Homeschool Curriculum Choices 23-24

In this post, I’ll talk about the homeschool curriculum choices we’re choosing to use for our children during the 23-24 school year.

When you enter the world of homeschooling it can be a little overwhelming with all of the different opportunities for curriculum choices. Every company is claiming to be the best and every company is claiming they have everything that you need to be successful. And it’s easy to get sucked into that and believe them, especially if you’re lacking confidence as you start your homeschooling journey.

This is our fourth year homeschooling, and I can finally say that I feel like we have a solid plan in place as to how we want to conquer this year. The homeschool curriculum choices that we’ve made for this year are not only high quality educational materials, but they’re also really engaging, exciting, and easy to use. This is so important when you’re a busy mama on a homestead with two in school and two other little ones who want attention!

So, let’s dive into the homeschool curriculum choices we’ve made for our 1st and 2nd grader for the 2023/2024 school year!

Table of Contents

• Math: The Good and the Beautiful
  • What I Love
• English Language Arts: The Good and the Beautiful
  • What I Love
• Science: Noeo Science (Chemistry 1)
  • What I Love
• Social Studies/Geography: History Quest + Exploring Handwriting Through U.S. Geography
  • What I Love
• Final Thoughts
• Share This Post!

Math: The Good and the Beautiful

I absolutely love The Good and the Beautiful math curriculums. When we first started homeschooling, I was finding that I was spending a lot of time prepping meaningful lessons for the kids for math, researching standards to make sure I was teaching them the appropriate topics, and just overall found myself getting burnt out, and in the process stealing the kids’ opportunity to love math. Once I had two that were in school, it just became unrealistic for me to be spending all of that time prepping one subject, all while taking care of my other little ones, the homestead, and working my full-time job.

Now those who know me well and those who know my teaching style know that I am not a boxed curriculum fan. When I taught in the brick-and-mortar, I would very rarely stick to the curriculums given to fidelity, mostly because I felt like I could dive into it in a more exciting, meaningful way (and because the kids seemed to respond better when the teachers put their own twists on things!).

This curriculum, though, checks all of my boxes. There are definitely opportunities for us to explore certain topics further and with more excitement, but I am not modifying the lessons daily to make this more engaging or rigorous for my children. Truly, I have been won over by this curriculum to help me guide my children with their math!

What I Love

My top things I love about this homeschool curriculum choice are:

• It’s open and go. You sit with your child, side by side, and talk together through the pages. The instructor manual and the student manual are all in one. There’s no outside prep-work, which makes it great for parents who are schooling multiple children.
• It’s engaging and hands-on. The math kits come with a math manipulative box and the lessons use these math manipulatives to play games on the topics being taught. My daughter, especially, loves these games! It’s a great time to get to play with your child while practicing the math concepts being taught.
• It’s faith based. There are wonderful references to God’s kingdom throughout the course, which I personally love and value.
• The lessons are short. The lessons are about 10-15 minutes long each day. Sometimes, that means we can conquer two lessons per day, and other days, we just leave it at one. I really love that the curriculum creators have taken into account that these are small children and have planned lessons according to their shorter attention spans.
• It’s beautiful. Truly, the artwork is lovely. I know that’s a very superficial thing to worry about, but it is so beautiful to look at for both the children and me.

Another great thing to note about this curriculum is that it is completely free to those who want to try it out before buying, which I love! They have nothing to hide and know that you’ll love it. I say this with all sincerity- I am not an affiliate for them and get nothing if you purchase it! I truly just love this curriculum!

English Language Arts: The Good and the Beautiful

This is my first year of using The Good and the Beautiful for English Language Arts as our homeschool curriculum choice. After our experience with the math curriculums, though, I knew this style of learning was going to be a good fit for our family. In the past, we’ve done a very informal reading program, where again day-by-day I would spend a lot of time prepping for and planning for the daily lessons. I wanted something a little more formal for ELA this year that would cover all of the topics deeply. I love how this curriculum covers these topics so well and so deeply, without me needing to supplement to fill in the gaps. There aren’t any!

What I Love

We’ve already started the school year, and I can tell you that I’m already very pleased with this homeschool curriculum choice!

• It’s comprehensive. There are a lot of topics covered in one year in all major ELA topics (reading, spelling, grammar, writing). I love that it’s all combined into one curriculum to make things seamless and easy. The connectiveness of it also is wonderful because it helps build confidence in the young readers, providing them with books and stories they can read. My daughter, specifically, is so excited that she is able to read a whole story, which makes me so happy!
• It’s easy to use. Just like math, it’s open and go. You again sit side by side with your child, working through the concept for the day. There’s no daily prep work ahead of time. You can just open and go, trusting that you’ll have a great lesson full of rigor and excitement without the extra prep work on your end.
• The lessons are quick and simple. I love how the attention span of the children is kept in mind as these lessons were designed! There are opportunities for children to work independently and 1:1 with an adult, and both are timed out well. One lesson usually takes us around 15 minutes each day.
• It’s faith based. Again, like the math, this ELA curriculum is faith based. The stories that are used emphasize family, God, high character, and nature, all of which are really important to me.
• It’s beautiful. The artwork throughout the entire book is beautiful. It’s always exciting to turn to a new page to see the beautiful pieces that lie ahead!

Science: Noeo Science (Chemistry 1)

I love Science. I do not enjoy teaching it. This is mainly because I have all kind of ideas of projects and experiments in my head that we could do, but then don’t have the materials at home (or time to plan it all out!) and get really discouraged and frustrated! It would take me a lot of prep and planning to pull books from the library to discuss the concept, then get the things needed from the grocery store for experiments…Plus, we were only covering a small amount of topics because of the time it took to plan out one unit.

What I Love

I am so glad that we chose Noeo Science as our homeschool curriculum choice this year for Science! It is a total game changer.

• Everything’s included! All of the experiments ideas, the real-life books, the materials for the experiments- they’re all included in the kit! This is hugely helpful and eliminates a ton of planning and prep work.
• It uses real world books. I absolutely love that each lesson comes with a real world book to help teach the concepts. It is so much fun to get a chance to sit together and read a story together to learn a concept. There are even books for the children to read, too. The addition of the real-world literature gets huge bonus points from me!
• It’s aimed at multiple ages. We can do our Science lessons all together. Even my three-year-old is an active participant! The kits are designed with multiple aged kids in mind, making this ideal for families schooling more than one child at home.
• It’s hands-on. The experiments and activities in this kit are so much fun! They’re just a great illustration of the topics being taught and are so exciting for the children. My son doesn’t every want Science to be over!
• The lessons are short. I love that the Science lessons for the day are only about 5-10 minutes long. That gives us so much flexibility! We did one whole week’s worth of lessons in one day because we were having so much fun and because we easily could! But I also love that the length of the lessons makes it easy to squeeze Science in daily.

My negative: The only thing that I dislike about this homeschool curriculum choice is the fact that there are three books: lab manual, experiment guide, and instructor’s manual. I would much rather see these all condensed into one book to make it easier to navigate.

Social Studies/Geography: History Quest + Exploring Handwriting Through U.S. Geography

This year we’re starting to dive into history through History Quest (affiliate link) as one of our homeschool curriculum choices for Social Studies. I’m also pairing this with stories from The Magic Tree House series (affiliate link), which are so much fun to read! My kids love to pretend that they’re Jack and Annie from the stories.

In addition to History, we’re also doing a bit of Geography! We’ve chosen Exploring Handwriting through U.S. History as a way to learn where the states are located within the United States, and practice handwriting.

What I Love

• History is told in narrative form. I love that history is told in narrative form through History Quest, which makes it engaging and exciting to listen to. It also makes it really easy to read this aloud to the kids whenever there’s a minute, like during meals or in the car.
• Geography + Handwriting. I love that I can combine these two subjects together to give the kids a chance to practice two skills at once.

Final Thoughts

There you have it! A glimpse into our homeschool curriculum choices for the 23/24 school year! I’d love to hear what you’re using for your homeschool curriculum choices for the upcoming school year and why you’ve chosen them. Leave a comment below!

Share This Post!

Help out another friend who is looking to make their own homeschool curriculum choices by sharing this post.