In this episode of the Homeschool Better Together podcast, I’m sharing an overview of our curriculum choices for the 2024-2025 school year. With both a senior and a 9th grader, our homeschool routine is a bit different, and I’m excited to walk you through our approach.

We start each day with a focused morning time that sets the tone for learning, followed by individual subjects tailored to each child’s needs and interests. I’ll also share tips on how we keep our homeschool organized and why staying flexible is key to a successful year.

Pam Barnhill [00:00:01]:
Are you ready for homeschooling to feel joyful again? Do you long for support as you learn alongside your kids? Welcome to Homeschool Better Together, a podcast about building a homeschool experience that works for your family. I’m Pam Barnhill, and it’s time to step out of the overwhelm and into the wonder. Let’s do this. Hey there. I thought I’d do something just a little bit different today. I thought I would share with you my curriculum picks for the 2024 2025 school year. Now I’ve never really done this on the podcast before, but I know that this is something that a lot of people like to see and hear. And so thought it would be a good idea just to share with you some of the things that we’re using.

Pam Barnhill [00:00:52]:
Now what we’re using is not going to work for everyone, but I know that it’s a really big curiosity that a lot of people have. And yes, I would have loved to have gotten this to you back in June or July, but sometimes it takes me just a little bit longer to get all of my stuff together. Actually, now that I am very fast at my homeschool planning, I don’t worry about doing it super early. I’m a lot more likely to put it off until closer to the school start date because I know it’s going to be something that’s easy for me following the put your homeschool year on autopilot process. And so I don’t do it as early as what I used to anymore. Now that’s great for me, but it’s not so great for getting videos or audio podcasts out early in the year so people can see my picks. And for that, I apologize. If there’s anything here that’s interesting to you, you can save it for next semester or next school year.

Pam Barnhill [00:01:51]:
Now, before I get started telling you exactly what it is we’re using, I do wanna tell you what students I have in my homeschool this year. I have one who is a senior, and then I have one who is a 9th grader. So I have 2 students in my homeschool, a senior and a 9th grader. The senior is going for a standard diploma. And so other than electives, the only thing he has to have this year is English. He has to have an English class for this year. And then the 9th grader is just doing your standard college prep, 9th grade kinds of things. So that’s kind of what I’m I’m dealing with for this year.

Pam Barnhill [00:02:31]:
Okay. So let’s start with morning time because, hey, we’re doing morning time. And the very first thing we do every day in morning time is we start our morning time with The World from A to Z with Carl Azuz. Now I’ve interviewed Carl a couple of different times on the podcast and we can link that for you. And Carl is a delight. I absolutely love talking to him. My my boys love watching him. And so we always start our day with 10 minutes of Carl Azuz, and that keeps us up on current events and just all kinds of fun little clips and things that they do in the show.

Pam Barnhill [00:03:07]:
And we enjoy it. And it sparks a lot of really interesting conversation. And so that is the way that we start our morning time. After that, we do a little prayer. Sometimes we just do spontaneous prayer. And then there are times where we do use prayers in the hallow app. So I’m a hallow subscriber. It’s probably one of my favorite subscriptions.

Pam Barnhill [00:03:29]:
I’ve been a subscriber for like 4 years now, and I use it for my own personal prayer. And then I also use it sometimes with the boys in morning time. So sometimes we do our favorite is kind of saint of the day, and we do the adult version of the saint of the day because I have high schoolers, which there’s really nothing adult about it. I just know there’s a kid version as well, but we do the adult one, not sponsored, but something that I really, really enjoy using. So after prayer, then we move into kind of our topical reading and we are working from 2 different books right now. So one of the credits that we’re working on with my senior, and actually I decided just to go ahead and not do history with my 9th grader. And he’s just gonna get these credits as well. And that’s economics.

Pam Barnhill [00:04:17]:
And so the book we’re reading right now for economics is whatever happened to Penny Candy, and this is an uncle Eric book. And then after we finish this one, we’re going to move on to some other uncle Eric books, Probably gonna read 3 total this year. I’m just not sure which ones we’re gonna read next. I’ve got them picked out. I just can’t remember what they are, but this semester, this is the one we’re reading. I can see already. I’m gonna have to come back and do another video next semester. And then I was going to do a whole logic class with my boys.

Pam Barnhill [00:04:50]:
And I decided not to because I found The Amazing Dr. Ransom’s Bestiary of Adorable Fallacies. And I decided, you know what? Fallacies are enough. Like, I didn’t want to go into a full logic course. And actually I may go into a full logic course later with Thomas. But just for John’s senior year and the logic we’re doing now, I decided just to do the fallacies. We’re not very far in this book, but it’s been really, really fun so far reading about and talking about the fallacies. And I think John’s enjoying it a little more than Thomas is because he is really speaking up and having a lot to say.

Pam Barnhill [00:05:28]:
My only caveat with this book is there are some things in here that could lean a little bit in towards theology and this theology does not match up with our theology. So I’m going to be a little careful with those questions and may just skip some of them altogether to keep from moving over into error. But there’s a lot of other stuff in here that’s really good. That’s just kind of straight fallacy stuff in this indie Wilson. And he’s a fabulous author. And so this is really fun, a fun way to study fallacies. So that’s also happening in morning time. And so what I do is I loop between the 2 of these.

Pam Barnhill [00:06:03]:
I don’t try to do one on one day and, you know, like this one on Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and this one on Tuesday, Thursday, or vice versa or anything like that. Because, I mean, last week, we only did morning time 3 days. We missed 2 days of doing morning time because of Labor Day and then 1st Friday at church. And that happens fair, you know, with enough regularity that I’m like, okay, we’re just going to loop these. So we loop between these 2 books. One day we read 1, the next day we read the next. If we miss a day or 2, we just pick up with the one we didn’t read the next time. So we live those 2 books.

Pam Barnhill [00:06:37]:
The other thing we do in morning time is we read literature together. Literature can be a little bit tough for some of my readers. And so I just read it out loud. That’s just one of the things that I do. I get to listen and enjoy. We get to have really great and fabulous conversations as a family. We can do narration. We can talk about the book.

Pam Barnhill [00:06:59]:
We can do all of these different kinds of things. And I just read it. I have for the past few years started the year with a Narnia book. So even though I have high schoolers, I feel like Narnia is good for any age group. This is one we have not done yet as a family. And at first, John was like, I’ve never read The Silver Chair, but now that we’re getting into it, he’s like, I think I’ve listened to this one. He listens to a lot of audio books or he did when he was little. And he does think he’s listened to this one, but Thomas has never read it.

Pam Barnhill [00:07:27]:
I’ve never read it. And so we are starting this year with the silver chair, and we’re actually about halfway through already. So it goes pretty fast. When we finish this one, we are going on to Ender’s Game. That’s where we’re going next. And then I don’t know where we’re going after that. Maybe To Kill A Mockingbird. I’m thinking about that one.

Pam Barnhill [00:07:47]:
I’m also open to other books and other suggestions. And so I’m just going to keep my eyes out for things that I think they would find interesting and would also be really good. We were actually talking about the Odyssey. It came up in John’s writing this morning, and I’m like, oh, maybe we should read the Odyssey. We might go there too. Who knows? But we always do literature in morning time as well. And so that’s kind of our morning time. And then, once that ends, then the boys move on to their own individual subjects.

Pam Barnhill [00:08:19]:
So let me talk about those now. So one of the things you need, if you look at module 8 of Put Your Homeschool Year on Autopilot, it is all about organization. And there are three key organization questions that we go over in the course. And one of them is, how are you going to communicate to these students what it is that they need to do? And the way I’m communicating with my students this year is the same way that I communicated with them. 2nd semester of last year, I’ve used it before. We kind of bounce around, but this year we are back to what we were using 2nd semester of last year, and that is our student planner pages. So these are printed in black and white right now, because some I think my color printer is out of ink, but I just these are the 2 masculine designs. There are actually four designs in our student planners.

Pam Barnhill [00:09:11]:
We do not use the entire planner. We just use these pages. So these are 2 of the masculine designs from there. And I just print out one design for each kid. So I know who has like, which sheet belongs to who, just by looking at the design that’s on it. And so this is their work and how I communicate with them, what it is they’re going to do. So let’s talk about what each one of them is doing individually. So John is supposed to be doing PE and he gets a cumulative PE credit for all 4 years of high school.

Pam Barnhill [00:09:46]:
And that is something that I have to stay on him about. So he is either walking outside regularly or we have some exercises that he can be doing to building muscle or working on his core. He’s done core exercises in the past. So there are just different things that he can do, but he’s supposed to be doing it 2 days a week. And that is one of the things that I do have to stay on him about. So he is supposed to be doing that. He is also doing math this year. Now he has completed through geometry.

Pam Barnhill [00:10:16]:
He chose not to continue with algebra 2. That was something that he said he did not want to do. But this math is actually counting as an elective for him, and he is doing the consumer math program with Mr. D Math. And there is so much in this math program. It is not just math. It is things like the stock market and opening a checking account, all kinds of different life skills stuff. And then basic math reviews, basic algebra reviews that are built in there. And so it’s a wonderful program.

Pam Barnhill [00:10:50]:
He just opens it up and does the next thing. We talk about it. We discuss it. And I usually have a few things that I wanna add to each and every unit. Sometimes I watch the videos with them and I learn right along with them. You better believe I’m gonna be doing that when he gets to the stock market one, because that thing is still kind of a mystery to me. We just let the investment firm handle it. And I’m like, oh, maybe I could learn something about this.

Pam Barnhill [00:11:13]:
So consumer math with Mr. D Math. And like I said, it it really is a life preparedness kind of thing. It talks about buying a house and rental and insurance and just so many different things that young adults need as they’re going into life. And so even though he didn’t really need a math, it covered so many more things kind of math adjacent, that I thought it would be really good for him. And so we are using that for an elective credit this year. He doesn’t do it every day a week. He does it 3 days a week, and we think that’ll be more than enough for him to get through the program by the end of the year.

Pam Barnhill [00:11:50]:
He’s also doing fix-it Grammar from IEW. This is our favorite gram okay. Let me rephrase that. This is my favorite grammar program because it is so easy to use. And, they just do a sentence a day, multiple days a week, and it just works out really great. And so they are continuing with fix-it grammar this year. And John actually does that 5 different days out of the week. And then for writing, he is doing the book that I really feel like all seniors should do before they leave home.

Pam Barnhill [00:12:22]:
All juniors, if they’re gonna dual enroll, I think you could do it as a junior, do it as a senior. And this is The Lively Art of Writing. This is by Lucille Van Paine, and this is the writing book that I used when I was a senior in high school, and it was old when I used it. So let’s just say when the term drag race came up, I had to kind of explain what drag race meant then as opposed to what it means now. So it was an interesting conversation. Yes. She does talk about drag racing in this book, the kind that they used to do in the fifties with cars on the streets and all of the pros and cons of that. And then there are lots of other examples that teens can really relate to, but it is so interesting and fascinating to read.

Pam Barnhill [00:13:09]:
And it is it teaches you how to write. I mean, it really, really does. It teaches you how to organize your writing. It teaches you how to do a good job making a thesis statement. It teaches you how to write an essay. And I can remember I won a number of different essay competitions back in the day, in my early days of teaching. And then also in my high school and college years, writing essays that I had learned how to write from this book. And of course it stood me well all throughout college writing.

Pam Barnhill [00:13:38]:
I actually clept out of my first college writing class. I did not have to take it because of what I learned in this book. So I love this little gem. The only thing I don’t like about it is the text is teeny tiny. I cannot find it in an ebook version, and so I have reading glasses on top of my bifocal contacts, like under the light, trying to read along with John. So, yeah, just to warn you, if, if either you or your student have trouble seeing, it is a little difficult to read. Now Olivia just took this and ran with it and did it completely on her own. John needs a little more help with it.

Pam Barnhill [00:14:15]:
And then there is a workbook that some wonderful, awesome parent made that goes along. There are actually exercises at the end of each chapter that I have the kids do. There are questions and then there’s a list of assignments and then some vocabulary study. And some mom out there made this little PDF workbook that you can download that gives you space to do all of those things. And so that’s what we use for this book. And I just love it. So I really, really, really recommend this one and I will find that link for the workbook and link it to you. You do have to sign into the Well trained mind forum, so you’ll have to create an account there.

Pam Barnhill [00:14:57]:
I’m sorry. I can’t link it anywhere else because it’s not mine. And that’s where the mom shared it all those years ago. So I will see, I think I can find it. And, if I can’t, you can also Google lively art of writing workbook. And that’s how I get there. That’s what takes me to that post on the Well trained Mind forum. And then we download it from there.

Pam Barnhill [00:15:18]:
And if you are out there listening, the mom who made that work book, you are awesome and amazing. And thank you so much. We really appreciate it. Cause I’ve used it now with 2 kids and I will use it with one more. All right. So that is John’s writing and that is it for his official subjects that he has to be working on. Now, he also is doing some kind of unschooling of coding projects. He has various coding projects that he’s working on on his computer, and he has asked me not to turn those into school.

Pam Barnhill [00:15:53]:
And so I have honored that, but occasionally we meet up together. I go and he shows me what he’s been coding lately. It comes in fits and spurts. Sometimes he’s like very excited about it. And, you know, for a few different days in a row, I’ll go and he’ll show me exactly what it is he’s been coding and how it works and how he wrote the code and how he figured it out and the tutorials he watched and all of that stuff. And then other times, you know, he goes for a few weeks and I haven’t heard anything about the coding. And then I kind of prod him again and say, Hey, how’s the coding going? And what are you working on? And I have a feeling that computer something is going to be a career path for him. And so I’ve kind of stayed out of the way from that and let him do that on his own.

Pam Barnhill [00:16:38]:
Okay. So that’s John. Now let’s move on to Thomas. So Thomas is doing a little bit more of a traditional path. So he does all the same subjects in morning time that John does. And I was going to have him do history this year. And I’m like, you know what? Let’s just have him do the government and economics with John. And so he is working with us through anything we do this year for economics and government.

Pam Barnhill [00:17:03]:
So he’s going to do that. And, also he is doing fix it grammar. Now he’s only doing fix it grammar 2 days a week. That’s totally fine with me. If we don’t get through the entire book, we can take more than 1 year to go through a book, but he is just working on it regularly. And then the other thing that he is doing for English is we are actually using exercises in the writing revolution. Now this book was recommended to me by 2 people. First of all, it was recommended to me by a listener of the podcast and she sent it to me for me to have a look at.

Pam Barnhill [00:17:37]:
She thought that it might suit our purposes for our language arts together curriculum. And she was exactly right. And then I had a friend recommend it to me about the same time as well. So when 2 people recommend a resource to you, you know, that you really, really need to look at it and check it out. Now they actually have a 2 point o. We’ll link the 2 point o for you because it has more examples and things like that. But this was the one that I picked up and bought. And we are looking at using this method of writing in our language arts together curriculum and our voyages curriculum for next year.

Pam Barnhill [00:18:11]:
And so in order to be prepared to do that, because I have not announced this yet, we are going to do language arts together for elementary school and for middle school next year. And in order to be able to do that, I needed to really push up my sleeves, dig in and use the program. And so Thomas and I have done some of the Senate’s building in here, which he promptly told me he didn’t need to do because he knows how to do that already. So now we are moving on to outlining and drafting paragraphs, and I will sneak the sentence building back in as I need to. And that’s one of the things I love about this. It’s not a curriculum. It is a writing method. And so you do kind of have to put it together yourself.

Pam Barnhill [00:18:56]:
I don’t have it with me, but I actually went through and made a checklist of all the skills that were in the book so that as we work on the various skills, I can check them off and see kind of where do I need to go next? And are there any things that I need to go back and review? If I find that there are some of those sentence building skills that would really help him, I could like star them or, you know, put a square around the box. So I remember to actually do some of those exercises. And the beautiful thing about it is this is cross curricular. So you do the exercises based on the content that they’re doing in their other subjects. So I’m basing the content of his writing exercises on his biology that he’s doing. And also sometimes I do it on the silver chair, the literature that we’re reading. And sometimes I do it on the fallacies and sometimes I do it on whatever happened to penny candy. And so we’ve just started.

Pam Barnhill [00:19:50]:
We’ve only been at it for a few weeks now, so we can come back and check-in on this. Like if 5 or 6 months from now, if you wanna know how it’s going, leave me a comment and ask me and I’ll let you know how it’s going. So we just got started with that one, but I’m kind of excited. So literature, grammar, and the writing revolution, and that makes up Thomas’s credit for English. And he does the writing 3 days a week. Okay. Then he has biology and we jumped around for a few different things for biology. And we actually settled on Khan Academy.

Pam Barnhill [00:20:28]:
Now I know Khan Academy is not going to work for everyone because it is a secular biology. That’s something we don’t have a problem with. And so he is working his way through the Khan Academy biology class for this year. And that’s what he’s doing. He actually really likes Sal Khan and he likes the videos a lot. And I am fine with that. So that’s something that he’s doing. And then we have this monster.

Pam Barnhill [00:20:53]:
It is the Illustrated Guide to Home Biology Experience. And we got the lab kit that goes along with that from the home scientist. And we have not even opened the box yet and dug into this. And so this is something I’ve got to do. I’ve got to get the box open. We actually have a microscope, and so we’ll be able to go through and do some of the assignments, the labs that are in here. And if you wanna know what labs to schedule, I have a copy of the elemental science high school biology and Paige schedules out all the labs for you in there. Now they no longer support their high school biology curriculum, but they do have the PDFs available for you to download for free, which is very generous of her.

Pam Barnhill [00:21:39]:
I’ve used some of her middle grade stuff and some of her elementary stuff. It’s all really great stuff. Go check out elemental science if you’re looking for something, but she does schedule out these labs. And so I just use the schedule that she includes in that high school biology PDF. And so that is a really great resource. And we thank her for that. The final two subjects on Thomas’s list are math and Japanese. And thankfully, he does both of those with the tutor.

Pam Barnhill [00:22:10]:
So Japanese, he has a Japanese tutor that he meets with, and they, go over the Japanese. And I I really like I listen in sometimes. I don’t know. It’s it’s all Japanese to me. But but it’s something that he really enjoys. And I’m just so thankful that we have that resource. And if you’re in the neighborhood for a Japanese tutor, well, let me know. We can hook you up.

Pam Barnhill [00:22:33]:
You can just leave me a comment or something like that. And so, he met with mister Steve all last year on Zoom and he meets with them this year and they do Japanese together. And, they have a textbook that they use for that. And then finally, he does math. He does math with his tutor, Miss Debbie, who has been the math tutor of all of my children since Olivia hit long division years years ago. We love Miss Debbie. My kids will tell you Miss Debbie is their absolute favorite teacher. And she and Thomas are finishing up the end of algebra 1 right now.

Pam Barnhill [00:23:09]:
And so we don’t get hung up on, like totally finishing something within a year. So it’s not that he started algebra 1 in August of last year. He started algebra 1 in like February of last year and finished the 1st semester by the end of the school year. And now he’s finishing the 2nd semester. So we really, we’ve never kind of stuck with the school year for math. Some of my kids have moved slower and it’s taken them longer. Thomas is actually one who moves a little bit faster. Once he started working with Ms.

Pam Barnhill [00:23:37]:
Debbie and stopped working with me. And so he’s going to finish up algebra 1 definitely before the end of this semester. And he’ll go ahead and start geometry. And miss Debbie has indicated to me that he will be using Mr. D geometry as well. I actually convinced miss Debbie to start using mister d with my kids a number of years ago. And since she has started it, she really, really likes it. My kids were the first ones that she’s used it with.

Pam Barnhill [00:24:05]:
She uses it with some of her other students now, and she says that it is a good solid math program, and we are so appreciative of that. And so Thomas will be moving on to mister d geometry, and he has great ambitions to do calculus before he leaves high school. We shall see. Like, I’m like, oh, good. It’s good to have ambitions. So there you go. And that’s it. That’s a, I just threw a lot of stuff at you, but we’re gonna link everything for you that we can.

Pam Barnhill [00:24:36]:
And that’s what we’re doing. If you have any questions about what we’re doing, let me know and I will try to answer them. I will be choosing some other books and things as we go along. I always reserve the right to switch up morning time. It’s a very good chance we may pick up some apologetics before the end of the school year. I just have various ideas. And as time opens up in morning time, I’ll add different things in. As things come along and pique my interest, I’ll add some things in.

Pam Barnhill [00:25:01]:
Oh, and I know I was going to say, because, Thomas is studying Japanese, One of our explorations topics and wonder studies this year is Japan. And so when that month rolls around, I’ll be using the texts that come to my phone for the explorations. And we’re just, I’m gonna do it with both boys because I feel like John will be really receptive in morning time. We’ll do some of that Japanese art, literature, poetry, all of those different kinds of things. And I think that’ll come along in like February or March. And so that’ll be a fabulous kind of pick me up to our morning time at a time of year where things get a little bit monotonous. So if you have any questions about anything we’re using, do let me know. I would be so happy to answer for you, and I hope your school year is off to a great start and that you have some fun and exciting things that your family likes to do.

Pam Barnhill [00:25:54]:
If you would like to chat about curriculum, curriculum choices, and how we’re using resources, come on over and join us in our free homeschool community. We’ll drop the link for you in the description down below so that you can join us. And so many conversations abound over there all about curriculum resources and how we use them. So come on over. That’s our show for today. Be sure to follow, subscribe, and leave a review so you never miss out on the wonder of homeschooling better together. To stay connected and learn even more about the homeschooling better together resources and to join our free community, visit hsbtpodcast.com. Until next week, keep stepping out of the overwhelm and into the wonder.

Links and Resources From Today’s Show

Whatever Happened To Penny Candy?: A Fast, Clear, and Fun Explanation of the Economics You Need for Success in Your Career, Business, and Investments (Uncle Eric)Whatever Happened To Penny Candy?: A Fast, Clear, and Fun Explanation of the Economics You Need for Success in Your Career, Business, and Investments (Uncle Eric)Whatever Happened To Penny Candy?: A Fast, Clear, and Fun Explanation of the Economics You Need for Success in Your Career, Business, and Investments (Uncle Eric)The Amazing Dr. Ransom's Bestiary of Adorable FallaciesThe Amazing Dr. Ransom’s Bestiary of Adorable FallaciesThe Amazing Dr. Ransom's Bestiary of Adorable FallaciesThe Silver ChairThe Silver ChairThe Silver ChairEnder's Game (The Ender Saga, 1)Ender’s Game (The Ender Saga, 1)Ender's Game (The Ender Saga, 1)To Kill a MockingbirdTo Kill a MockingbirdTo Kill a MockingbirdThe OdysseyThe OdysseyThe OdysseyThe Lively Art of WritingThe Lively Art of WritingThe Lively Art of WritingThe Writing Revolution: A Guide to Advancing Thinking Through Writing in All Subjects and GradesThe Writing Revolution: A Guide to Advancing Thinking Through Writing in All Subjects and GradesThe Writing Revolution: A Guide to Advancing Thinking Through Writing in All Subjects and Grades

 

Key Ideas About Our Curriculum Picks for 2024-2025

  • Overview of our curriculum choices for a senior and 9th grader.
  • The importance of a focused morning time.
  • Tips for staying organized and flexible in homeschool.

Homeschool Curriculum Picks for 2024-2025: What We’re Using and Why

Hey there! I thought I’d do something a little different today and share our curriculum picks for the 2024-2025 school year. I’ve never really done this on the podcast before, but I know a lot of you are curious about what we’re using, so here we go! Remember, what works for us might not work for everyone, but I hope this gives you some ideas or inspiration as you plan your own homeschool year.

Our Homeschool Lineup: Who’s Who

First off, let me tell you a bit about who I’m homeschooling this year. I have two students: one is a senior, and the other is a 9th grader. My senior is working toward a standard diploma, so besides electives, he only needs to complete an English class this year. My 9th grader is following a pretty standard college-prep path.

Now that you know who we’re working with, let’s dive into the details!

Morning Time: Our Homeschool Anchor

We always start our day with morning time. It’s a time for us to come together, set the tone for the day, and cover a variety of subjects that we enjoy doing as a family. Here’s what’s in our morning time lineup this year:

  • The World from A to Z with Carl Azuz: We kick off our day with about 10 minutes of Carl Azuz. It’s a fun way to stay up to date on current events and spark some interesting conversations. My boys love it!
  • Prayer: After watching Carl, we move into prayer. Sometimes it’s spontaneous, and other times we use prayers from the Hallow app, which has been a favorite of ours for years.
  • Topical Reading: We’re looping between two books this year—Whatever Happened to Penny Candy? for economics and Doctor Ransom’s Bestiary of Adorable Fallacies for a bit of logic. Both have been great conversation starters, and we’re enjoying them a lot.
  • Literature: I’ve started the year with The Silver Chair from the Narnia series. It’s one of those timeless books that works for all ages. After that, we’re moving on to Ender’s Game and possibly To Kill a Mockingbird later in the year. Literature is such a great way to bond over shared stories, and it’s one of our favorite parts of the day.

Individual Studies: Tailored for Each Kid

After morning time, the boys move on to their individual subjects. Here’s a peek at what each of them is doing:

For My Senior (John):

  • PE: John is working on his cumulative PE credit. He’s doing a mix of outdoor walks and core exercises a couple of days a week.
  • Math: He’s using the Consumer Math program from Mr. D Math. It’s packed with real-life applications like the stock market, budgeting, and even buying a house. It’s perfect for preparing him for adulthood.
  • Grammar: We’re continuing with Fix It Grammar from IEW. It’s simple, effective, and fits easily into our day.
  • Writing: John is working through The Lively Art of Writing, a classic I swear by. It’s not only teaching him how to write well but also preparing him for any college-level writing he might need to do.

For My 9th Grader (Thomas):

  • Economics and Government: Thomas is joining us for morning time economics and government studies. It’s a good fit for him, and we’re covering the basics together as a family.
  • Grammar: He’s also doing Fix It Grammar, but just twice a week. I’m okay with taking it slow if needed.
  • Writing: We’ve started using The Writing Revolution. It’s more of a writing method than a curriculum, which I love because it’s flexible and can be integrated with other subjects.
  • Biology: Thomas is using Khan Academy for biology, which he enjoys. We’ve also got the Illustrated Guide to Home Biology Experiments on deck, complete with a lab kit from the Home Scientist.
  • Math and Japanese: Thankfully, Thomas works with tutors for both of these subjects. He’s finishing up Algebra 1 and will move on to geometry soon, all under the expert guidance of his tutor, Ms. Debbie. For Japanese, he meets regularly with his tutor and is loving it!

Final Thoughts About Our 2024-2025 Curriculum Choices

That’s a quick rundown of what we’re using this year. I hope it gives you some ideas for your own homeschool. Remember, the best curriculum is the one that works for your family, so don’t be afraid to try new things and adjust as needed.

If you’d like to chat more about curriculum choices or how we use these resources, I’d love to have you join our free homeschool community. We’ve got tons of discussions going on, and it’s a great place to get support and share ideas.

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