2026-2027 Curriculum Choices!

It's almost time to start a new school year and we are so excited! These are the things we'll be using this year.

*I make my own language arts courses after reading The Brave Learner and Wild + Free. Some (but not all) resources I like to utilize: a journal for each kid to write in on Mondays (typically about their weekends, interesting prompts when the weekend wasn't very write-able), spelling, TGTB Simply Spelling and online language arts, English Grammar Workbook, Evan Mor Writing books, Greek & Latin Roots, buddy reads, read-alouds, and independent reading, various writing projects of my choosing

*All four big kids participate in a local extracurricular activity as well. 

* Morning Basket goodies: Vocabulary cards // Soaring Through the Bible // 4 Essential Keys to Effective Communication // Keep Thy Heart Bible study 

* My husband also does computer and shop classes with the kids and I do cooking lessons with them. 

8th grade: Math // Homemade language arts // Chemistry + my own expansions // Health + nutrition review // History // Homemade Geography // Spanish + Butterfly Spanish // Teach Homeschool Finance // Drawing 1 // Music Appreciation 2 // Guitar 

6th grade: Handwriting // Math // Homemade language arts // Chemistry + my own expansions // Health + nutrition review // History // Homemade Geography // Spanish + Butterfly Spanish // Drawing 1 // Music Appreciation 2 // Nature notebook // Creative Writing // Typing 2 // YouTube paint tutorials

5th grade: Handwriting // Math // Homemade language arts // Biology // Health + nutrition review // History // Homemade Geography // Spanish + Butterfly Spanish // Drawing 1 // Music Appreciation 2 // Creative Writing // Typing 2 // YouTube paint tutorials

3rd grade: Handwriting  // Math // Homemade language arts // Biology // Health + nutrition review // History // Homemade Geography // Spanish + Butterfly Spanish // Music Appreciation 1 // Creative Writing // Typing 1 // A Hive of Busy Bees 

It's inevitable that I find new material and read-aloud as the year goes on but this is the general idea! 

Christmas School 2025

We don't take much of a summer break over here but we always take December off from our normal school routine. We still do independent reading which everyone does every day/night here, occasional math lessons, and occasional handwriting pages but mostly we focus on memory-making holiday activities together. Here are our 2025 Christmas school plans:

👨‍🍳 Baking holiday treats (mostly from Sweet Indulgence)
🎨 Christmas decoration and gift art projects
📖 Read-aloud of The Angel Tree (plus our Christmas picture books we've been re-collecting after losing every book we owned)
🎶 Hymn Bible study by Not Consumed
✍️ Journaling about holiday fun
🎧 Sonlight's Christmas podcasts

Plus lots of free time to play, watch movies, play games, hang out as a family, pursue non-Christmas activities, etc.

We're all very excited. 

September reads

First, the grown-up reads!

📖 Bible study... Luke. Verrrry slowly, reading my Bible much more slowly these days on advice from our pastor. Seeking to understand each little bit rather than seeking to get through a lot.

📖 Better Together by Pam Barnhill (nonfiction, homeschool)... I felt so inspired by this little book on homeschool morning time and added so many great readings to our morning basket this month.

📖 Finding God in my Loneliness (Christian, nonfiction)... I was experiencing a strange kind of loneliness in early September that's hard to explain. I felt no loneliness at all in my home life or spiritual life but more in a female companionship kind of way. I am normally very content in This area but i think it was a combination of hormones and wishing I could be experiencing pregnancy alongside a friend. Fortunately that's gone now and I'm back to joyful contentment. This book wasn't quite what I was after and was one of those I had mixed feelings on. I liked several things and disliked/disagreed with a few things. 🤷🏼

📖 The Power of a Woman's Words (Christian, nonfiction)... I read this one very slowly, really savoring and reflecting on tiny morsels at a time. I was reminded of so many things people have said that have stuck with me over the years and reflected a lot on the gifts I want to give with my own words.

📖 A Skeleton in God's Closet (Christian, general fiction)... I was very into this one, about an archaeologist who uncovers something that will turn Christianity on its head. It was so good! I was genuinely invested in the outcome and sped through it. I would say this is a great book for guys, too. There is alove interest but it doesn't dominate the story.

📖 Slow Death by Rubber Duck (secular, nonfiction)... This book is from 2009 so I admittedly already about all of these toxins and had thankfully phased all of them out of our day-to-day life already but I still enjoyed seeing it all in one place and remembering why it's so important to focus on natural, God-designed things!

📖 The Stranger in the Lifeboat (secular publication with a strong faith focus, fiction)... Mitch Albom is for sure my favorite secular author. All of his books I've read so far always move me and make think, reflect, and enjoy a deep a powerful prayer session. This one did contain a curse word. (The A word)

📖 Truly Madly Deeply (Christian, fiction)... This is another Baxter Family stand-alone novel- you don't have to have to read any others to fall into it but you'll of course appreciate it more if you have. This one is largely focused on a high school senior switching career paths and facing a lot of opposition from his mother, and his girlfriend's sudden diagnosis and battle with a health crisis. I now have just two Baxter books left! 😱

Kid shelf reads:

📖 The Bronze Bow (secular, middle grade, Biblical fiction, TGTB)... The cover of this one didn't really appeal to me so I was surprised by how much I loved it!

📖The Golden Goblet (secular, middle grade, historical fiction, TGTB book list)... A bit depressing at first but pretty good!

📖 Joni's Story (Christian, middle grade, memoir)... Loved this memoir by Joni Eareckson Tada and promptly read it aloud to my older kids, too. Fyi to parents, there is one paragraph early on where Joni explains her depression after her accident and that she asked a friend to kill her, using very specific suggestions. I just skipped over the specifics when I read it aloud.

📖 Little Pilgrim's Progress (Christian, middle grade, classic)... It has taken me years to read this classic!

📖 London Art Chase (Christian, middle grade, fiction)... This first book in the Glimmer Girls series was cute and something my daughter has been so excited about! For some reason Amazon shows this as book 2 but it's for sure book 1. 

📖Penny (Horse Diaries) (secular, middle grade)... A paint mare story for my horse-loving kiddo!

📖 Time Crashers: Viking Attack (Christian, middle grade, choose-your-own-adventure)... I liked this one alright but parents should know there is of course fighting due to the Viking theme. In one story line, our MC does meet a violent (but not graphic) fate and youre encouraged to use your time machine and try a different storyline if you don't like that ending. 

Also, library picture books that stood out: Because Barbara //  Cozy Light, Cozy Night

Homeschool Science: Zoology

This was my first time trying Campfire Curriculum and we loved it! There is no required supplementation but we have some kiddos who love deep-diving into animals so we went all out. I loved the ability to tailor it all to different age levels, the layout, the images, everything. My only true complaint would be the printing, that it's all digital and you have to get it printed, but even that was no big deal. Highly recommend, looking forward to trying more! 

Devotionals: Indescribable // How Great is Our God

Books: A Passion for Elephants (secular, picture book) // No Monkeys, No Chocolate (secular, picture book) // Koko's Kitten // Amazing Animals series // Giant Squid 

Games and Activities: Guess in 10 //  Jr Rangerland // Wild Kratts Race Around the World game // Field trip to an animal rescue center

Podcasts: Bedtime History Podcast's Animal Activism episodes // Earth Rangers Podcast

Videos/ Movies: Amazing Dogs // North America // Planet Earth // Jane (does show chimpanzees mating but I could tell it was coming so I just "accidentally" hit the next scene button on the remote and all was well) // Serengeti 

Homeschool History: Story of the World, Volune 1

We are still loving The Story of the World as our history curriculum and at this point I can't imagine switching to anything else! This is a complete curriculum on its own but I always enjoy bringing a little something extra in to enrich and enliven a study. Here's what we used alongside Volume 1 (ancient history): 

Books: Anansi and the Box of Stories (leveled reader) // Archaeologists Dig for Clues (picture book) // Big Book of History Stories from TGTB's History 1 // Bill and Pete Go Down the Nile (picture book) // The Curse of King Tut's Mummy (chapter book) // Egyptian Cinderella (picture book) // The Empty Pot (picture book) // I Survived... The Destruction of Pompeii (chapter book) // The Imagination Station series (chapter books) // Pompeii... Buried Alive! (Leveled reader) // We're Sailing Down the Nile (picture book) // Usborne's Living Long Ago 

Games and Activities: Story of the World coloring book // wrote our names + secret messages using hieroglyphics // each kid wrote a historical fiction short story using a chapter they enjoyed from this book

Podcasts: Bedtime History Podcast prehistory  and ancient history episodes

Videos/ Movies: Drive Thru History // Joseph King of Dreams and Prince of Egypt

My honest thoughts on Science for Little Hearts and Hands: Fields and Flowers

 

My children and I just finished an elementary school nature science curriculum by The Good and the Beautiful, Science for Little Hearts and Hands: Fields and Flowers. I purchased this book on my own The course is designed for children in the second grade and younger but my 4th grader willingly participated too.

The course can be 100% open-and-go if you like. You open up the parents' guide and read the intro. Then you will either read a story from the accompanying science story book or you'll watch a related video. (These alternate every other lesson). After the story/video you'll read about three questions from the parents' guide and discuss.

There are optional crafts and activities that go along with each lesson but aren't requirements. we chose to do some but not all of these. 

The lessons are very short but i think that's a good thing! We enjoyed other resources and activities on our own to reinforce/expand the lessons we bad just enjoyed but I often feel like I "can't" do that if we are working through longer lessons and have already spent a lot of time on something.

We loved this curriculum and will definitely be purchasing the next Science for Little Hearts and Hands installment. I do use their math and Story of the World history but I otherwise like to make up my own curriculum these days. This was a lovely, welcome addition. 

I do wish they weren't moving in the direction of so many online-only video resources (If they offered a DVD/CD-rom of the videos to purchase as an extra, this would be much more doable for my family) but I was otherwise quite happy with it. 

Homeschool History: Revolutionary War

We've been working through American history and I've decided to list our favorite resources for a specific time period ever so often. We'll start today with the Revolutionary War and the resources I've used for ages 5-7.

Adventures in American History... My mom got us this Adventures in Oddysey audio drama and it's a huge hit. They just want to plow through it and I'm constantly having to convince them to wait for the next episode until we've read books and explored other resources for the subject they just learned about! 

Bedtime History Podcast: Paul Revere's Ride // George Washington part 1, 2 & 3

The Good and the Beautiful's History Year 1... These lessons were a bit lengthy if you're only working with the early elementary crowd but my son still loved it. The lesson book, the Big Book of History stories, the Keys of History board game, all of it.

Picture Books: American Girl: The Story of America (this is such a fun timeline book! Each time period is much too brief to be used alone but it's a great sidekick!) // George vs George // George Washington's Teeth 

Early readers:  George Washington: the First President by Sarah Albee // Imagination Station books 13-15 // Ranger in Time: Night of Soldiers and Spies

Middle Grade: Toliver's Secret by Esther Wood Brady (we read this a read-aloud, as recommended by TGTB's history unit. I liked it. A was on the fence at first but loved it by the end).

Videos: America: the Story of Us (definitely best for ages 10 or 12 and up) // Animated Hero Classics: George Washington

I've shared before that my childhood history lessons were dry and lackluster. I retained very little of it so I've been enjoying learning alongside my children. Those elements of history that did stick for me all involved historical fiction making it all come alive so I'm reading a historical fiction grown-up book with some units, too. For this one I read Rachel Hauck's Christian fiction timeslip The Love Letter. Romantic stories are never my favorites but I did like this one (she's a great writer) and it did indeed help this time period come alive for me! I don't necessarily recommend it for high schoolers but you know your kid better than I do! 

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Nonfiction picture books

A friend of mine once shared online that reading nonfiction picture books to her children is much more enjoyable for her than story-driven picture books. I really like a good mix of both and have read some truly awesome nonfiction picture books I thought I’d share here today. We’ve read some of these for specific homeschool lessons and some just for fun but they’re only on this list if they were enjoyed by both parent AND child.

Abe Lincoln, the Boy Who Loved Books… This is a really great, fun way to condense Abe Lincoln’s life into a picture book. We like the illustrations and reading about how much books were a part of his life made us feel really great about how much books are a part of our lives. My six-year-old adores this book and can tell you all about Abe Lincoln if you take the time to ask him.

Beauty and the Beak… This is the amazing story of an eagle (Beauty) whose beak was damaged by a hunter. She was rescued and eventually fitted with a prosthetic beak.

The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind… I read the middle-grade memoir (which I really liked) too and I’m just a big fan of William Kamkwamba. This is a really remarkable story about a young man in an African village who didn’t let his family’s circumstances deter him from doing something amazing: creating a windmill that would give them electricity. Although his family’s poverty also included nearly starving to death, the picture book version was not at all as harrowing as the middle-grade version.

Boxes for Katje… This one, I’ll warn you, felt very much like a fiction story. I didn’t even realize it was a true story until I got to the end and read the note in the back. This is the story of a little girl in the US sending a care package to a little girl in post-war Holland, and then the way her entire town came together to help the entire town in Holland. It’s heart-warming and one we’ve read again and again.

Brave Ballerina… My four-year-old is on a major ballerina kick and this fabulous book is a very quick and easy read she requests all the time. This is a rhyming story about Janet Collins’ journey to becoming a prima ballerina in a time when black ballerinas were just not given any respect or credit. The book does a really excellent job at pointing out the adversity she faced without being upsetting for the younger crowd.

A Butterfly is Patient (and others by Dianna Hutts)… This whole nature series is fascinating and just BEAUTIFUL, but the butterfly book is the hands-down favorite in this house.

Giant Squid… We all loved learning more about the giant squid and definitely fell into a bit of a rabbit hole afterwards. We watched ocean movies in hopes that it would be mentioned and borrowed probably 20 other giant squid/ocean library books but none compared to this one.

Moses… This Caldecott is my favorite Harriet Tubman picture book and I especially love the way her faith is woven into the narrative. 

No Monkeys, NoChocolate… This is such a fascinating look at the way certain aspects in nature go hand-in-hand, and in particular, just how imperative monkeys are to the chocolate industry. And yes, we definitely bought some chocolate just so we could eat it while we read this one =D

One Giant Leap… This is the story of Neil Armstrong’s walk on the moon and is really fun for any kid interested in space/the moon. We also like Buzz Aldrin’s take on the story, Reaching for the Moon.

Over and Under thePond… We were on a pond kick for a little while last year, exploring a semi-local pond during all four seasons and enjoying pond books. This one was technically only the kids’ second favorite but it was definitely my favorite.

A Passion for Elephants… We were all very fascinated by this story about Cynthia Moss, a US scientist who moved to Africa to study and photograph elephants. She also became a huge advocate for elephant safety and was a big part of the movement created to help prevent the unnecessary deaths of elephants for ivory. 

Redwoods… This is a very fact-driven book about the Redwoods but its illustrations are super inviting and feel more like a picture book. We’ve read this one again and again!

Shine-a-Light series… This whole series is so fun! You read a blurb about the topic on hand and then you shine a flashlight behind the page to see what’s hiding inside/underneath something. My personal favorite is the human body book but we also love Secrets of Winter, Secrets of the Apple Tree, Secrets of the Rainforest, Inside the Space Station, Secrets of the Vegetable Garden, and Secrets of Animal Camouflage. There’s a beach version, a hospital version, and so many more. My kids especially love to be the one working the flashlight.

Snowflake Bentley… This is about the first man to photograph snowflakes and was really fascinating. We made a whole big thing of it and attempted to capture photographs of snowflakes with my busted ol’ phone after reading it. Didn’t work out.

This is How We Do it… This was a really awesome look at cultures around the world and the way they all do things. We got to see the way families in different parts of the world eat their meals, the way the children attend school, the way they play… super fascinating.

Tiny Creatures: the World of Microbes… This book is really well done and so fascinating! My six-year-old was instantly intrigued so he emailed our nutritionist friend (which was pretty adorable, I have to say) and now we're both obsessed!

WildAbout Bears… We got to meet this lovely author/illustrator when we attended her storytime event at The Country Bookshelf in Bozeman, Montana. This book is a great look at bears and different bear species’ similarities/differences (habitats, diets, size, all kinds of goodies) and has some really nice illustrations. Also, to be honest, the author is just so incredibly kind and lovely so I am really hoping you’ll buy-not-borrow this particular gem.

The Redwoods!

We actually didn’t get to see anywhere near as much of the Redwoods as I had hoped to see, so this was a good lesson in remembering that kids are in charge on trips ;] Between naps, mealtimes taking forever, tired little legs, etc., it just didn’t work out to do all the extra stuff I’d hoped for. But what we did see was amazing!

Redwoods Favorites
-Prairie Creek Visitor Center, where we got Tallest Tree as a souvenir and Nana spoiled them with Rangerland Jr. 

-Big Tree, a great little hike for the little ones. I did spot poison oak semi close to the trail a few times but it was otherwise a really easy hike for the little ones. A was three and ran it almost the entire way. B was two and did ask to be carried a lot (it ran into naptime for her) but in general walked quite a bit of it herself… and ten-month-old C just napped in a carrier on Daddy’s back most of the time. 

-Fern Canyon… there actually weren’t really any Redwoods here, just stumps leftover from logging. The hike was definitely a bit too much for little ones on foot, especially since at some point you have to cross over a creek to do it. Ryan had on good waterproof shoes so just walked them across it because walking on the logs would just not have worked for them. There were also a lot of stairs which is rough for our two-year-old either way… either she climbs up and down them herself, which is scary and takes forever, of we climb up and down stairs while holding a two-year-old, which is tiring and scary. We weren’t actually able to get down into the canyon itself either, but the trail was still really cool to see and I bet the canyon is amazing! This is also where a portion of Jurassic Park 2 was filmed.

-Banana slug!!!

-Seeing the awe on A’s face… this is why I love traveling with kids. Amazing. It was also really cool to hear him share the occasional factoid he’d learned from reading Redwoods a few times before the trip.

We tried to do the junior ranger activities but they were still just a little over our guy’s head and he was just enjoying the hike so maybe next time! =] 

Homeschool/Roadschool books we enjoyed before/during this trip: The United States of America: a state-by-state guide // Are We There Yet? // Are We There Yet, Daddy? // Bon Voyage, Lucy // Olivia Takes a Trip // Redwoods // The Tree in the Ancient Forest // Tallest Tree