How We Use Books In Our Homeschool

For many people, homeschooling doesn’t look like a public school classroom. One of the beautiful pieces of homeschooling is that each family can find what works best for their family, and this will often mean using different methods than what is commonly used in the public school system. It will come as no surprise that, for our family, this has looked like centering our learning around books. Here’s a few ways we do that:

1. Unit studies: We have used both unit studies that are centered around a specific book as well as topical unit studies. For topical unit studies we focus our learning by reading books on that topic, both engaging nonfiction texts and fiction books that can help us better understand what we are learning about. Unit studies that are focused on a specific book or series of books will use what’s called a “spine.” This is the book(s) that the learning is built around. As an example, this year we are using a unit study that has the Little House books as their spine. The unit study covers all our subjects (except math): we are studying American history for social studies, learning about farm-related topics for science (plants, farm animals, farm machines, etc.), doing picture studies of famous paintings that relate to the topics listed above, and learning practical life skills like cooking and handicrafts. This is a year-long unit study, but we have also done shorter ones that are meant to be completed in 4-6 weeks and use shorter books as their spine, like the historical American Girl books.

2. Picture books for social studies: We rarely use textbooks in our homeschool; when I look back on my own school experience, I can think of very few times where I learned something from a textbook and actually retained the knowledge. I actually remember being surprised when I began attending a local Christian school in seventh grade that none of my classmates liked history like I did. That is, until I realized they had spent their whole school experience learning it from a textbook. History in the form of textbooks is quite frankly dry, boring, and unrelatable. But when we learn history through stories we find that history comes alive and stops being about dates and maps; instead it's about people and their struggles and triumphs. This is why we primarily read picture books and chapter books for our history and geography.

3. Bible storybooks: Depending on the age of your children, a good quality Bible storybook can be very helpful for your family devotions. I will add a caution here that there are “good” Bible storybooks, and ones that aren’t so great. Our personal favorites are the Jesus Storybook Bible (which I’m pretty sure we reread at least once a year) and the Action Bible. But there are plenty of other ones that water down God’s Word to trite “Sunday school” stories or, even worse, turn the Bible into a book about us, not God. Also, storybooks should never completely replace reading the actual Bible with your children. Even if they’re young, you can still read a verse or two with them. There are also lots of great resources out there to help your child better understand their faith. We are reading The Ology by Marty Machowski together this year, and it has been an excellent resource for helping our kids better understand the nuances of what we believe as Christians. Other great resources are Window On the World (for praying for all the countries of the world), Christian Heroes Then and Now (there’s a version for younger kids as well called Christian Heroes For Young Readers), or the Case for Christ books by Lee Strobel.

4. Hands-on activities: I mentioned earlier that I learned to love history not from textbooks but from good literature; part of that is because my mom made it a point that our learning extended past the book itself. We read Little House and learned to make the same recipes or handicrafts as the characters. We did the same with Anne of Green Gables, the American Girl books, and so many others. I have an aversion to doing crafts with my kids; in my experience the result is usually a mess that somehow spreads all over the house (usually with the help of my two-year-old), and at least one child in tears because the craft didn’t turn out the way they wanted it to (I have multiple children who “might” have inherited their mother’s tendency to perfectionism 😏). But handicrafts are different; these skills have been passed down for generations, but unfortunately are in danger of being forgotten today. I’m so thankful my mom took the time to teach us how to cook, sew, knit, even how to spin wool and weave on a loom. We gardened together and helped care for the animals on our farm and learned the value of working together as a family as well as the importance of hard work. These things look different for my family because we don’t have the natural farm environment my parents did (and honestly many of these skills don’t come as naturally to me as it seems they did to my mom), but I still TRY to do them with our children. Sometimes it’s a learning curve, and it almost always is more time-consuming and involved than I expect it to be, but it’s always worth it.

5. Math read alouds: This may come as a shock to some, but did you know that research actually shows kids profit by waiting until upper elementary grades to begin a math curriculum? My children didn’t do a formal math curriculum until they had learned to read fluently and no longer needed daily, structured phonics instruction (AKA around first or second grade for my children, although many kids will need longer with phonics and that is perfectly fine!). Before that we played math games, practiced math while cooking, and read lots of great “math” books. There are plenty of picture books out there that teach math skills, but we also loved the Bedtime Math series and the Usborne Lift-the-flap math series.

6. Daily time for independent reading: If your day is too busy for you to carve out even twenty minutes for your child to read on their own, then it's probably too busy (trust me when I say that I’ve had to preach this to myself many times). I also want to reiterate that regular library trips can ABSOLUTELY be something you count for school; anything that encourages our kids to read more should be a part of our school planning.

7. Books on topics they’re interested in: Finally, I will sometimes look for books on specific topics my kids want to know more about but that aren’t tied to our schoolwork. We aren’t strictly interest-led learners, but I have always tried to be aware of what my children are curious about and how I can facilitate their learning on their own. Often this will look like getting a box of books and just leaving them where they will notice them (this happens pretty naturally since I’m pretty disorganized, so there is almost always an open box of books sitting on my bedroom floor; our kids will notice them and get excited about reading them without me even saying anything). I love to use my free books I get from Paper Pie a couple times a year for this.

In my opinion, books are always the best means of learning when paired with real life experiences like talked about above. But I want this to be an encouragement to any homeschoolers reading this (or anyone interested in homeschooling) to find what works best for your family. Homeschooling should never be about fitting into a box; God has equipped you, mama (and you, dad, if there are any dads reading this!), to know what’s best for your kids. Trust the Holy Spirit as He guides you on the adventure of homeschooling!