It has been over six years since I've posted on this blog, and that is for the simple reason that life got CRAZY. We added another child to our family in 2021, and somehow, many of the tasks I used to be able to manage (like writing blog posts and book reviews) got put on the back burner as a result. Another reason for the lack of content is that I spent the last seven years line-editing fiction books. This was an enjoyable and fulfilling experience for me -- I was able to do something creative and constructive and make a little extra money, but it also sucked away every spare moment. I officially retired from line editing in late 2025.
We have never stopped homeschooling, but my approach has shifted greatly over the years. My oldest (W) will be 13 this year; my second (R) is 10, my third (F) is 7, and my youngest (P) is 5.
I'll go through a brief summary of what we have been up to over the last few years, taking it subject by subject (for context, New Mexico, where we live, requires homeschool parents to cover five subjects yearly - reading, language arts, math, science and social studies; we do a lot more than this).
Reading:
I am happy to say, all the children can read very well, and we were able to accomplish this using How to Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons.
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| Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons - My FAVORITE! |
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| All About Reading Program Pre-Reading |
I will say that for a brief time, I tried All About Reading. (Two of the children did the Pre-K program before I started them on the 100 Easy Lessons book, and one of them did AAR Level 1). I really did like the phoneme-tiles approach in theory, but I found it had too much cutting and pasting and coloring for my taste. I also don't think that AAR has as good of a scaffold for young minds. I don't the readers. The program ended up feeling like busy work. I will never stop recommending How to Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons.
Language Arts:
We've been using The Good and the Beautiful since the end of 2020. Before that, I was doing a mixture of small programs I wasn't particularly satisfied with - 180 Days of Language Arts, Write Shop, and Classical Conversations Foundations. I kept seeing advertisements for TGaB and hearing my friends talk about it, and since it's free (you just have to print it out) and I had already invested in a good printer, laminator, and binding system, I gave it a try.
All the kids STILL use TGaB for LA now, except my oldest (mainly because I feel she's aged out of it.) She will be doing a Lost Tools of Writing class through Kepler this fall instead. TGaB is very thorough in most areas -- particularly grammar, and this has been somewhat proven to me in the fact that both of my children who took the CLT got scores in the high ninetieth percentile for grammar. To be fair, grammar is a strength of mine personally, so that might contribute. Otherwise, I have mixed feelings about the TGaB LA program. I do NOT like the way they approach spelling. The later levels especially are far too complicated with multiple books and steps and schedules. Open up this book and dictate these sentences; then go over these spelling words; then do these flashcards. It becomes NOT truly open and go, and I simply lack the patience for that. If we have to have six books between us to accomplish LA, I'm not doing that. They have recently released a new spelling computer program/app, but I haven't had the kids try it. To be completely honest, I have let the kids absorb good spelling as they have been reading and writing. I don't think a separate spelling curriculum is necessary.
The literature itself for TGaB is actually very lovely. I've enjoyed nearly every story they've included in the readers, but I will say they have been moving recently toward using content written exclusively by Jenny Philips, and there are fewer and fewer older stories included as time goes on. I don't dislike Ms. Philips, but I did enjoy having some of those old-fashioned stories in the curriculum for the rich variety of language and classic ideas.
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| The Good and the Beautiful Level 1 Language Arts program (FREE) |
TGaB is RECOMMENDED with some caveats as mentioned.
The Night Zookeeper
A discussion about language arts would not be complete without a note on The Night Zookeeper. I discovered this program two years ago through social media advertising. They were offering a really good discount, and it was when AI was reasonably new. The program basically teaches children how to write paragraphs and stories using AI prompts. They can also create characters using the in-program tools OR upload drawings they've made in real life. They can share their drawings and stories on their personal page, and others can see them and comment on them. It's like a safe (highly monitored) little writing and art community, and my kids are, quite frankly, obsessed. They spend a lot of time drawing and writing for it, and it has been one of the best purchases I've ever made. If I could recommend only one online program, it would be The Night Zookeeper. They even have chapter books you can buy. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!
Math: I started out using Math-U-See for my two oldest, and it was okay but not truly wonderful. When I was in second grade, the private school I attended introduced MUS, and I LOATHED it. I found it so incredibly boring, with too many extra steps (I didn't need the manipulatives to understand the math, and so it was like torture to have to be made to build the math problems with the colored blocks.) But I noticed my oldest was a bit more kinesthetic than I am, so I went ahead and gave it a try. She did much better with it than I had expected, and I was impressed with the fact that it was clearly laying a foundation for algebra early on. So we continued doing it for a few years. Then along came child two, and MUS did NOT work for her. I decided to switch both of them over to The Good and the Beautiful (since it was free, I felt I didn't have anything to lose), and we have had success with that.
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| The Good and the Beautiful Level 1 Math Program (FREE) |
Like with TGaB LA, I feel the lower levels are really where this company shines. The early lessons are the perfect length. They introduce concepts well and review them just enough to ensure mastery. I did go ahead and buy the math boxes for the appropriate levels, but I was not a huge fan of them overall. As I indicated above with LA, I absolutely loathe having to include a bunch of extra little things and pieces, and the games they have in TGaB are fairly inane. I skip them mostly. Not to mention, the little manipulatives get lost and scattered as the children play with them. Particularly with the play money--we had the hardest time keeping that in the box.
I also didn't like the addition of a new, separate math practice book for level 4. (If it's open and go, let it be open and go please!) We have so many books in our house that multiple workbooks per child per subject gets out of hand very quickly. The level 7 math is the highest I've seen (my 12 year old is currently using it), and I really do like it, although CLT test scores indicate that TGaB has NOT been very effective for my children, so I have been looking into other options.
(TGaB math is RECOMMENDED, though you will want to make sure your kids are really learning the concepts and not relying on you sitting there with them. Consider having them take the CLT to ensure they are really on track. I should have done that a long time ago.)
My second child is now using Teaching Textbooks for math, which I chose because it can be done fully independently. R (10 years old) was truly struggling with math, and I was hoping that she would perhaps be able to get back on track with the change of pace, but it has been worse than TGaB. Since TT is a paid program, I intend to have her finish out her level (Level 6) and then move on to something different. Teaching Textbooks app - Level 6
Math has been a genuine struggle in my household, and if I could fully outsource it, I would. I got decent math grades in college (never lower than a B) but math is just not exciting or intuitive for me, and I am afraid my apathy toward it has rubbed off a little. I don't speak ill of it or tell the children they are bad at it, but even still, no one seems to be thriving at math (except possibly the boys). I don't really know how to remedy that.
TT is ultimately NOT RECOMMENDED. It's not terrible; it just hasn't really worked well for us.
Bible:
We have done so many different things for Bible over the years, including reading it cover to cover. We spent the last couple of years doing that and are currently finishing up with Jeremiah. It's been amazingly fulfilling to go through slowly and discuss. I have learned so much in particular about the prophets. Their messages have a tendency to be repetitive, but I have learned more about God himself and how he deals with humans. There is, of course, a lot of history to be learned as well. We will continue to work our way through, though we are not making as much progress as I had originally hoped. And the younger children generally have a hard time sticking around during Bible reading, especially for some of the meatier books of prophecy or the poetry. The Apologia worldview books and the character curriculum mentioned below have been a more effective way of exposing my youngest children to the Bible.
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| Draw to Learn the Life of Jesus by Notgrass |
Another thing we've done that everyone seemed to enjoy is Notgrass's "Draw to Learn" series. We started out with Draw to Learn the Life of Jesus. It has a passage of the Bible to read along with a drawing prompt. It's literally just a blank square for the kids to draw or paint in. Very simple, but effective. We have had difficulty fitting art into the schedule, so this at least has given everyone the opportunity to be quiet, slow down, and create art. They also have books about the life of Paul, Psalms, Proverbs, and a few more. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!
Character:
We've used one program primarily for character through the years, and it is called Little Lads and Ladies of Virtue from the Character Corner. It has been so meaningful for my family, and we have gone through it twice now. It's designed for VERY young children (like 4-5 year olds) but we have used it for the whole family with great success. It has the occasional typo, but otherwise the material is very solid. It has a definition of the character trait, a Bible verse to complement it, and three "I will..." statements, as well as copywork and coloring pages. It has some challenging (and less frequently covered) character traits such as deference.
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| Little Lads and Ladies of Virtue by The Character Corner |
Geography
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| Which Way USA by Highlights |
I had gotten a decent book list from Timberdoodle for books about or set in each state, so I started picking those up as I could. Many of them could be found at the local library too, which was great. I did also purchase several 50 states curriculum sets (I think 2020 and 2021 were just a hard time for all of us. I didn't freak out or live in fear - I just shopped like there was no tomorrow. Books and tea exploded in our house during this time period!)
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| Our 50 States by Notgrass |
I liked the look of Notgrass's Our 50 States, so I bought that set, although I didn't end up liking the writing style. (It was extremely hard to follow -- they tried too hard to make it a story, and so the actual facts of the states were lost as a result.) They also had book recommendations, but they were not state specific; they were sort of regional "vibes" books. I didn't like that. I wanted books specifically about the individual states. NOT RECOMMENDED.
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| Eat Your Way Through the USA - by Loree Petit |
I also bought a few cookbooks--Eat Your Way Through the USA and the United Tastes of America (which has only one recipe per state but is a very beautiful book). I also spent some time finding movies and TV shows about the given state. Recently, I had been trying to ask Chat GPT and Gemini for recommendations to save time, but that ended up being somewhat of a disaster, with the way AI has a tendency to hallucinate things. More than once I ended up with a book that was not in fact about the state I wanted but just had the "vibes" of that state. And it does not allow me to exclude certain immoral content from its recommendations, which is upsetting. (I will probably do a whole post about the issues I've had with AI at some point.) But overall, curing this curriculum is one of the highlights of my life! It has been so enjoyable.
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| United Tastes of America by Gabrielle Langholtz |
My single regret is that I had us linger for so long on each state. We started this in late 2020 and are STILL NOT FINISHED! I can't remember how long I intended to spend on each state, but with all the holidays, birthdays, and general events of life, we have not made it all the way through the 50 states yet. We are now in the home stretch (currently going over South Dakota) and are trying to cover one state every two weeks. I like to linger on things (history, Bible, everything) and that has stretched this out a lot.
In the future, when we are finished with the 50 states, I want to do a unit study on Japan. Then I will restart 50 states for the younger children. After all, I now have a massive library with books about the states!
History:
I have SO MANY history books on my shelf, and I am not very satisfied with any of them on its own--especially for small children, so I decided to curate my own history curriculum as well, and I have been doing this for quite some time now. Looking back at my records, I'm a little ashamed to say my approach has been very unorganized. (We spent about five years covering the American colonial period to the American Revolution). But the children do now have a very solid foundation for early American history.
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| Liberty's Kids - PBS |
My approach was similar to how I organized our geography: I made a chronological list of topics or people to cover and then found books from the library. I also found movies and TV shows (like Liberty's kids) for them to watch.
I have used many many history books, so it's hard to mention them all, but here are some of them:America's Struggle to Become a Nation from Character Concepts was one I used as a "spine." I will be totally honest and tell you that the children did NOT enjoy reading this one. To be fair, at the time, my oldest was about 9 and my second was about 6, so that's on me really. It was a necessary evil for them, and they enjoyed the living books about the founding fathers much more. Anything by Jean Fritz is very enjoyable!
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| America's Struggle to Become a Nation, by Character Concepts |
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| The Good and the Beautiful Constitution Curriculum |
The Constitution is extremely challenging to actually read through, but I think the curriculum did a good job of explaining it. It wove in famous founding fathers, most of whom were very familiar to us. There is room for extra study if people want to slow down. Overall, RECOMMENDED.
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| A more recent version of the first book in the Kaya series |
Her grandmother was incredibly wise, and they had a wonderfully considerate and tight-knit family. (And the authors didn't absolutely bludgeon us over the head with "white man bad" every five pages.) Felicity (the girl from the Revolutionary era) was extremely disobedient, so sometimes it was hard to read about her antics, although it did elicit good conversations about respect and obedience. Kirsten was fun but not as memorable as the others. I have been collecting other American girl series like Josefina, Julie (War of 1812), Samantha, and Molly. There are some I won't be buying -- those that have children whose parents are divorced, for instance. I like for my kids to read about stable families. I don't enjoy when book series normalize broken families.
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| Mystery of History Volume IV - through Modern Times |
Science:
I have a degree in Chemistry from Texas A&M University, so science is something dear to my heart. However, I really don't enjoy teaching it. Particularly, a lot of the curriculum for younger children relies on flashy "experiments" that take a lot of time to set up and fail 90% of time. I have struggled to find a science curriculum or approach that works for our family. The Good and the Beautiful science units
We have tried a few of the The Good and the Beautiful units, and I have not been very impressed overall. They are extremely basic, and they do have a lot of hands-on activities included that I find irritating. The one good thing about their curriculum is that they have videos for all of the experiments if you don't have the time or materials to do them yourself, so that's nice.
We've gone through their Ocean Science (their only free science unit), Space Science, Weather and Water, Wonders of Energy, Motion and Simple Machines, Geology, Botany, and some of the Safety book. I also did buy Maturation and Sexual Reproduction, though I haven't used it as much as I should have. Looking back, we've covered quite a lot of material, and although I've never been very satisfied with these units, the kids all really enjoyed them. I approached it/modified it like I have everything else -- I added in books and videos where I thought they would be helpful. We watched a lot of Science Court videos on YouTube for Physics, for example, and I frequently checked out biographies of scientists.
Overall, TGaB is RECOMMENDED simply because the kids did learn a lot and it didn't totally destroy their love of science by adding too much math in at this stage.
We also utilized a lot of Write Bonnie Rose workbooks when the kids were younger. It's a coloring/copywork approach to a variety of subjects. The kids liked them for a while but soon outgrew them. I am generally not a fan of notebooking because it takes up so much paper and space. We have too many workbooks floating around already, and the kids have a hard enough time losing things as it is. Binders with hole-punched papers break or get bent and frustrate everyone.
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| IEW Poetry Memorization by Andrew Pudewa |
One thing that I never thought I would do was reading and memorizing poetry.
I HATE everything about poetry. I'm a very concrete person, and I like things to be straightforward. That being said, we saw Andrew Pudewa speak at a conference a few years ago (2024, I think) and he gave a talk about the importance of poetry memorization. I was so convinced that I bought the program, and I was astounded to discover that my kids actually loved it! They memorized a lot of super cute and funny poems before burning out. We made it about halfway through the program before they told me they needed a break, so that's where we are currently. The littlest children (ages 7 and 5) are now going through some of the shorter poems, and they are enjoying them.
IEW Poetry Memorization is RECOMMENDED. (Even if you don't personally like poetry, it's worth doing!)
lays down a wonderful theological foundation for children. The first book is called Who Is God and How Can I Really Know Him? The second is Who Am I and What Am I Doing Here? The third is Who Is My Neighbor and Why Does He Need Me? and the last is What On Earth Can I Do?
I was so interested in these that I went ahead and ordered all four, and I'm glad I did! All of my children have responded very well to the content of these books. I love that they go through the most basic, fundamental theological ideas of our faith step by step. In book one, they learn about what truth is, who God is, what he has done, how he created the universe, how sin corrupted things, and how they should relate to God and others. It's written in such a way that even the youngest can understand it.
My 7-year-old in particular has learned a lot about God and his plan for creation. I love that this book presents our need for God as what one might call a feature and not a bug.
We've just started on book 2, which covers the subject of identity (a very hot topic in today's world.) It has already spurred some great conversations about how we are made in God's image and how he has made each of us with unique gifts and talents. I can't wait to continue with the series. We have all benefitted from the wisdom in these books.
They do have notebooking journals and audiobooks available on the Apologia website, but I have never considered buying them. It's just a lot of extra work for everyone. We've been using the books for discussion, and that's book working really well. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED! It's not particularly slanted toward any one denomination, and the scripture references are not in KJV (a prohibitively complicated and outdated translation) like so many other Bible resources, which I appreciate. It uses NIV, NLT, and Christian Standard Bible translations.
Manners:
We have had some kind of character curriculum in the rotation for many years now, but when my husband and I saw a presenter from the Etiquette Factory at a homeschool conference, we decided to buy that program. It's called Fundamentals4Kids. (The 4 in the title should have been a red flag for me, but that's neither here nor there at this point.) It's set up like a monthly subscription (which I don't really like). We had the option to buy all 12 boxes at once (and we happened to have the money to do that, although the price they quite on their website now is HALF what we paid at the conference several years ago.) The boxes cover topics like: "What is Etiquette?" "Saying Hello," "Kindness," "Sharing," "Magic Words," and more. Each box comes with a book, a game, and some other things. Online, there are a couple of videos explaining the concepts, as well as an original song for each topic.
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| One of the boxes for the Etiquette program |
Spanish: Learning to speak Spanish fluently has been a stated goal for me and my family for as long as I can remember. We live in an area where a significant portion of the population is bilingual or Spanish-speaking only, so for us it is a matter of being good neighbors. Bilingual employees do sometimes get paid more, but that's not a motivating factor for me. I mainly just want to be able to understand signs, ads, and books and talk to anyone I may encounter in the community without any barriers.
I took Spanish in high school for two years and came out the other end knowing almost nothing apart from some basic vocabulary. I have been a Duolingo user for almost a decade, and I tried a lot of different apps, but nothing worked for me until I joined an online community called Spanish con Salsa. This community had weekly meetings where we got to converse in Spanish, and included in the price was one 1:1 tutoring session per month. THIS worked for me, and I actually achieved basic fluency, which was so astounding to me that I felt empowered to go on to learn Portuguese as well (a language which I am even more fluent than Spanish now) through Yes Portuguese.
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| Muzzy in Gondoland - available on YouTube. SUPER FUN! |
I wanted the same for my kids, so I tried a variety of programs. Nothing really stuck, though we enjoyed listening to nursery rhymes in Spanish and watching Muzzy cartoons.
The kids made the MOST progress when they joined Sarah's Spanish School - which, like Spanish con Salsa and Yes Portuguese, is an online community with Zoom calls where kids can practice their Spanish with real people. The basic program just has live classes with no interaction, but they have an add-on/elite program which allows the kids to have weekly private lessons. We were lucky enough to snag lifetime memberships, and so the kids have been taking Spanish classes five times a week for several years now. I would HIGHLY RECOMMEND Sarah's Spanish School, especially if you can afford the elite program. It has been truly life-changing for us.
Destinos Spanish series
In addition to that, I decided to purchase used copies of Destinos -- technically a high-school/college level Spanish course that was made in the nineties. It's a little dated, but the approach is unlike anything else out there (truly). It's a telenovela style program that starts out with very basic conversational Spanish that almost anyone can understand. The main character travels to different Spanish-speaking countries in search certain people. The textbook and workbooks have various activities and assignments that you can do as you wish. They JUST took down the Annenberg Learner website where they had all the videos and quizzes, but thankfully all the episodes are still available on the Internet Archive website, under the title: "Destinos Lost Annenberg Language Series with Subtitles." This program, if you can get access to the videos and audio and used books, is HIGHLY RECOMMENDED. I did just find another website with the episodes and MORE content after the main series, so that is worth checking out too: destinostelenovela.org
Song School Spanish from
Classical Academic Press
A few years ago, I also bought the Song School Spanish program from Classical Academic Press, but I did not enjoy it. It was much too basic for my family, and overall I just felt like the substance was lacking. It doesn't have a "My Pet Monkey" analogue or even a Derivative River section like Song School Latin. The songs are repetitive and off-key. The woman on the videos is sweet, but my children really learned nothing from it. And Song School Spanish 2 has a different woman on the videos who is very severe, not too friendly. NOT RECOMMENDED.
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| Song School Latin 1 |
(The kids, as a general rule, and to my personal dismay, do NOT like Latin, but they are all doing it anyway.)
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| Latin for Children, Primer A from Classical Academic Press |
Song School Latin has cute videos and songs, flashcards, and workbooks to help gently introduce children to Latin. All of the children have responded well and learned a lot. A couple of them are now doing the Classical Academic Press Latin Primer series, and my oldest will be attending a live online class in the fall for Primer C. Again, the kids don't LOVE Latin, but it is something that is very good for them, and it helps them with both their English vocabulary and their Spanish vocabulary.
In the future, I plan to have them move to Lingua Latina and attend live online classes for that.
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| One of the "Getting to Know the World's Greatest Artists" books. |
Art: Art always gets put on the back burner, and I feel bad about it but have little motivation to change anything. I've bought programs for the kids that have simply collected dust on the shelf. The only truly memorable thing we've ever done for art is a hand-curated curriculum for art appreciation that included some simple biographies about artists and painting interpretations. For example, we would read a book about DaVinci and then paint our own interpretations of the Mona Lisa (with a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle as the Mona Lisa, for example). It was super fun, and the kids still remember the famous paintings. Paradoxically, my children are now constantly drawing and coloring. So they are little artists without me even trying!
The series of books I have enjoyed the most is "Getting to Know the World's Greatest Artists." And the local library always has a lot of good books about artists as well.
Music: I come from a very musical background, so I always wanted to include music in our homeschool. For a while, we used Prodigies, which is a desk bell program. I do still love that program, but the older kids have advanced beyond it, and I have struggled to integrate it lately since we have more children now. And the youngest are boys, which means they are constantly banging on the bells, so I've not really prioritized it like I used to.
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| Our old piano |
She and her sister took guitar lessons for a couple of semesters from a local girl at our homeschool co-op. They also did recorder for one semester. My oldest did well, but my second daughter didn't really enjoy it. Last year, one of the local highschoolers started up a community orchestra that includes children ten and up, so I signed up my oldest and bought her a viola--the Tower Strings Entertainer set from Fiddlershop, pictured below. It has been a very solid instrument, and she's had great success with it.
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| Tower Strings beginner viola from Fiddlershop |
She has been thriving -- she had enjoyed playing with a group of people, and she's mastering this instrument more than any of the others she's played.
The other three children show no particular musical inclination, although my second daughter loves to sing. She is NOT interested in getting involved in choir or doing private voice lessons. I'm a little frustrated overall.
We've done music appreciation in the past - listening and coloring and learning about the lives of famous musicians, though the kids tend to find all of this very boring, so that has been demoralizing. We have been using the Getting to Know the World's Greatest Composers books, which are very entertaining. Just yesterday, we watched "Beethoven Lives Upstairs" - a short movie on YouTube about Beethoven when he was writing his 9th symphony. One of the "Getting to Know the
World's Greatest Composers" books
Physical Education: For physical education, I've tried different things over the years, but nothing has stuck consistently. The children don't care at all about sports. We've had PE classes occasionally through our co-op, which have sometimes been good and sometimes not so good.
Mostly, our favorite thing to do is go on walks together as a family in our neighborhood. When the children were babies, I could push them along in a stroller. The challenge in recent years is getting the youngest children to maintain a decent pace. We often have to stop and wait for them when they get tired or drag their feet. But it's something worth doing, and we enjoy seeing the seasonal changes around the neighborhood, so we will continue to do it. There's no good hiking anywhere near where we live, otherwise we would be on trails all the time.
BUT we have recently started attending karate classes as a family, and this has been wonderful! It's a great way for everyone to get some good exercise, learn discipline, and become better individuals in general. I am grateful we have had the opportunity!
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Oh my goodness, what a life update!
It has been an ever-changing, sometimes overwhelming life, but I would never trade it. I am so blessed to get to spend each day with my wonderful children.
Thank you, God! <3
