What curriculum did we use to homeschool our four children?
Sometimes it helps to know what others use, even if you decide their choices won’t work for your family. Here’s what we used.
Language Arts
Language arts covers several subjects: reading, vocabulary, grammar, spelling, and writing. All four of my children learned to read with Alpha-Phonics and Explode the Code. We used Wordly Wise for vocabulary and reading comprehension, Winston Grammar for grammar, and Spelling Power for spelling. Spelling Power takes only 5 minutes a day for the parent to call out words, and then it focuses only on the few words the child doesn’t know each day, so it never gets tedious. Excellent for both mom and child! Plus, Spelling Power teaches the spelling rules and employs different learning styles. I can’t praise Spelling Power enough! For handwriting, we used A Reason For Writing. I taught my children myself how to write paragraphs, essays, stories and reports, so I do not have a recommendation for those.
Math
This was the most difficult subject to find a good fit for us. We tried Singapore Math and Math-U-See, both of which were good for a time. Math-U-See is wonderful for elementary and for a child who needs hands-on math; we used it for several years. We also loved Times Tables the Fun Way for learning the times tables! I’ve heard good things about Saxon Math, particularly for speed, but we never used it. We finally tried Teaching Textbooks and loved it for its regular review of past concepts, visualization and explanations via videos, grade-keeping, and short lessons. Teaching Textbooks ended up being the math we stayed with for the longest time, but if your child will likely go into a math or science career, it may not be as rigorous as a math person would like it to be.
Science
During the elementary years, we would do science reading and experiments occasionally, but put more focus on science starting in 7th grade. Once we joined a homeschool co-op, my elementary children did science only once a week in their co-op class, and I would go over the topic with them on the Internet a day or so before class (to introduce the concepts) or the day after co-op (to reinforce what they learned in class). The sciences for grades 7-12 at co-op used Apologia, hands-down the best science we found for grades 7-12! Now that Dr. Jay L. Wile, author of the original Apologia books, has published new science books through Berean Builders, our co-op has switched to those. Like Apologia, they are challenging, Christian courses, and they definitely prepare the child for college sciences.
Literature and History
We discovered Sonlight early in our homeschool journey, and I am so grateful we did! Sonlight is a complete, Christian, literature-based homeschool curriculum that includes everything you need to teach your children—not only history and literature, but also math, science, and more! It has easy-to-use lesson plans, schedules, and materials for preschool through high school. You can buy the whole package, or just pick and choose from their award-winning books and materials. I wanted my children to love reading and history, and Sonlight helped, although two of our four children still don’t care too much for reading. We used Sonlight for U.S. History and World History. For state history, I created an Alabama State History Curriculum, which I’ve made available to other homeschoolers. Once my children were in high school, we used the curriculum of the co-op courses: Exploring America and Exploring World History, both by Ray Notgrass and both excellent resources!
Geography, Government, Economics
High schoolers need a half credit in each of these three subjects. Our first child studied these subjects at home, and our last three children took these as courses at our homeschool co-op. Whether at home or in a co-op class, the books were the same. We enjoyed Galloping the Globe by Loree Pettit and Dari Mullins and The Ultimate Geography and Timeline Guide by Maggie Hogan. For economics, we used Whatever Happened To Penny Candy? by Richard J. Maybury and the companion workbook, Bluestocking Guide: Economics by Jane A. Williams. For government, we used Painless American Government by Jeffrey Strausser. I highly recommend all of these!
Foreign Languages
Our children chose different languages to learn, depending on their interests. It’s been my experience that if a child wants to learn something, he or she will put in the time and effort to learn it without much prompting from mom! One child chose French, took a co-op class for it, and loved it enough to want to take French classes in college. Three chose Spanish: one used Rosetta Stone at home, another used Bob Jones, and the third used Easy Peasy All-In-One Homeschool, the last two at our co-op. All were excellent programs, but the least favorite was probably Rosetta Stone. With a Southern accent, my daughter had trouble advancing in the audio portion, so she was often frustrated. At university, she took German instead of the popular Spanish. Both Bob Jones and Easy Peasy were just fine as neither children intended to speak Spanish fluently anyway. The one who used Bob Jones took Spanish in college and loved it! One of those three also took American Sign Language at our church. She still uses it. However, check the colleges your child is interested in before selecting sign language as some colleges do not accept it for their foreign language requirement.