As we come to the end of the year it’s always good to look back and reflect on the curriculum we use and how it fit with our homeschool. As a mom of four, I try to teach as many subjects as I can as a family. So, in this post, I’m going to share with you all of our family subjects plus the curriculum that worked and what didn’t.

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Bible

I started the year with “Who is Jesus?: Forty Pictures to Share with Your Family”. I actually really loved this one, but for some reason we quit using it after a few weeks. As I think back about why, there’s really not a clear answer besides the fact that I may have wanted to simplify/shorten our morning time for a bit.

The pictures are memorable and the devotions are meaningful, but I might have decided to put it aside for a while to wait until my littlest ones were just a bit older. With two under 5 years old, our morning time can’t get too long or I lose them! I do love this devotional, and I will definitely pull it out again in the future.

The devotion book that we stuck with for most of the year was 365 Trivia Twist Devotions. This devotion is family friendly and engaging. It doesn’t really go in depth, but it was a great fit for what we needed at the time.

The trivia devotion is a great book if you have young kids OR if you’ve never really read devotions as a family before. The trivia facts are really fun and it’s “light-hearted”. I know that might not be the greatest thing to say about a devotional, but sometimes it can be intimidating to start family devotion if you’ve never done it before!

We actually added Dad into our morning time with the trivia book. He works from home, and it was the perfect way to kick off our morning as a family. Because of the nature of the book, he was able to jump right in and lead us each morning.

As we came to the end of the year, we ran out of our trivia devotions, so I pulled out my tried and true Louis Giglio devotion books. For the last couple months of school we’ve been reading through “Indescribable”. I really do love these books for the whole family. Plus, it’s bible and science in one! That’s a win!

History

This school year I wanted to simplify our history by focusing on engaging picture books. We all know that a beautiful picture book is so much more memorable than a textbook, and I knew I wanted to give that to my kids. As a result, American History through Picture Books was created!

I was certain I could work through the timeline of American History with Picture Books, and after a lot of research, we did just that! Our history this year was one amazing picture book after another. I can’t even describe to you how simple and enjoyable it was. We learned so much! Yes, WE! It includes ME! It’s like I’m learning history all over again with my kids, but this time it’s actually sticking!

This was no worksheets, no extras – just a simple checklist of picture books that completely simplified our history lessons for the better. We worked through part 1 which covered explorers through the Treaty of Paris (1000-1783) and in the spring we completed part 2 which covered the constitution through the civil war (1787-1865).

I am currently researching for our picture books for next year, and I can’t wait to continue this style of learning for history. If you’d like to read more about this curriculum, check it out in this blog post.

Science

Why is science so hard to do? Is it just me? It’s always the subject that gets pushed aside. I struggled with science this year, but towards the end of the year I found a much better fit/groove for us, so I’m excited to share more about that.

We started the year with Apologia Science – Zoology 1. I was really excited about this because the text was written a little differently than your average textbook. It was just a much more fluid, engaging read. I also loved that there were activities throughout the lessons that seemed do-able and not too intense. All of the pictures were beautiful, and I really had high hopes for this one.

Unfortunately, it really wasn’t my favorite. I ended up using it more as a guide instead of our textbook. For example, if there was a lesson on butterflies, I would just go to the library and get books about butterflies. Sometimes we would do the activity in the book to go along with it.

I think the lessons were just too long. It was hard to read through an entire one (we even tried the audiobook!) and it was tough to skip around because I felt like the information was good! The other problem I had with it was after a while I was ready to move on to a new topic. The whole textbook focused on flying creatures, and it got to the point where I needed something new.

After Christmas I searched and searched for something that would better fit our family. This is when I found Berean Builders. I love how short the lessons are, and I have also loved the activities that come with each lesson. Many of them use supplies we have already at home.

After a few weeks of using it though, I did find myself tiring out of preparing activities every time we did a lesson, so recently I’ve slowed us down a bit and I have loved the rhythm we have created. In a week I will spend one day doing the activity and reading the lesson. Another day of the week, I read a picture book that goes along with the lesson.

This does take some extra planning on my part, but it feels so much more do-able than doing an activity every single time. Plus, we are really learning a lot from the picture books we read as well. I’m hoping to share this planning process (and our picture books that we picked!) with you guys soon, so stay tuned for that science update.

If you’re interested in looking into Berean Builders, check out a couple videos I put on Youtube. One is an introduction of the text. The other video is an update on how we use narration/notebooking alongside it.

Bedtime Studies

Bedtime studies sounds kind of silly I know, but I have found the wind-down time right before bed to be the perfect time to complete a few different things I want to teach my kids. So, I’m including all of this in our family studies. You can watch about how I do this in this video, but the following things are all included in our bedtime routine!

DIY Language Arts/Read Aloud

A year and a half ago I ditched our all-in-one language arts curriculum and decided I would make our own based on the novels we love reading together. It was the best decision I ever made. We have so much more freedom now with language arts and it has really increased our love for books!

At night I read aloud the novel that we are studying for language arts. This includes all of my kids except my youngest, so that language arts really becomes more of a family subject – which simplifies things so much!!

My oldest then has other lessons related to the novel, but I feel like that would be a completely separate blog post. Check out my DIY Language Arts playlist HERE.

Soon I will need to review all of the read aloud we did this year. There were so many! Some of my favorites included “Willodeen”, “Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler”, and “True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle”. You can see all of our novels in my Language Arts Read Aloud list through Amazon.

Scripture Memory

Starting in December, we started memorizing one bible verse a month. I usually pick the verse based on what I want my kids to think about at the time. For example, when we were dealing with bedtime fears, we memorized a verse about not being afraid.

Recently, I was sent a beautiful scripture memory box from Shop Butter N Honey, and this has helped us keep the verses on our hearts. With this memory box, we are able to practice and review the verses every night. It’s been so much fun and my kids love seeing what they remember each night.

I love adding scripture memory before bed. It doesn’t feel like “school” and it really does set the tone for bedtime. The addition of the memory box was so helpful because it has allowed me and the kids to keep reviewing our verses even after the month is over. I hope to keep this habit of bible verses before bed even through the summer.

Hymn Study

I have always wanted to study hymns with my kids. I tried adding it into our morning time once but it didn’t stick. Then one night I randomly sang a hymn to the kids and we’ve been singing every night since.

I choose one hymn a month from a book called “Then Sings My Soul”. I grew up with traditional hymns in church, so I just choose one that I can remember the tune. Eventually, I’ll probably end up having to look them up on YouTube or something.

This has been such an easy way to memorize hymns. The book comes with a little description of the author so we read that and memorize the first verse together. Each night (most nights) we sing the verse and by the end of the month it’s memorized.

I have loved learning hymns with the kids and the way we do it has been so simple and effortless. I definitely love using this book as well because it gives us a little background of the hymn we are learning.

What’s Staying?

Well, I plan to continue almost everything next year! I do have a new plan for our devotional. I’ll be picking some new read alouds of course. I’m most excited for our next American History unit and all the books we will be reading for that. (The unit will cover post-Civil War through World War 2 and will be available to you around Christmas 2024) Science will keep going with Berean Builders now that I have found a better groove.

Overall, I’ve been happy with our family studies. I will make a few tweaks here and there, but once that’s done I’ll probably do a YouTube video sharing our “official” picks for the year! I’m ready to get into planning mode soon!