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Homeschool Curriculum and Resources: My Top Picks

In this post I share some of my family's favorite homeschool resources. I usually put together my own curriculum, so I don't have any recommendations for full, boxed curriculum sets, but there are a lot of book series, science kits, websites, and other educational resources that we love and use often. 


Fun-Schooling Journals

The Fun-Schooling Journals from Thinking Tree are really cool. They offer journals for a wide variety of topics, and each journal is filled with writing and activity prompts related to that journal's topic. I like them because they offer a lot of room for students to choose how and what they're learning about each day. They offer some structure without too much rigidity.






You can check out all their books here: Fun-Schooling Bookstore


Blossom and Root's Science and Nature Study Curriculum

I was gifted Blossom and Root's 3rd grade science curriculum, "Wonders of the Animal Kingdom" last year by a friend. I really didn't expect to like it as much as I did, I mean I do have a degree in zoology, so why would I need a curriculum to teach elementary animal science? But my kids and I all ended up really enjoying it! It is pretty much exactly what I would have put together myself, except I didn't have to do any of the work.

Each lesson contains a breakdown of the "big picture" messages for the parent to go over beforehand, reading and video recommendations, lab activity ideas, and space for students to record what they learned.


The things I liked best about Wonders of the Animal Kingdom is that the lessons are organized taxonomically. You study animal groups based on similar characteristics and roughly in the order in which they evolved. It reminds me of a simpler version of my college zoology classes. 
I really love that the student notebooks are open ended so kids can record the information THEY find most interesting or important. I also like that it was easily adaptable to use with a wide age range. The curriculum was designed for 3rd graders, and I used it very successfully with both my 1st grader and my 7th grader last year.

Chronos
Chronos, from The Homeschool Historian, is a 32-week history lesson guide covering the Stone Age to present day. Its focus is on historical literacy and is meant to help homeschooling parents understand different interpretations of the past and to recommend reputable resources. I like this lesson guide because it's highly adaptable, it presents history in chronological order (much better for understanding cause and effect), and it encourages critical thinking.
Read more about it here and grab a free sample lesson here.

U.S. Facts and Fun from Evan Moor

U.S. Facts and Fun is a social studies workbook full of fun short stories about important places, events, and people in American history. Following each story is a reading comprehension activity page and 2 fun activity pages like crossword puzzles, word searches, word scrambles, cryptograms, and more. They offer two levels, one for kids in 1st-3rd grades and one for kids in 4th- 6th grades.

Evan Moor History Pockets

We enjoy the Evan Moor History Pockets because they come with lots of hands-on, crafty lesson plans. They can be used to supplement another history curriculum or as a stand alone curriculum. Each one covers a particular history topic. 

 For grades 1-3 they offer:
Life in Plymouth Colony
Ancient Civilizations 
Native Americans

For grades 4-6 they offer:
The American Revolution 
The American Civil War
Colonial America 
Explores of North America 
Moving West
Ancient Rome
Ancient Egypt
Ancient Greece

Each one is divided into several subtopics. Students make a construction paper pocket folder for each subtopic where the information packet and finished activities are stored. At the end it's all put together to make a booklet.


The Magic School Bus Science Kits

The Magic School Bus Science Kits from The Young Scientists Club are really fun. They're designed for elementary school aged kids and come in a variety of topics. They generally come with almost everything you need to do the activities other than basic school supplies like scissors, glue, tape, etc...

Our favorites so far have been :

The World Of Germs which came with almost everything needed for 10 really awesome experiments and activities about bacteria and fungi, including several experiments where we got to grow bacteria on agar in petri dishes!


And Back In Time With Dinosaurs. With this kit we learned about herbivores, omnivores, and carnivores, and explored the differences in their types of teeth. We made a dinosaur diorama and a timeline of when different types of dinosaurs lived. We also learned about paleontologists and made our own fossils.


These kits aren't really designed to be a stand alone curriculum but are a great addition to any science curriculum or with some good library books and a little online research they can be used as the base for building your own simple curriculum. 


Bob Books
I love the Bob Books series for young readers. Most early reader books are too hard for kids who are truly just starting out. The Bob Book series is designed to be your child's very first book series, with simple to sound out words and short sentences. I also love that this series is more affordable than most other early reading programs.

Check them out here!

The Who Was? Book Series

My kids absolutely love the Who Was? What Was? books. It's a series of books featuring important historical figures, important historical events, and interesting geographical regions. Our favorites so far include Who Was Amelia Earhart?, What Was the Age of the Dinosaurs?, and Who Was Laura Ingalls Wilder?

You can check out those and their other titles here: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/series/DWY/who-was


National Geographic Books

We love National Geographic and National Geographic Kids books. Some of our favorite series are:

The National Geographic Encyclopedias- We have the Space Encyclopedia and the Animal Encyclopedia. They are both really awesome books, with loads of great photos and graphics. 


The National Geographic Kids Everything series- my 10 year old has the Everything Big Cats book and the Everything Birds of Prey book and she loves them!

The National Geographic Kids Big Book of series- This series is similar to the Everything series, but geared toward younger kids. My 5 year old loves these ones!


Do the Math!

Do the Math! by Jessica and Steven Clontz is a really fun math workbook designed for kids ages 8-12, but even most teens and adults would enjoy this one. It's full of math and logic puzzles like sudoku, grid puzzles, cryptograms, emoji math puzzles (like the math challenge memes you see floating around facebook), pattern puzzles, and more. 






Free Online Resources

We use a lot of free online resources, here are some of our favorites:

Kahn Academy
Kahn Academy offers free online lessons in math, English, science, computer programming, and more. 

Duolingo
Duolingo is a free language learning platform. It currently has courses in 38 languages available to English speakers. 

Ducksters
Ducksters is a really great educational site for kids that covers lots of science, history, and geography topics. It's become one of our favorite sites for gathering information. 

We love Ducksters because the information is presented in an easy to understand, kid friendly way. Also many of the topics have interactive quizes at the end for students who like to be quizzed.

Starfall
This one isn't completely free, but sort of. Starfall is a learning site/app that provides tons of interactive learning games and activities for kids preschool through mid elementary school age. My daughter loves the math games.

They have a free edition, but it only gives you access to part of the site. For $35 a year you can purchase a membership to get full access, this is definitely worth doing in my opinion.

Mathantics
The Mathantics channel on YouTube, is a great math resource. It's my go-to for just about any math topic. I seriously can't say enough good things about this channel. Go check it out!
Learn French With Alexa
Learn French With Alexa is a great YouTube series that teaches begining French. It's totally free on YouTube and her lessons are great! Once you've mastered the free beginners series, you can go on and purchase her intermediate lessons for a pretty affordable price if you want to.

Sci Show and SciShow Kids
SciShow and SciShow Kids are two more really awesome YouTube series. They cover topics from fungi and other lifeforms to things like weather, what killed the dinosaurs?, and what makes boats float? We often incorporate their videos into our science lessons. 

FreeSchool
FreeSchool is another awesome YouTube series with videos about natural science topics and geography.

PBS Eons
PBS Eons is one of my personal favorite YouTube channels. It's videos are all about the history of life on earth, and it's fascinating!

Other YouTube Channels
There are loads of great educational channels for kids on YouTube. Check out this post for more: The Ultimate List of YouTube Learning Channels for Kids.


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Comments

  1. Joanne June 19, 2018 at 3:58 AM

    These sound great! My middle son has been wanting to learn French and while I retained some of what I learned I think he'll enjoy watching a YouTube channel more. I co-host a weekly learning linky on Tuesdays and we'd LOVE to see you link up posts like this with us. Here's a link to today's in case you are interested: https://www.ourunschoolingjourney.com/2018/06/love-to-learn-easy-and-fun-ways-to.html

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Joanne June 20, 2018 at 1:50 PM

      Thanks so much for linking up with us!! I hope you come back next week too. Pinned.

      Delete
    2. Brandy NicoleJune 20, 2018 at 7:34 PM

      Thanks for sharing your link up! I love link ups, such a great way to share and find other ideas :-)

      Delete
    3. Joanne July 2, 2018 at 11:34 AM

      Congrats! This post was picked as our featured favorite for July. Hope to see you linking up again with us again tomorrow.

      Delete
  2. Sheltie TimesJune 20, 2018 at 10:25 AM

    Thanks for the review on the Magic Schoolbus kits, been tempted a few times, but not sure there was much there. The germ one sounds like it would be a fit. Thanks.

    ReplyDelete

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