Reflections On the 2024-2025 School Year

I can’t believe we are finished with our FIFTH year of homeschooling. This has been a wild, crazy ride, but I am so thankful that we made the decision to step out in faith five years ago and teach our kids at home. This year it felt like we really found our stride in a lot of areas, but I’m sure next year will bring new challenges, as homeschooling is an ever-changing process. I thought I would share some reflections on what worked well this year, and also give a brief review of my thoughts on each curriculum/resource we used this year. For clarification, I had a fourth grader, third grader, and kindergartener this year. Let’s dive in!

1. Bible: The Word Studies from Idlewild and co. This was a fantastic Bible curriculum! One area I have felt that was lacking in our previous family devotions was spending time digging into actual Scripture, instead of relying on a devotional book. Devotional books are great! But we need to also teach our kids how to interact with God’s Word, yet every time I tried to read a passage of Scripture with my kids, it seemed like it fell flat. I was looking for something to prompt rich discussion around our Bible reading, and this was it! Each week focuses on a different nature study topic (it is actually made to correspond to their nature study curriculum, but we didn’t use that; I think as long as your kids have at least a basic knowledge of nature study, you can proceed with this by itself). For example, when you’re studying plants, you might read about Jesus being the vine in John 15 one day; the lesson then gives you a “commentary” of sorts to read to your kids as well as discussion questions. Occasionally there’s a hands-on component to reinforce the lesson, but not daily. This worked great for all my kids ages ten down to three.

2. Nonfiction read alouds: DK Encyclopedia of Animals, Slow Down: 50 Mindful Moments In Nature. Since our unit studies this year were going to be mainly focused on social studies, I wanted to make sure we still covered some science. I’ve found that my kids love nonfiction read alouds as long as we limit it to a few pages a day. We would read about a couple of animals from the encyclopedia each day, and I would read about a topic from Slow Down each day before our break, then send them out to play and look for whatever it was we read about (Fall leaves, butterflies, squirrels, etc.). My kids really enjoyed both of these.

3. Nature study: The Good and the Beautiful Little Hearts and Hands: Fields and Flowers. I bought this thinking that only my younger kids would do it, as it’s intended for younger age groups. But my older ones just kind of naturally joined in, and I was surprised that we all learned new things from it, especially considering that we have done regular nature study since the beginning of our homeschool. The lessons are quick and easy to teach, but still engaging. Definitely recommend!

4. Unit Studies: Adventures To the New World and Adventures Through America. These unit studies from Little School of Smiths are meant to be done back to back. The first one covers the Vikings, Christopher Columbus, Jamestown, and the Pilgrims. The second covers the American Revolution, Lewis and Clark, the Oregon Trail, and the Civil War. We only made it through the first half of the second unit, stopping after Lewis and Clark, mainly because we did a deep dive into the American Revolution and spent several months on it. We have used her other unit studies before and enjoyed them, and these were no different. I love that each day’s plan is simple and straightforward, and the extra activities are always optional, although we like to complete a lot of them. 

5. Science experiments: Professor Figgy’s Weather and Climate Science Lab. My husband actually taught this weekly on his day off, and my kids loved it! There’s a wide variety of experiments, from extremely simple to much more complicated, and they can be done in any particular order so he would choose what worked best for our schedule each week. We like to use Trevor’s day off as our “fun” school day; this is usually when we don’t worry about workbooks and math curriculum, and we do more involved unit study activities, art projects, and science experiments.

6. Art: Lily and Thistle Autumn Watercolor School. I got this on sale last year in one of those homeschool bundle deals that pop up every Summer. We did a few painting projects from it, but not as many as I would have liked. My kids are all fairly good artists, but they didn’t enjoy these as much as I thought they would. The videos move fairly quickly, so they would have to pause constantly to catch up to what she was doing, and their perfectionistic tendencies (cough, cough, no idea where they get THOSE from) would lead to frustration if something was even slightly different than the final product in the video.

7. Language arts: Brave Writer Dart: Sarah, Plain and Tall; Fix It Grammar level 1; Best Christmas Pageant Ever novel study. Brave Writer makes literature singles for various books; we did the Sarah, Plain and Tall one, and it was so much fun. I love the method of teaching language arts used in Brave Writer (literature-driven instead of workbook-based). I was also highly impressed with Fix It Grammar; these are not easy, kiddish grammar exercises. Some of the skills my girls practiced I’m fairly certain most adults would struggle with (I never struggled with grammar in school, but I had to look up a couple things in the teacher’s guide). Yet they’re taught in a straight-forward, simple manner, that makes it the perfect combination of challenging but doable. I was really impressed with how much my kids learned in it this year. We did the Best Christmas Pageant Ever novel study from The Waldock Way during Christmas school after going to see the movie in theaters, and really enjoyed it, too.

8. Math: Simply The Good and the Beautiful Math. Other than the first two years where we did “fun math” (interactive math books, manipulatives, board games, etc.), we have always used the Good and the Beautiful for math. I know it sometimes gets a bad wrap for being too hard, and after comparing it to what I know of grade-level math in our local school, I would agree (for example, the first grade book is pretty comparable to what our local public schoolers are doing in third grade); but it’s also really well-done and my kids love it, so we have stuck with it. My kids do work behind grade-level, but they also move through the books quicker than they would normally (1 ½ -2 lessons a day), and I would rather them do math this way so I know they don’t have any gaps that will affect them down the road, than switch to an easier math curriculum just so I have the comfort of knowing the number on their book matches their grade level 😜.

9. Kindergarten: Arrows and Applesauce morning menu; The Good and the Beautiful Kindergarten Prep; Dash Into Reading Set 1. We like to keep things simple for preschool and kindergarten around here. I have a little bit of work that this age is “required” to do, but mostly they are joining in with their big siblings sometimes and having a lot of time for play, which is actually the most beneficial for this age. I also like to put a lot of my focus on reading instruction until it really takes off. We started off with the Kindergarten Prep level from The Good and the Beautiful (quick tip: always check out the website’s placement tests when starting a new curriculum; this will help you know what level best suits your child’s current ability). I liked this curriculum, but I did feel like my daughter needed a little more hands-on work. We added alphabet board games (two favorites are Alphabet Island and Alphabet Splat) to give her that hands-on work. The kindergarten prep level is fairly short, so we went on to Dash Into Reading after finishing it, which was a great fit for my daughter. The lessons are quick (perfect for short attention spans) and all the activities are hands-on and fun. I like that for each dash book you are just focusing on learning a few sounds, sight words, and blending patterns. I had both of my older girls do the Morning Menu alongside my kindergartener, mainly for a refresher on things like writing dates, calendar work, and extra copywork. 

10. Current Events: World Watch News. Of all the things we used this year, this one might be my favorite. It’s so, so important that we teach our kids how to approach current events with a Christian worldview, but that can’t happen if our kids aren’t hearing the news in the first place. I love that World Watch provides a combination of normal news stories as well as cultural stories that show the good side of what’s going on in the world. Each story is tied back to God’s Word, and every episode ends with the reminder that “Whatever the news, the purpose of the Lord will stand.” We have had so many conversations about what’s going on in the world this year, and they are ALL thanks to World Watch. 

This has been an amazing school year, and I’m so excited to start another year with our kids in the Fall. Stay tuned for next year’s curriculum choices coming soon!