It’s no secret: I enjoy researching and choosing curriculum each year! It’s so fun to match up resources to each of my children’s unique needs and personalities. Each year I am asked what we’re using for homeschool curriculum. Here is a run-down of our top homeschool curriculum picks for the 2023-24 year! As always, feel free to ask me questions!

This year (2023-24) we have kids in 1st, 3rd, 5th, 6th, 8th, and 10th grades. 😲😆❤️

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How Our Homeschool Works

One thing to keep in mind: Every child, every family, and every homeschool is different. Actually, every year is different, too! The best thing you can do when making your homeschool curriculum picks is to pray over those choices and remember that there is no magical, perfect curriculum out there that everyone should be using. Go ahead and choose what fits your needs best for now, knowing that it may (and probably will) change over time! That’s totally fine. Flexibility is one of the many blessings of homeschooling! 

Before I launch into our choices, it’s helpful to know a little bit about our homeschool. Otherwise these homeschool curriculum picks will seem like a lot! (It kind of is managed chaos, but it has worked well for us all these years!)

• We have 6 kids 15 and under and we take an eclectic approach to homeschooling. 
• We keep lesson time as short as possible to make time for play and outside time. 
• I prefer multi-level teaching style, grouping work so we can all do it together whenever possible. 
• I also strongly prefer Christian worldview curriculum although not everything we use talks about God.
• We do year-round homeschooling, taking breaks when we want.
• We do lots of read alouds and audiobooks, some group work, and then independent and 1:1 work.
• We don’t do everything every day. Loop scheduling allows for incorporating a lot of extras on a rotating basis without overloading our days.

Our 2023-24 Homeschool Curriculum Choices 

Group Work for all 6 Kids

I really value group learning with my kids. We learn and discuss together whenever possible and it builds our relationships. I find that especially important for Bible and history, but we do several things as a group and I often make homeschool curriculum picks to fit that approach. (Note that we don’t do this all every day.) 

Bible & Theology – We do Bible together each morning and will be alternating days with Sound Words for Kids: Lessons in Theology and Bible Road Trip. These have been staples in our home from the beginning! They include Scripture reading, memory work, discussion time, notebooking, and more. 

World Watch for Kids – Each morning after Bible lessons we watch the latest World Watch news, geared toward older kids. My youngers will often hang around but I don’t require it. We’ve also added World Teen magazine for my older kids and they may do some narration/written pieces on it. 

Generations History – We usually do a 4-year history cycle but we just finished up modern history and I’ve decided to take a year off to do something different. We’ll be reading through the Children’s Providential History Collection (for grades 1-6). Rather than using the workbooks (although I might get a few for discussion) we’ll be doing the series as a read-aloud with our own narration and notebooking.  The series covers history by telling the story of the spread of the gospel in each continent. I’m looking forward to it!

Geography & Cultures – As I was flipping through the Generations history books, I realized that they would pair nicely with the Beautiful Feet Books’ sets we went through a while ago. They are so well done with beautiful picture books we can enjoy together and fabulous guides with extra activities, videos, recipes, and more. We had SO much fun with them and I can’t wait to use them again! We’ll just correspond them to each of the continents/regions we learn about as we go through the Generations books. If you want to do something similar, you could just get the BFB guides and get most of the picture books from the library. 

• Around the World with Picture Books Part 1 – This one covers China, Japan, Thailand, and India. In Africa we visit Morocco, Egypt, Kenya, Tanzania, and Ghana. Read my full review here. 
• Around the World with Picture Books Part 2 – Covers France, Spain, Italy, Holland, Denmark, Sweden, and Great Britain. In South America: Ecuador, Chile, Peru, and Brazil. Read my full review here.

Read Alouds – We always have a read-aloud going during dinner time and audiobooks we enjoy together. This year will be the same, except we won’t be corresponding them to our history cycle, necessarily. This year we’ll do read alouds with Generations literature selections, history selections from the KnowledgeKeepers store, our Uncle Rick and Jim Hodges memberships, and all the great books on our shelves we haven’t enjoyed yet! 

 

Music in Our Homeschool – We’ll continue using their membership program (Music in Our Homeschool PLUS) this year and we’ve really enjoyed the easy calendar of lessons they provide. My high schooler will be doing the Advanced Music Theory course for credit, included in the membership. It’s a fantastic resource! You can also buy single courses here. We also have kids taking some private music lessons (piano, guitar, violin, and trumpet), two kids in band, and possibly some in choir. Lots of music here. 🙂 

You Are An Artist Clubhouse – This past year we joined this fantastic membership and it’s been so great. I love that you don’t need many supplies and it has courses and projects for pre-k through high school. It really simplifies things for us and helped make art a more regular occurrence in our home. Looking forward to continuing with it!

Geology for Little Eyes – I let the kids pick out what they wanted to study this year and all but one of them said rocks and fossils. 🙂 So we’re going to go through our Geology for Little Eyes kit from Northwest Treasures again! It includes units on fossils, volcanoes, and rocks and minerals. My kids love the activities and the sample rock and fossil kits it comes with. 

Grade Level Homeschool Curriculum Choices

In addition to our group work, here are our homeschool curriculum pics for each of my kids to do:

10TH GRADE CURRICULUM

My son chose all of his homeschool curriculum picks and electives this year. Here’s what he landed on.

Planner – He strongly prefers the online Homeschool Planet planner and it worked really well this past year, so we’ll continue it! You can read my review here.

Bible:

• Foundations in Worship – This is a course from Master Books. He loves music, so it’s a good fit there, and it’s a great way to study the Scripture and theology behind hymns.
• Understanding the Old Testament from Compass Classroom – He’ll be watching the recorded lectures and taking notes (he uses Andrew Pudewa’s note-taking strategy)

English: 

• • Literature – Great Christian Classics Volume 1 from Generations (I have heard that working through the units backwards is more appropriate as far as difficulty level so we’ll be doing that) and some additional literature for reading and narrating. 
  • Writing – High School Writing Bundle 2 (Intermediate) from 7 Sisters Homeschool as well as some elements from their Speech and Public Communications curriculum and cinema studies.

History: History of the World set from Generations – This set is similar to the one we’ll all be doing as a read-aloud so it will go together nicely even if we don’t correspond lessons. I’ll be reading this one as well for discussion purposes (and because it looks fascinating).

Math: Denison Geometry – This is new to him this year. He really likes Christian Light Education math, which is what he’s almost always used, but they don’t have their Geometry course updated so he picked this one after we did some research. It looks great and his younger sister is enjoying the pre-algebra one! Uses self-paced video instruction with a workbook for practice and tests. 

Foreign Language: Spanish 2 Online course from FundaFunda Academy.  This is a challenging course but well-done, taught online by a native spanish speaker with weekly discussion and fun lessons. He enjoyed Spanish 1 and asked to continue with it for the second year. 

Science: Geology with Northwest Treasures using their high school kits, Bedrock Geology and Rocks and Minerals. My son LOVES geology and these are the ones he chose. He’s very excited! 

Graphic Design: He is choosing to take the new 1-semester Graphic Design with Canva course from FundaFunda Academy. I think it’s a great idea and a marketable skill to develop. 

Drawing and Animation: For his second semester he wants to dip into drawing and animation. So far we’re looking at self-paced options from The Animation Course. 

Advanced Music Theory: Music performance, composition, and editing are a big interest to him. He’s asked to do the Advanced Music Theory class in the Music in Our Homeschool Plus membership. 

Guitar Lessons: He’s taken piano lessons for 5 years and also plays the drums, but has recently asked to try guitar lessons this year. So we’ll be doing that! 

8TH GRADE CURRICULUM 

My upcoming 8th grader is my big reader and hates busy work 😆 She also needed a math switch and made her own choices for nearly every subject. It will be a great year! Here are her homeschool curriculum picks:

Planner: Student Work & Habit Tracker for managing her work and time

Bible:

• Bible Road Trip – Notebooking and additional reading (in addition to our group time)
• Bible Drawing Journal– She really enjoys this. She reads a chapter a day on her own, draws something from it, and writes a prayer. 

Language Arts:

• Writing & Rhetoric – She’s been enjoying these so we’ll keep working through them. 
• Fast Grammar – We typically don’t do grammar until middle/high school anyway but we’ve tried a few things and nothing is interesting enough for this girl. I learned about Fast Grammar for high schoolers and I think it may fit the bill! We’ll put it on her loop schedule for the year. 
• IEW’s Phonetic Zoo – She’s going to jump into level C for Phonetic Zoo to work on some spelling a bit more. We’ll add it to her loop schedule. 
• Literature – lots of books and narration. She’s an avid reader, so I just toss some books and audiobooks into her to-read pile and she rotates them into her reading. Not sure if we’ll do anything more than that for literature this year!  
• Typing – Using Typing.com and NitroType

 

Math: Denison Pre-Algebra – She already started this and is LOVING it! She was getting pretty overwhelmed with CLE. That, coupled with the fact that CLE spreads pre-algebra out between two grade levels, and we decided to simplify things by switching her to Denison. Very pleased so far!

Science: She asked to do more with geology (it’s a theme this year, apparently!) and has already read all the books I’ve given her so far on the topic, so we borrowed Sonlight’s Science G: Geology, Physics, and Origins set from a friend. 

Art: In addition to our group work with You Are an Artist, my big art gal is going to go through the projects at The Art Sherpa and Masterpiece Studios. We’ll likely find some other drawing and art activities for her on YouTube.

Violin Lessons – She’s been taking lessons from a gal at church for about a year, so we’ll continue that!

6TH GRADE CURRICULUM CHOICES

My 6th grader will mostly be continuing what she did last year, but this time doing another in-depth bird study like she did a few years ago (with new material). 

Math:

• Key to Fractions – This summer we took a break from her regular lessons and started the Key to Fractions set to strengthen her math concepts there.
• Christian Light Education – for 6th grade math

Language Arts

• Writing & Rhetoric – She’s been enjoying these so we’ll keep working through them on her loop schedule.
• All About Spelling – This is on her loop schedule as well (alternating with writing) and we’ve been slowly working through them. They are really helping her improve her spelling skills!
• Finish God’s Big Story Level 5 (just reading and narrating the book) from Generations
• Great Christian Stories for Children Set from Generations. (Pilgrim’s Progress, Heidi, and God’s Smuggler jr. edition.) This will be on her loop schedule and I’ll let her decide if she wants to do the workbook or do narrations instead.
• Typing – Using Typing.com and NitroType

Bible

• Bible Drawing Notebook (OT) – Reading Scripture, drawing, and simple notebooking. She’ll move on to the NT version at some point in the year.

Science – She’s my bird girl. 🙂 She has worked through several bird resources already. Here’s what I put together for her this time around. 

• YouTube Playlists including the Birding Skills playlist from Cornell Lab of Ornithology
• Free classes from Cornell Lab of Ornithology including Be a Better Birder part 1
• How to Start Birding from the Audubon Society
• Take photos of birds and use her bird guides to practice drawing birds. 
• Peterson Field Guide Coloring Book
• Birding Journal: Through the Seasons
• Bird identification flashcards
• Bird lessons in our No Sweat Nature Study Live
• Work on building up our backyard bird-watching space to attract birds  
• As many field trips, documentaries, bird watching, and other bird-related experiences as we can find

Band – She’s been learning the flute and this will be her second year in band. 

5TH GRADE CURRICULUM CHOICES  

Our son going into 5th grade has been going at his own pace with several subjects as we accommodate his dyslexia and some signs of dyscalculia. Here are our homeschool curriculum picks for 5th grade for him!

Math-U-See – My kiddo is LOVING Math-U-See so we’ll be continuing with that. We’ll also keep reviewing his math facts from the AIM program. 

Lexercise – We were hitting some walls in the middle of the year and we found a dyslexia therapy program called Lexercise. It’s been wonderful for reading, writing, and spelling and he’s really taken off in these areas. We plan to continue through until the end, which will probably take another year. 

Handwriting and Typing – I love A Reason for Handwriting for letter formation, handwriting practice, and Scripture copywork. They continue through each level at their pace. This is on a loop schedule alternating with typing (we use Typing.com and NitroType.)

Bible Drawing Journal (OT) – He has seen my daughters using this resource and has asked to do the same, having developed a pretty regular habit of daily bible reading on his own. We’ll be printing and binding one for him to start this year! 

Building Projects – My kiddo is a very hands-on guy and loves to have projects to work on. We’ll keep working through resources like this book and this list of ideas and add new ones to help make sure we’re intentional to make them happen this year again!

Band – He’ll be in a band for his second year now as well as taking private trumpet lessons. It’s been a challenge but so good for him and he’s doing great!

3rd GRADE CURRICULUM CHOICES

My third grader reminds me of my oldest. He likes workbooks! So funny to me. Here’s what we’ll be doing for his homeschool curriculum picks: 

Math – Christian Light Education for 3rd grade math (which he’s halfway through at the moment) and beginning 4th.

All About Spelling – He likes this program and it’s strengthening his spelling skills, so we’ll continue with it. 

Just Write – He likes the way Just Write helps him organize his thoughts and write stories quickly. He’s learning a lot! We just started at book 1 last year and are slowly going through them on his loop schedule. 

BrainQuest Workbook Grade 3 – He’s been poking through this on occasion all last year. He likes the worksheet activities and variety of subjects to choose from. 

Handwriting and Typing – I love A Reason for Handwriting for letter formation, handwriting practice, and Scripture copywork. They continue through each level at their pace. This is on a loop schedule alternating with typing (we use Typing.com and NitroType.)

Readers – He’s working through the God’s Big Story series (reading and narrating, for the most part) and will be starting soon with the Christian Liberty Press nature readers, along with his own personal reading choices. 

Piano – He’s asked to learn piano, so we’ll be finding some options for that this year. 

1st GRADE CURRICULUM CHOICES

I can’t believe all my kids are now school age! 😭 Homeschool curriculum picks will still be pretty simple for this guy. ❤️

Math-U-See – We had such a good experience with Math-U-See this past year with one of my kids that I decided to start this new 1st grader out with it as well. Looking forward to it! We’ll start with Alpha level. 

Handwriting and Typing – I love A Reason for Handwriting for letter formation, handwriting practice, and Scripture copywork. They continue through each level at their pace.

Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons – We started this last year and will be finishing up! We’ll see where he is afterward as far as what we’ll do next, but with most of my kids, after we teach them to read, we just move to easy readers. 

Whew! That’s a lot! Hope your coffee didn’t get cold in the meantime. 🙂 But using multi-level teaching and loop scheduling, things will get done pretty quickly and we’ll have plenty of time for play and outdoor time.  ❤️

Feel free to post questions in the comments! Always happy to chat about curriculum. Have a great homeschool year!

~ Tauna

Past Curriculum Picks Past 

• 2022-23 Curriculum Picks
• Preschool curriculum choices
• Kindergarten curriculum choices
• 1st grade curriculum choices
• 2nd grade curriculum choices
• 3rd grade curriculum choices
• 4th grade curriculum choices
• 5th grade curriculum choices
• 6th grade curriculum choices
• 7th grade curriculum choices
• 8th grade curriculum choices
• 9th grade curriculum choices

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Other Homeschool Moms Whose Curriculum Picks *I* Enjoy Browsing

• Amy with Raising Arrows – (This post is particularly interesting because she talked about taking a Jubilee year.)
• Gena with I Choose Joy – 2022-23 Curriculum picks for Elementary and High School
• Nicki Truesdell – I like to buy books from her KnowledgeKeepers store, so naturally I get curious what she’s using for homeschooling.