plan” page by jotting down which websites and online activities you’re planning on using, if any.
Planning Your Lessons
The next step to getting started with Freedom Homeschooling is planning your lessons. Because they don’t give you a schedule for completing the lessons, you’ll have to do this part yourself. I know it can seem intimidating, but figuring out a general plan for the year is something you only have to do once each homeschool year.
See how many lessons are given for each subject and make a note somewhere of it. Don’t stress out about this part – just focus on one subject at a time. Pick a subject to start off with. Divide your total number of lessons by the total number of weeks you’ll be homeschooling. This will tell you how many lessons per week you need to complete in that subject.
Examples of Planning for a 36 Week School Year
For example, if my PE curriculum has 36 lessons, and I’m planning on doing school 5 days a week for 36 weeks, then I would need to do one lesson per week. I know this because 36 lessons divided by 36 total weeks= 1 lesson per week.
If there are 180 lessons in Language Arts and I’m planning on doing school for 36 weeks, I would need to do 5 lessons a week in that subject. If there are 140 lessons and I’m doing 36 weeks, I would get 3.8, so I would just round that up to 4 and make sure 4 lessons of that subject are completed each week.
Examples of Planning for a 45 Week School Year
If I’m homeschooling 4 days a week for 45 weeks of the year and my PE curriculum has 36 lessons, 36 lessons divided by 45 total weeks = 0.8. The calculator on my phone also gives the fraction equivalent of decimals, which in this case is 4/5. So I can choose to do this subject 4 out of every 5 weeks OR I can just round it up to 1 and choose to do 1 PE lesson per week until all of the lessons are completed. Doing it the second way, I could choose to not follow a curriculum for the remaining weeks and just have them do physical activities, like playing catch or playing outside, or I could choose to be done with PE for the year.
If Language Arts has 180 lessons and I’m doing a 45 week school year, I would need to make sure 4 lessons get completed each school week. If my Language Arts program has 140 lessons, I would get 3.1, so I would need to complete 3 lessons each school week.
Examples of Planning for a 52 Week School Year
If I have chosen to do 3 days per week for the entire 52 weeks of the year, I would divide 36 PE lessons by 52 weeks, which gives me 0.69. 0.69 is really close to 0.7, so if I round it up to that, the fraction form of 0.7 is 7/10 (you can do a quick google search for “0.7 as a fraction” if you don’t want to do the math yourself, or if you aren’t sure how). So I would need to do PE 7 out of every 10 weeks of the year from the curriculum lessons. I could also choose to make up my own curriculum for the other 3 weeks of the 10, or I could continue the curriculum until it’s complete and cut PE out of the workload for the rest of the year.
If Language Arts has 180 lessons per year, and I’m doing a 52-week school year, I’ll get 3.5, so I’ll need to plan to complete 3-4 lessons in language arts each week. If Language Arts has 140 lessons per year, and I’m doing a 52-week school year, I’ll get 2.7, so I’ll need to do 3 lessons each week to complete the curriculum by the end of the school year.
**Note: Doing 3 days per week for 52 weeks only gives you 156 school days. If your state requires more than 156 school days yearly, you’ll need to figure out which weeks you’ll be adding a day to your week for however many days you’re short. For example, in Indiana we are required to do 180 days per school year. So 180-156=24 days you’d be short. This means you’d need to plan on a 4-day school week for 24 of your school weeks to get all of your legally required days in. So that’s 24 school days you’d need to add into your plan somewhere. Some states only require 140 school days per year, so in those states you’d be fine with planning a 3 day school week without adjusting it.
Congratulations! You Did It!
After doing this for each subject, write down on your “General Year Plan” page of your homeschool planner (or just a regular piece of paper) what your plan for each subject is. Once you know how many lessons per week you’re doing in each subject, just look through your subjects and decide which subjects you’re going to do on which days of the week.
You could choose to do all of the lessons for the week of one subject in one day (block scheduling – i.e., all of the Language Arts lessons for the week on Mondays, all of the Math lessons on Tuesdays, all of the Electives on Fridays, etc), or you could choose to spread each subject out through the week. After making these final decisions, your whole year is pretty much planned out for you. You did it!!
An Old Fashioned Education
Overview
An Old Fashioned Education is another free homeschooling option. The focus of this program is on teaching scripture and building character. There is a heavy focus on Religious Study using the Catechism, Hymns, and carefully selected reading material. A 40-week schedule is provided for every grade level from Kindergarten to 12th grade. The lesson plans are available online and most of the reading uses online sources from the public domain.
Reading
An Old Fashioned Education uses old-fashioned books that aren’t watered down or “dumbed down” like most educators believe today’s children’s books are. There is a heavy focus on scripture and character development, taught mostly through the Catechism, Hymns, and carefully chosen reading materials.
I do not know what her philosophy on teaching reading is, but you can find her Kindergarten curriculum here and her Preschool recommendation here. The Preschool curriculum is not one she created, but is a free preschool recommendation from her site. Because she uses the McGuffey Eclectic Primers, if I had to guess, I would guess that she uses sight words as her approach to reading.
This curriculum also uses books with expired copyrights to teach in their curriculum – books that are now in the public domain. A lot of the free options for homeschool curriculum do it this way because it keeps the cost of buying books down – all you need is a computer to access most of these materials for free online.
Homeschool Style
The creator of this curriculum does reference using “Living Books” as the main focus in choosing reading material, which is typically a Charlotte Mason style of homeschooling, rather than “Great Books,” which are used in a Classical style of homeschooling.
The reading expectations are very heavy in this curriculum, and History is taught chronologically; both of these characteristics would be more comparable to a Classical approach to homeschooling. There is also no reference to nature walks, oral narration, or short periods of study, which are more of a Charlotte Mason style approach. There is a heavy workload. I might even veer off enough to say that this could be considered a School-At-Home, or Traditional, approach to school.
The creator of this site does not claim a specific homeschool style for the curriculum. If I had to put it in a group, I would say it was a Classical approach, but teetering on the edge of being a School-At-Home approach to homeschooling.
Subjects
This curriculum includes instruction in 10 main subjects. Religious Study, Language Arts/English, Literature/Reading, and Mathematics are completed daily. Weekly subjects include History, Social Studies, Life Skills, Science, Character, and Electives. The mathematics and science suggestions are materials you should expect to buy, but the rest of the curriculum uses free resources online.
You can take a peek at her general year plan by grade level here. To see a sample of a first grade schedule by week, you can click here, and to learn more about this curriculum you can click here. A 40-week schedule is provided for all grade levels from Kindergarten to Twelfth grade. She also has a link on her site to a recommended preschool curriculum.
Adapting to Fit Your Needs
I think this curriculum could be easily adapted to include less reading from the student, and many of the books could be read aloud to the student by the parent, instead. This would give your children the same great exposure to wonderful reading materials, but without overwhelming them. You could also choose to adapt the curriculum by cutting out some of the books entirely.
I also think if you were to group the History lessons together and teach all of your children the same material, instead of focusing on specific eras of history during specific grade levels, it could be more multi-student friendly. Because the materials are listed by grade level, however, you may have to do some research to find more variety of age-appropriate materials for your own children’s ages. You would have to sift through the suggested book selections and make that decision on your own.
Taking it Offline
If you do NOT want to do most of your reading online, you will be able to print the reading materials from the public domain. Because the copyright on these books is no longer active, these books are available to print and use in any way you’d like.
The downside is that this means you would need to print off all of your children’s reading selections ahead of time. You would need to take the prep time needed to find, sift through, and print these reading selections into consideration when you are doing your planning each week. By printing the materials, you could turn this into a completely offline curriculum, but doing so would take time, paper, and ink. She does offer suggestions for organizing your printed materials on her website.
You could also look for some of the books to buy, but since they are older texts they may be difficult to find. It is the same with getting them from the library – you will likely have a hard time finding the resources suggested for this curriculum if you don’t want to do your reading online.
If your concern is not having an actual computer, you can likely look up most of the books for free on a tablet as well and have your child read from that. We’ve also used e-book apps, such as Google Books or Kindle app, to read from my phone when needed. You’d be surprised at how many free options are really out there.
My Thoughts
My personal take on this curriculum would be that it would be a great option for those who don’t mind taking the extra time to really invest in their child’s education, especially Biblical teaching (which I believe should be a main focus in homeschooling). It seems to be extremely thorough, and I love all of the focus on scripture and character building. It could be a great option for children who are able to complete their work independently, and especially children who absolutely love reading.
That being said, this doesn’t look like a curriculum that is for the faint of heart. I wouldn’t suggest new homeschoolers attempting this curriculum, as I could see burn out being a major issue. I also wouldn’t recommend this program to homeschoolers with multiple children unless their children are older and highly independent so that they may be able to do most of the work themselves.
Getting Started
Getting started with this curriculum would start with placement. The creator of the website encourages you to look up some excerpts of books from the grade levels you’re considering to decide which level is best for each child. A list of books by grade level can be found here. Once you’ve figured out which level to place your child in, you can go to the weekly schedule for the selected grade level to start looking at the lessons.
Links to the online books are provided at the left hand side of nearly every page of the website in menu form. The hardest part is figuring out which books are listed underneath which subjects – the website is a little difficult to navigate. Judging by the weekly schedules provided, I would guestimate that you should expect to spend some serious time homeschooling each day using this curriculum, especially if you have multiple children. I would plan accordingly, and then if it doesn’t take as long as expected, you can be delighted when you’ve finished more quickly than expected. 🙂
I think this curriculum would fit well with many peoples’ Christian values and could be adapted to be manageable by experienced homeschoolers. I do think burn-out should be a matter to take into serious consideration, however, if you are drawn to this option. As homeschoolers, most of us are in this for the long-haul – battling discouragement can be hard enough without difficult curriculum to bog us down.