Alicia’s Favorite Curriculum this Year

Every homeschool year is a little bit different than the last. The kids are growing. their needs change as they grow, and we find new favorite curriculum. Even after homeschooling for 17 years, I am pleased to find new favorites and dust off old favorites and rediscover them. This homeschool year, I am down to just TWO students, my sweet girls, 11th grade and 6th grade. Sigh…my heart is not prepared for all this change happening! We have been having so much fun though this year doing girlie things, reading sweet girlie books, and just enjoying long, girlie conversation. In this post I’ll share our favorite homeschool curriculum from this year.

Favorite Homeschool Curriculum this Year

There is no way I could write down all the joy our days are filled with right now, but what I can do is boil some favorite things down–like curriculum! So here was our favorite curriculum picks this year.

Movies for Literature

I used this curriculum years ago when my oldest was a 9th grader. When we used it the first time around, it was harder to watch all these movies with the younger kids around and I remember us not finishing each movie. But this time, our kids are older and we really loved this curriculum.

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Since my 11th grader has done a ton of literature these past few years, I thought I would give her a break from reading a huge pile of books (she still is reading other books for other classes). So we watched a big pile of movies instead and it was SO fun.

The flow for this curriculum looked like this: We would watch the movie together, usually on a Tuesday night. The following days (Wed/Thurs) I would go over the long list of discussion questions. On Friday, we would go over the five or so essay questions. She would go over these questions and choose one to write a short essay on. Then the following week, she would work on that essay. The essay was not anything intense–just a short paper to expand upon the question she chose about the movie.

I will say, these questions are deep and draw really great meaning and discussion from each movie. Who’d have thought there was so much to talk about concerning Indiana Jones?! There was!

It’ll be back to regular lit class next year, but this has been a ton of fun this year!

Annie of Green Gables

Ok, not a true curriculum, but I have to say, I loved reading this beautiful novel to the girls. It’s my second time reading it. The first time was when I was very pregnant with Vera, my fourth. The other kids were 11, 7, and 5. We started the book when I was still pregnant and finished it with a little baby Vera in the mix. I remember folding clothes with Vera wrapped in her blanket while we watched the movie to finish off our time with Anne.

It’s incredible to me the memories books hold. I could write a memoir about my life of read-alouds–where we were living, what was happening in our lives, how the book helped us through a tough season, how it helped bring our family together–so many memories!

Anyway, I decided after 12 years it was time to pick up Anne again and show the girls how magical that book is. Even though Sophia listened the first time, she was only 5.

It was wonderful reading it through again! For me, it flooded me with memories of all four of my babes nestled up on the couch–that was a hard one, but also beautiful to look back on. My girls absolutely loved it too! Such sweet memories.

Apologia Chemistry

I have written a full review about this curriculum, (HERE), so I won’t write a ton about it here. I’ll just say this: Apologia’s Self-Paced courses have made high school lab science classes a breeze and I am so thankful for them! Sophia finished chemistry and this is a class that would not have been fun for me to teach–not my thing at all! So again, THANK YOU, Apologia!

Compass Classroom’s Christendom

This is our second Dave Raymond history class from Compass Classroom and I continue to be impressed. The classes are lecture based, but they are so much more than a lecture. Raymond has a way of making these lectures story-driven and really engaging.

On top of the listening portion of the class, the students are to create a nice portfolio–making a page for their portfolio after each 5-part lesson. (We have not been great about keeping up on the portfolio this year, to be honest, but I love the idea!)

The class also includes several big, well-thought-out projects and a thesis paper as well. Overall it’s just a really thorough, rounded-out class and we love them!

Beautiful Feet Book’s Music History

Last, for our favorite curriculum of the year: Beautiful Feet Book’s new Music History course. We have been able to mold it to fit our speed and homeschool style, which is why I have loved BFB so much over the years. You can read my review of this music curriculum HERE, but I’m putting it here for the record that we did really enjoy this curriculum all year long.

We used the main book as a guide and added in tons of musicians’ biographies as well as listening to their music. Vera created a notebook with notes on the composers we studied too.

I hope this list gives you some ideas of resources to add to your curriculum regimen next year!

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