When I began to feel like God was leading me to homeschool my kids, I started praying over what curriculum I would use to teach them and how we would plug in to our local community. This year, I had a newborn baby, a first grader, and a three year old who was very interested in school, so she did “3-K”. When I was thinking about this year, I knew that I wanted them to participate in extracurricular activities, make friends, and learn! Most of all, I wanted them to really love homeschool. As I began to research different homeschool curriculums, watch videos, and search for groups on Facebook, I believe that God led me to the things that I am going to share with you today. In the mornings, part of our homeschool day is reading a daily devotion together and praying that God would lead us in the way that He would have us go during our day. I truly believe that when you give your children’s education to the Lord, whether you are homeschooling or not, He will be faithful to lead you and guide you in the direction that is best for your child and your family.
The heart of man plans his way, but the LORD establishes his steps.
-Proverbs 16:9
One of the first things that I did was search for homeschool groups on Facebook. I joined all of the local groups that were available to me! One of those was an events group, another was a field trip group, and another was the homeschool association for my area. Through my Facebook searches, I found a local Classical Conversations group and went to a meetup at the park. I felt like my kids immediately made friends, and the other kids and moms were friendly and welcoming. I was especially impressed with the older girls and the way that they included my little kids while playing! After going to that meeting, I felt peace and that it was a good fit for us. After researching more about Classical Conversations, or “CC”, I learned that there are groups all over the world! If I moved to North Carolina next week, there is a group there that we could plug into that is using our same curriculum, and if I moved back to South America or to Europe, there are groups there as well. One of my best friends homeschools and her kids go to Classical Conversations in another state, and it has been so fun to see what they are doing this year and how it is the same as what we are learning! The fact that there are CC groups all over the world and that I can plug into a network of families who are all in one accord has given me a feeling of being grounded in homeschool, even in year one! For the entire year of CC, I paid about the same price that I would pay for one month of private school, so it is very inexpensive. Even if it didn’t include curriculum, it would have been worth it just for the community days, the friendships that my kids made, and the fun science experiments that they got to do every week. We have really loved being a part of CC this year!
I learned that apart from doing Classical Conversations, I would need to add in an additional Math and ELA program, as well as handwriting. Through reading a bunch of blogs and watching some YouTube videos, I found The Good and The Beautiful Curriculum and purchased their handwriting, Math, and ELA for my first grader. I also purchased their Doodles and Pre-Writing handwriting book for my 3 year old which she has loved. The Good and The Beautiful has been a great fit for my kids as students and for me as their teacher. All around, I would highly recommend it!
We also study Spanish every day, so we have a monthly subscription to The Cultured Kid, which I would also highly recommend for foreign language. It gives you language lessons to complete each day, and it is “open and go” meaning that you need to put in minimal prep time, even if you don’t speak a foreign language!
The last thing that we have added in is the Nature Notebook and On Mission Magazine from Gentle and Classical Press. I bought the Nature Notebook in 2020 when we had to quarantine, because it is a nature study and we were going outside on long walks every day. I have since looped it into our homeschool schedule and we do it once every four days. I have learned a lot about nature from this notebook as well, so it has been fun for the whole family! The On Mission Magazine has also been a family favorite as we have learned about missionaries around the world and the countries that they live and serve in.
As I am planning for next school year, Jubilee will be in second grade and Selah will start Pre-K. Asher will be a very active little sidekick who should be just learning to walk when the school year starts! I plan to enroll both girls in Classical Conversations. I purchased The Good and The Beautiful Level 2 Language Arts, Handwriting 2, and Typing for Jubilee, and I will buy their new Math 2 book as soon as it is released. She will also continue to do her Nature Notebook, because we won’t finish it this year. For Selah, I ordered Pre-K Language Arts and the Doodles and Pre-Writing Handwriting book. They will learn History, Science, Art, Music, Latin, Geography, as well as English and Math memory statements within their Classical Conversations Curriculum.
Whew, I know that sounds like a lot! But, it’s honestly very simple. I will make another post about what this all looks like practically in our daily life, but for now, this is what we have learned about curriculum this year and what our plans are for next year. I hope that this helps you if you are new to homeschool, or if you are planning to homeschool next year and are looking for the right curriculum.
PS. If you live in my area, make sure you check out these groups on Facebook:
