I know it’s a little late but I think you’d love Campfire Curriculums. It’s Charlotte Mason inspired, written in living book style, designed for the whole family, cross curricular, and incredibly fun. It’s open-and-go so no need to prep. It also can be used completely digitally so it’s perfect for moving because you just need a device (also able to be printed, too. They are pdf downloads so no shipping costs from the US.) 😊
I just started watching your channel this week and I have been so inspired. I am going to be doing both morning baskets and a loop schedule for the first time! I’m teaching 5th and 6th grade this year and my goal with the baskets is to give them things they can do on their own. They are old enough that they can do a lot more independently, so I am making only the very last things in their baskets reliant on my help so that I can get a slow warm-up to the school day to keep it less overwhelming. I plan on being in the room with them and participating, but I want to do things like silently reading to ourselves, memorizing verses, and having prayer time, then moving into something like a read-aloud, or critical thinking workbook. Throwing this all here in case it helps someone out!
I'm so glad you are back. My daughter and I watched you the most of all homeschool moms last year when we began thinking about homeschooling. And thanks to watching your kids, my own kid was super excited to try homeschool with me. Best thing we have ever done.
The absolute best math i have found (after trying a TON) has been Dennison Algebra. When you reach that point, i'm telling you, it is totally hands off for me and my daughter really gets the material. The short video lessons require the student to work problems in the guided notes. Eveything is so well organized. So, when you reach pre-algebra, check it out. We did mostly like the math workbooks from Critical Thinking company. They are digital as well.
We’ve been really enjoying Moving Beyond the Page Literature studies. For us, it’s just the right amount of structure that we need, but room for creativity and exploration that we crave! They have an online component and access to printing pages for lessons and activity pages. I love that other subjects are naturally integrated within their LA studies. For example, we just finished The Lion, the witch, and the Wardrobe. It briefly discusses WW2, we made a snowflake with borax and pipe cleaners, researched world leaders, had our own favorite treat, representing Edmunds’ love of Turkish Delights. I had heard about Moving Beyond the Page before, but didn’t really know how to work their site. Ashlee at Gathered and Grounded and Tillman Homeschool (Morgan maybe) on YT have videos on it if you’re interested.
Geography recommendation: Simply Charlotte Mason. Get the pdfs. We paired the Visits to North America with Beautiful Feet Books Holling C. Holling North American geography. Love it. We are also loving SCM history (kinda goes with geography). All my kids K-9th together. We will be using it all again for next year. I want to be a Charlotte Mason all the way person but I’m just too eclectic. However, the guides we’ve gotten from SCM have been great and easy to follow. The Visits to North America starts with Canada and most of Paddle to the Sea (Beautiful Feet add in) mostly focuses on Canada.
We're currently using a Gather Round unit, but I'm only reading aloud the teacher part and the kids are doing their own written narrations or notebooking pages instead of the GR ones.
See this is how I would prefer to use GR, my kids don't care for the student pages and i think what you are doing would work better for us. Do your kids write narrations/ notebooking pages about what you read to them from the teacher's guide?
I appreciate your thoughts and where you are in life. This year has felt so weird for us as well and I feel like we haven’t done much and changed a lot as well.
I've heard great things about Guest Hollow curriculum and its printable. Though I will say I love the CM style and that is primarily what we do. For geography we just choose books from whatever we are doing, and then try to map them. For example my daughter read a David Livingstone bio and then made a poster sized map of his travels (seventh grade). For my elementary kids, we are reading several colonial books and then just add a colony (sometimes one we read, sometimes just another on our list) every couple weeks. We did the same with europe last year. We were reading about european history but did a modern map. We used Seterra (free) to print out maps, covered it in tracing paper and every week added a country and also once a week played their free map game to help solidify knowledge. Not sure if that helps, but glad to see you back and saying a prayer for you this morning as you figure out your journey! Praise the Lord for the flexibility in homeschooling! Oh and For the Children's Sake is soooo good! I've read it many times, my MIL gave it to me when my oldest was 3. Its such an encouragement to me.
Thanks for all this! I've never heard of Guest Hollow, I'll look them up. My daughter does use the Seterra app, I had no idea they had a site and printables, definitely going to be doing that! I love all your ideas, thanks again!
We are loving guest hollow! The two owners are super responsive when you ask questions or have a problem with a link. We have gotten most books used or from our library…..when we can’t find it we skip and/ or find something similar!
Yayy! Glad you stopped by!! We are also very solidly Charlotte Mason Philosophy and very NOT CM Method. It just doesn’t work for my kids or myself. And I think that’s totally fine. The philosophy is wonderful and serves us so well!
I am really really excited that you are back ❤❤❤❤ You are literally my absolute favorite homeschooling mama You-tuber and also the one that has really inspired me in my homeschooling journey, so thank you ❤️❤️ 💜💜
For the Children's Sake is one of my very, very favorite homeschool books! 💛 I went back and forth with CM too, but we went all-in with AO at the beginning of the year, and it's been a lovely journey so far.
So happy to see a video from you!! I feel like we have a similar teaching style!! I have 3 kids and this is the first year we have loved everything and will definitely continue on with each curriculum!! We use RightStart Math, Logic of English (they have an online component), and Build Your Library!
Love your homeschool content! Another American company that does digital downloads for a lot of their curriculum is Masterbooks. We have been loving CTC online math this year.
The good and the beautiful is awesome for kindergarten! My daughter loves it. I also use teaching textbooks for my son who's in 8th grade and it's the best math I've found so far. Math isn't my strong area so I appreciate their videos and explanation on things.
Good to hear about G&B kindergarten! My kindergartener is definitely behind, he's got a few struggles so he's not ready for their kindergarten unit yet but maybe by the fall, I'll have to see!
Prayers on your revamp! I’m feeling the “3/4th through the school year slog” 🥵 right now myself. This year , all four of my “students” plus the 4 yo are in different math. 😮🤷🏻♀️ We’ve struggled finding a perfect fit, but it’s going ok, currently. The Hobbit writing unit for your daughter sounds intriguing!
This was neat to see another Chantel! :) I also homeschool my children 17, 7, 6, 2, and 8 months old. Also, Charlotte Mason inspired, but mix a lot of different styles depending on my child's needs. My 7- and 6-year-old boys are ALL boy and do not respond well to literature based... or really sitting still and listening to anything... :) we are working on it! We use a lot of AO with a lot of hands on, manipulatives, songs, and games to help them.
Math has always been a hard one to find that I “enjoy” but teaching textbooks is definitely one that taught me the best. As someone who doesn’t understand math as well as reading and literature type things it helped to put it in easier terms for me.
We use Life of Fred for Math. Take a look at it because it is story based which I know your heart will love. You follow the life of Fred, a five year old Math Professor.
I've always wanted to do Life of Fred but it's so expensive to buy the books and pay for the shipping here last I looked. I've been contemplating it for years, maybe I should just go ahead and bite the bullet.
@@IntentionalHomeschooling Oh, I had not thought of that! I am blessed to be able to borrow them from a friend. I do have to say they would be worth it!
Our family has loved Tree of Life Homeschool for the past five or so years. The younger grades are very nature focused, and highschool has a lot of literature and history courses. It's also based in Canada.
We like Beast Academy for math! My daughter struggles with math so I started her at a lower level and let her gain some confidence and review. She's enjoyed it and been motivated for the first time with doing math.
our homeschooling year has been so different compared to last year. This is only year 2 for us. My daughter is 13. We beta tested a really great curriculum in Jan/Feb. A homeschool mama @tickettolearning created a curriculum based around a book. She is launching later this year. The book was Light Comes To Shadow Mountain by Toni Buzzeo. It was digital so you printed off what you wanted to work on. And she gave so many resources to choose from depending on what your child was interested in. We also do Sonlight for history. I got my set used, but I enjoy that too. I love the idea of learning from books.
I’ve watched your other channels a lot but not much from this one! I definitely can relate to needing a minute to remember what grade my kids are technically in. They are 14, 11, 8, 5. Can’t wait to check out more over here. My husband was deployed most of 2023 and I definitely got into a homeschool rut while he was gone that I feel like I’m just now getting out of. But this school year has been interesting to say the least.
I enjoyed teaching textbooks but then we found out my oldest was really behind from it. She switched to Life of Fred and had to go back an entire level to make up for the couple of years doing teaching textbooks. He specifically had that in the book- that if that is what you had been doing you would need to start on another level 😮 She has really liked Life of Fred. I’m still trying to find the perfect fit for my younger daughter but we are about to start using Math U See hoping that will work better for her.
I'm excited that someone piped up about Life of Fred, I've ALWAYS wanted to do Life of Fred but the books and shipping can be ghastly expensive here. For your daughter that is doing Life of Fred, is she really into math? I'm just curious if you would say the program is better for those who naturally like math or not?
What have you been using for church history? That is something I'm frustrated I never learned as a kid, I went to a Christian school from grade 5-12 and church history was never taught.
@@IntentionalHomeschooling I've been using the History Lives series by Mindy and Brandon Withrow. Sadly, it is out of print. I haven't been able to track down the last book.
We are using Math-U-See and it is going pretty well! It is simple and short lessons and tests. I do feel like my kiddo is naturally math minded, so it’s hard to critique it.
We use Beauty and Truth Math most days. Days I don't have time one uses TGTB 5 and one uses Christian Light. My youngest uses Teachers Pay Teachers pages when I don't have time for Beauty and Truth. I put them in a binder in dry erase page protectors.
Glad you are back! You're one of my favorite youtubers! I have heard that a gentle feast has Canadian options and is also family style Charlotte Mason... I don't know I'm very eclectic myself and love the idea of unschooling and Charlotte Mason. One thing I always struggle with and am curious how you handle it, is how you set expectations. I want my kids to know what is expected/required of them in a day, but also want some freedom and flexibility and don't want to over burden them. Also, how do you do chores?
Chantel! I’m nodding and clapping! lol. We were never full unschooling, but we’re in a transition “test” to do more actual Charlotte Mason and see what sticks too! We just read Helen Keller too.. Been combing Ambleside and their Canadian recommendations too! lol I’m seeing lots in common! I love March. Ive got the itch to revamp. lol 🎉
Oh March is the time for all the homeschool changes, it never fails. Glad I'm not the only one! I can't wait to see what your test to do more CM looks like. Also, I wish I was moving closer to you rather than the opposite way, I'd so love to hang out sometime!
My family used Math U See. It comes with instruction videos for the kids and teacher book (for the teacher obviously) which makes it way easier for non math people to teach. It also explains why we do math certain ways so its good for critical thinkers. It can be a little bit spendy if you get it new though.
Welcome back! Yay! For math we use Math With Confidence by Kate Snow. It will only go up through 6th grade (4th grade is coming out in June), so it won't work for your older 2, but could work for your younger 2. Lessons are scripted for the parent, they are short, yet thorough. My kids have a deep conceptual knowledge of numbers. Almost every lesson has a game, so it's fun and, honestly, I think it has grown my relationships with my kids. They offer PDF downloads, so they would save you on shipping. I think Well Trained Mind has a sale every year in May or June, so that would be a great time to buy. Knowing your approach with language arts, I'm wondering if you would like Masterbooks. We've been using it this year, and in my humble opinion, the bad wrap they get for being too gentle is unwarranted. They are gentle, however, with having 3 kids in it at different levels (and I have next year's language arts from them, so I'm seeing a higher level for my oldest), I can see that it progresses and teaches what a student is supposed to learn. Again, that's just my opinion. They also offer PDF downloads. Last, have you looked into Generations? I believe they offer financial assistance to missionaries. With your family moving provinces and planting a church, you might fall under that category for them. It might not hurt to reach out to them and ask. Our first order from them is arriving at the end of this week and I'm excited to look through it. I will let you know what I think of it.
Ooh, Math with Confidence may be something for my kindergartener, I'm going to look into that, thank you! Annnnd I just spent a really long time on the Master Books site, haha, there's some interesting stuff there!
@@IntentionalHomeschooling they do have a lot of great things. If you decide to go with Math With Confidence let me know. My youngest will be finishing her Kindergarten book up around the end of May. As long as it doesn't cost me too much, I will send you my teacher's guide so you don't have to buy one yourself as a thank you.
A peaceful press is also another company with a download-able curriculum that has really tempted me. They are literature based with tons of projects and cooking projects. I just like simple things and it looks great but I always worry am I really going to use it??? So, I don't buy but I feel awfully tempted...
Journey Homeschool Academy -- science from a Christian World view: Online video school (these looked great and when my kids are older definitely tempting...they do have elementary and higher grade levels)
You might look into Power homeschool. You can get up to 7 class for $25 a month but you don't have to do more than even one class. My son only does math and one elected that he chooses each year. We like it because it's real licensed teachers who have pre-recorded videos and the money goes to help give teachers more money. They have one video and then one set of questions to go with the video per lesson. They also include sometimes some online games and links for printable worksheets that are optional. The worksheets are not for grade. They keep the records and grades all for you. There is also assessments at the end of each unit.
I keep forgetting ones... "Plain Not so Plain" curriculum is free PDFs that focus the Three R's. I have used bits and pieces from this for Math and English. She has K-9th grade
Have you looked at all into Masterbooks LA? We have used TGTB in the early years, but I have a similar philosophy/style as you and it always felt like there was just SO much in there curriculum. I am eyeing Masterbooks (the 9th grade one looks amazing!) for my middle schoolers for next year.
I am desperate for homeschooling tips and guides because even though my daughter is only 3, I am a PLANNER. Lol so I want to look ahead and maybe even start home-pre-schooling (if that’s even a word?) soon. I have no idea what I’m doing. Help 😂