Favorite Things
Below are our favorite things for home education, listed by subject and linked to amazon. Please explore my blog reviews for more specific descriptions on curriculum and methods.
Language Arts - Reading, Writing, Spelling, Literature
Executive Function, Sensory and Emotional Learning
Curriculum Planning - Scope & Sequence - Coming Soon
Music - Coming Soon
Games - Coming Soon
Suggested Books - Coming Soon
The absolute best curriculum research tool I have found is Cathy Duffy Reviews, she lists virtually every possible curriculum. I find her top suggestions skew towards religious choices, however there is nothing more comprehensive with direct links to sites that will make your search fast and efficient.
Before choosing curriculum, be sure to spend some time reading about different learning styles, teaching styles and considering your family’s needs. Age gaps require more independent learning curriculum because family learning doesn’t always work well with infants and older students. When juggling students of multiple ages it is often impossible to teach a style with significant dictation and read aloud. If your student struggles to sit, consider more hands on projects like lapbooks or notebooking. Our family has a wide variety of learning needs so we use an eclectic style that incorporates what works best for us from every method of learning, which is why you will see me make suggestions from many genres of teaching.
When it comes to planning what to teach at each grade level, I love coreknowlege.org and the book Home Learning Year by Year. The printed books by Core Knowledge are fantastic to keep in the car for learning on the go, when we want to relax at a park or even while travelling. They provide material that is a great launching pad for interest led learning, giving a child just enough information to decide if they want to research more, check out those books from the library or go on a related field trip.
TIP - Evan Moor has Teacher Filebox which is a great way to access their entire library of workbooks and print as many pages as you need. It’s the most cost efficient way to access their resources because most of the books are created as classroom tools intended to be copied and reproduced so project based books like History Pockets and File Folder Reports are printed on both sides of the page and can not be just cut out and used. I HIGHLY recommend this resource!