Homeschool Curriculum I Used

Whenever I talk about homeschooling, I think the number one question I get is what curriculum did I use.  I cannot even begin to tell you how much time I spent looking at, researching, shopping, buying, using, and then selling curriculum.

A lot of it was based in fear. I was so worried about messing up my kids, wanting them to have the best education, afraid of gaps in knowledge, teaching them wrong, etc… I tried to make up for it by throwing myself into finding the most perfect curriculum that I felt must be out there. I just had to go find it. 

Now that I am done, I do wish I had chilled a bit. There is no such thing as a perfect curriculum. 

Everybody has gaps in their knowledge and education. I did teach them some things wrong. There are things I wish I did differently. And I made a lot of mistakes. And it all turned out okay. 

No matter what educational setting kids are in, the best thing we can do for them is empower them and teach them how to learn. To instill the confidence to think for themselves, do their own research, and figure out how to learn what they want to learn. Because hopefully they will be lifelong learners.

This is going to take them farther than any curriculum out there.

Now with that being said, there are some wonderful companies and people who create excellent curriculum. I will share what I used but just remember that I stopped looking at new curriculum after 2015. 

I’m sure there are other things out there that were created after 2015, but I am not familiar with them. in general though I usually ended up using the bigger more established curriculum. 

For the preschool years children really are sponges so take advantage of this time to teach them shapes, colors, numbers, anything and everything. I do not think you need a specific premade curriculum at this age. It’s just not necessary. When they are young, it is more about exploring the world, talking with parents, and interacting with the world around them.  

During the early years, I think reading out loud to them is probably the most fruitful activity. Going to the library and borrowing several books and then spending time each day reading to your child and discussing what they see will pay off in spades. They will love it and they will love the time that they have with you. 

Another thing I would like to mention is that it is really important to minimize screen time during these early years. This is always such a touchy topic and one that brings a lot of debate. I am not trying to mom-shame anyone. I also know that current day parents have it so extremely difficult so this is not coming from a place of judgment. But, although screens have proliferated and dominate our society, it doesn’t mean our brains and the way we develop has evolved. 

Because we haven’t.

It is really important in these early years, your children’s minds develop and be shaped by the world that they are interacting with, with other human beings. I will write more about this in another post.

Now once your child shows a great deal of interest in books and reading, and they can follow along as you read, you can start to teach your child how to read using the book, “Teach Your Child To Read in 100 Easy Lessons” by Seigfried Engelman. You can buy it new off Amazon for less than $20 and there are plenty of used copies available on Ebay. Honestly, this book should cost a lot more for what it teaches! It’s an incredible resource. I taught my three kids how to read using this book and I have nine nieces and nephews who also learned how to read with this book. 

When it came to educational methods, once I learned about Classical education, things just fell into place for me. I certainly didn’t follow it religiously, but it gave me a framework as to how to fit things in and what standards I looked for in curriculum. 

The foundation of the education I wanted my kids to have was the language arts. For this, I used Sonlight up till high school when I switched to Tapestry of Grace. 

I bought every year of Sonlight’s program, even the high school ones, although Sonlight wasn’t the curriculum I used. I bought the high school levels because I loved their book choices and I wanted to build up a home library for my kids. Having many books in the home readily available is a key way to keep kids off screens. 

Then, if I didn’t use or lightly used the Sonlight teacher guides, I’d sell them on the used market. 

Sonlight and TOG cover history but at the time we also used the book series Story of the World by Susan Bauer. I think these were released when my kids were in upper elementary. This series was not a part of either curriculum at the time, so I bought it individually to give them a mental timeline of history and to be able to fit everything into place. I thought that it was very well written. 

Writing is my strongest subject so I taught my kids myself but if you need a program, I think Institute For Excellence in Writing (IEW) is a great program. I had bought all the levels to look over it but didn’t really use it because I did my own thing. 

For grammar, Rod and Staff is hands-down the absolute best at giving a solid, excellent grammar education. if you use it you can skip over all of the other subjects that’s in there and just focus on the grammar. 

For math from K to 6 I recommend using Saxon and Horizons math concurrently. For us, one was not enough work and too limited so using both helps to stretch their minds and keeps them very flexible. If your kid struggles with math, just use one.  

Once they are ready for pre-algebra and upper level math, Dana Mosley is hands down the best math teacher I found. If you research him, he is a prolific math textbook author for all the major publishers. At the time, all of his work was sold on DVDs called Chalkdust Math, but now it appears that he offers a monthly subscription streaming service. His website is the Cool Math Guy. I personally would not hesitate to subscribe because his program was worth every penny.

My kids did Chalkdust Pre-Alg, Alg 1, Geometry, Alg 2, and I bought the Pre-Calc but didn’t really need it because they were more than ready for AP Calc. 

Two of my kids took AP Calc AB and one took AP Calc BC. Those were done with an online program. “AP” Is trademarked by the College Board, so if you want to be able to write AP on your homeschool high school transcript, your curriculum has to be College Board approved. You actually have to send your syllabus into the College Board and have them approve it. Although I know that there are some parents out there who have done that, I already had so much on my plate, so I knew my limit!

Each of my kids have a Dana Mosley story.  

During her first year of college, my daughter had a science class for which she had the digital textbook. The nice thing about digital textbooks is that there are so many links and pictures that can further explain concepts. So when she first came upon a concept and clicked on the link for a lecture, guess who popped up in her college textbook?!! Dana Mosley!! It felt like such a full circle moment and I will also admit that I felt very validated. 

My one son, math has always come pretty easily to him. It was during 10th grade when he was supposed to start Algebra 2, he watched the first couple videos and said this whole thing is a repeat, I don’t want to do this. I was confused, because, as you know, I do not have a math education and so I couldn’t understand what he was saying. Wasn’t Algebra 2 new concepts? I always assumed that Algebra 1 taught the first half of algebra and Algebra 2 taught the second half of algebra? Why would it be called Algebra 1 and 2? His older sister who had already finished the program didn’t say anything about this to me!

But my son was insisting that it was the same and that even the videos were the same. So I emailed Dana Mosely and asked him. Because I bought the program directly from them, brand new, they offered student and parent support. I always found this invaluable. 

But anyway, Dana ended up calling me and telling me that my son was correct. He said that my son was correct in that Algebra 2 was a repeat and a deeper dive of Algebra 1. He also told me that if my son remembered that much, most likely he had an incredible capacity for math and so I should not hold him back and just let him proceed with what he wanted to do. 

This was dreadful for me because math is the one subject where I struggled so much because I know concepts are built on each other. Because I was never taught fractions and percents, I couldn’t move forward in my math education which then also hindered my science education. 

I just couldn’t believe that my son could just skip over two years of math and not miss something! My son wanted to go straight into Calculus. He didn’t even want to do Pre-Calc because he said it was a waste of time and if he came across a concept in Calc he didn’t know, he would just stop and learn it. 

So I signed him up for AP Calculus BC, and sure enough he breezed through the class and got a 5 on the exam. So he was right. He could just skip over it and learn what he needed when the time came. 

Then for my other son, after his first year of college and his experience with having so many different teachers, he declared that Dana Mosely was in the top five of best teachers in his life. He felt that he had such a strong math foundation and he was very grateful. So much so, that he emailed Dana Mosley with a heartfelt thank you note. 

So anyway, all that to say, I am a big Chalkdust/Dana Mosely supporter and am forever grateful. 

Between Saxon, Horizons and Chalkdust my kids were ready for and aced their AP Calc exams. 

I have tried Calvert, Abeka, Singapore, Miquon, Math-U-See, Teaching Textbooks, BJU…if it was available I’ve tried it but I didn’t like them. 

Then for science I used Apologia every year until they were ready for AP sciences. 

For foreign language I found an incredible Latin tutor who ran classes out of her home. My kids took six years of Latin, aced the standardized test for Latin and managed to place out of every single foreign language requirement that their colleges required. 

Then the absolute, most vital and foundational keystone subject to teach our children and the first reason why I chose to homeschool was Bible. 

And for that once your kids are around 6 or 7 I urge you to read to your children the actual Bible and not any children’s version. 

Read to them the Word of God over and over, cover to cover. This is what I believe God means when He tells us to teach our children the way they should go.

Let them hear it from Him not you or anyone else. 

Pour into their minds the eternal wisdom that only God can give and take advantage of the time you have been blessed with to have lots of rich discussions with your children until the day they leave home.