I've been asked a lot recently what my favorite resources are for Home School. One of the best silver linings to have come from River's cancer has been Homeschool! We started when River was going through chemo and cancer treatment. And now we will continue because we've fallen in love with school at home. The TIME with each other has been priceless - especially the time the kids have had with River at home instead of all in different classes separated for most of the day. I've loved the closeness in their relationships. My favorite part is to be able to teach the gospel of Jesus Christ right along with academics.
When River had surgery and chemo - I never felt that she needed school added on. That was an education!! We read A LOT and discussed things. She only went to 2 weeks of 3rd grade before her cancer was found. When 4th grade rolled around we put her back in school and Halloween found her in the ER with a deep cough down in her lungs. The Holy Ghost whispered that homeschool was what our family needed. While I felt overwhelmed with educating our kids - one in treatment for cancer and being pregnant on top of it all - I had absolute faith that if the Lord had led us to this place, He would lead us along and help us in this new journey.
Enos 1:7-8 Enos asks "How is it done?" The answer: Because of thy faith in Christ. It doesn't really matter what "it" is; the formula is always the same - faith in Christ. "It" can be building a ship, conquering a habit, parting a sea, walking on water, resisting a temptation, healing a relationship, or homeschooling...How is it done? Through Faith in Christ.
When people discover that we homeschool I often get the response "I would love to homeschool, but I'm not patient enough." You know what? Neither am I. I've homeschooled for 5 years: Patience has come over the years, as I daily work on it, inviting, asking, pleading for God to come along in the journey. This is as much for their character development as for mine. My patience is tried. I am lacking. But I've learned time and time again God is Great! If he has led you to homeschool - He will lead you through it. He will help you work on yourself - Matthew 17:21 Howbeit this kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting. Perhaps the greatest thing about patience I have learned through homeschool is that it is about the Relationship. It's not about the math lesson (or cleaning their room, etc...) it's about your relationship with that child.
Homeschooling gives us the time to work on Character along with academics.
2nd Peter 1:5
Add to your faith virtue (character), and to virtue, knowledge
"It was not an untutored nor an ignorant world that battled long agonizing years on the shell-cratered no-man's land; but on the contrary, it was the so-called educated world that shot the deadly missiles, sank the defenseless in the briny deeps, bombed the cities, and tortured and maimed the millions of the flowers of the nations.
"But were they really educated in the true sense of the word?
"They had the power of knowledge, but lacked the development of the moral and spiritual side, the lack of which permitted them to use their knowledge toward the destruction of mankind, instead of further teaching of the peoples of the universe, making them prosperous, happy, and contented."
--Spencer W. Kimball
I homeschool year-round. Then we can take off a day or week here or there for when things come up. These are all truly Educational and we can have the freedom of taking off time throughout the year when things come up: Opportunities for Service...Family Vacations ... fishing ...
There are SO many things that are not measured on an academic test: Work Ethic, ability to work hard and stick with it 'till it's done (hoe to the end of your row), kindness, gratitude, creativity, patience, faith, goodness, integrity, imagination, generosity, loving, self-control, determination, courageous, persistence, adventurous spirit, optimism, tolerance, cooperation, spirituality, honesty, etc. etc. This gives us time to be able to work on these things too. I found when they were in school it was rush to get them up and out the door and then once home they had homework, chores, piano, dinner and especially if they had anything extra-curricular - the day was done. This way we get in the most important things - plus have lots of time for a child's work: PLAY!
I've had many times to reflect about what is important for us to learn. River was almost returned home to heaven at 8 years old. There were certain things I hoped my kids would be able to do/know by the time they left our home to strike out on their own: Play the hymns on the piano, finish algebra (she was only in 3rd grade when they were just beginning to learn multiplication tables)... I had the very real probability of one of our children graduating early ... but she hadn't learned how to make lasagna or white bean chili yet!! So I thought about what was most important both for here and now but also for eternity... Memorize the capitals to all the States of America: NOPE. Love God. Love Others. Love Learning.
With such fragile health and the very real possibility of dying - things became much more clear. When there isn't time to do it all and learn it all - priorities must be set. We got the most important things in - the Heart things. Service. Loving Others. Learning how to feel the Holy Ghost. Learning history not for names and dates - but for principles and themes and the courage to live your life inspired by those heroes. Learning to read so that you could read the scriptures to find God's words to you personally, and to read inspiring uplifting literature. Science - the quest to discover the truths that are operating in the world God created. Music and Art - to creatively express your feelings and heart. Geography - the adventure of exploring the world God created for you to experience and enjoy, and the study of God's children in other lands and cultures, enriching your own experience by learning what others find of value. Math - exploring the patterns that help us build, reason, think creatively, think logically, think critically, and solve problems.
Oh...SO much to discover awaits the mind that wants to learn!! With homeschool the kids have time to study what is important to them.
I think what I saw the most in River being homeschooled was a LOVE for learning. Not just for a test or what the teacher wanted you to know - but a genuine interest and drive to learn because it was important to her. A drive from within because she was in charge of her own education.
There are SO many opinions about homeschool and ways to homeschool. Follow your heart and what feels right to your spirit. These are God's children in your care. He gave them to you to raise because they needed you as their mom...and you needed them.
I’m forever grateful to a good friend who was homeschooling when it came out of the blue for me that we would be withdrawing our kids and bringing it all home. I was so grateful to have someone to guide me through the process.
Here are things that have been a good fit for our family - if it’s not a good fit for your style - find another path. Here is my one for sure thing I know: God will help you educate His children and prepare them for this life and the next. He wants them to thrive and you as their Mom love them more than anyone...lean on Him. Ask Him for help. And know that He can compensate for what you lack.
🦋 GOSPEL:
The heart of it all for me is the gospel of Jesus Christ. These resources follow the Come Follow Me schedule and complement it nicely:
*DON’T MISS THIS:
My absolute favorite resource I could share. Emily Belle Freeman and David Butler are Seminary and Institute teachers. They release a YouTube video each week that compliments Come Follow Me. I thoroughly enjoy their insights - especially that it comes from the heart and focuses on relationship with Christ and the blessings of the gospel with emphasis on conversion of the heart and the blessing that it is to live with the spirit. I had been very angry at God for many many months with River’s pain and not being able to take it away. I had absolutely NO desire for spiritual things. It hurt too badly knowing that He could take it away but chose not to. I started having the spirit whisper to come back to God about December. I started praying for the desire to read my scriptures and pray and come back to daily relationship with God. Don't Miss This is what helped me in that yearning to come back. God was so good to me to put these teachers on my path to help me come back before I was asked to send River back to her heavenly home. I will be forever grateful for their role in where my heart was when we had the news that she had brain tumors in April and that it would be terminal. Being with God made all the difference!
It’s like sitting in a seminary/institute class and soaking it all in. And then after watching their video it deepens my desire and love for reading and going through those chapters and finding what God is telling me. They started with the New Testament last year and this year are in the Book of Mormon.
*DRAWN IN:
https://www.davidbowmanart.com/
David Bowman - an amazing artist draws (sped-up) as he tells the stories and applies them to our day and things kids can relate to. We start our day with our scripture we are memorizing (written on the window by the table) and a Drawn In. There are a few of his videos on YouTube to see if they are a good fit.
*Well Educated Heart - Book Lists
This is my favorite homeschool resource right now. Marlene Peterson is a treasure for her thoughts on educating children's hearts. She has put together a fantastic free resource for books on just about every subject. Click on any topic for a great list of books to read in formats that are either free online in the public domain, borrow online for online libraries, or titles to purchase or borrow from public libraries.
https://www.welleducatedheart.com/categories.html
Her foundation is that kids learn best through the heart and through stories. And has a rotation that kids read different topics each month and cycle around every year to add another layer to their understanding of that topic.
I've seen how powerful reading can be to a child's mind through River. She was SO inspired by stories and biographies. The stories fill them with good role-models and concepts and ideas of pushing through hard things, finding joy in family and living a good life. This is a link to books of stories that Marlene has put together on different topics - for purchase for a bound copy - or available here as a free download.
https://www.welleducatedheart.com/forgotten-classics-family-library.html
Well Educated Heart also has a new free program where she has compiled books on the stories of America. There are links for the PDF for free or to buy the book. She is also releasing links to audio recordings to listen to her read the stories.
https://www.my-america-story-book.com/
🦋 Reading Out Loud as a Family
We've LOVED our time enjoying a story all together. The kids always ask for another chapter!! And then another!! It gives us a good base as a family to have characters in the books that we have invited into our home through reading their story to share time with us and teach us such important things.
I feel so passionately that children need good literature in front of them. It does matter what they read - for it will shape their character. So many popular books today have messages that go against family, are disrespectful, and have inappropriate behavior made to look funny or acceptable. The person you will be in 5 years depends largely on the books you read, the people you spend time with, and the habits you adopt.
Two more good places for free book lists of wholesome books:
https://www.goodandbeautiful.com/book-list/
https://readaloudrevival.com/recommends/
Older books tend to have such beautiful messages about God, family, faith, nature, work, etc. and have largely gone out of print and are difficult to find. Here are resources to free ebooks that you can either download or borrow from an online library. Many of them are in the public domain. Our current nightly bedtime story: Any of the stories from Thornton Burgess: Old Mother West Wind series or any of the animal stories like Reddy Fox or Johnny Chuck, etc.
AUDIO BOOKS:
*Free Audio books: In public domain: https://librivox.org/
*Audible: https://www.audible.com/
*****And my favorite place for LDS audio books
This has access to their entire collection of audio books for a monthly fee and thousands of ebooks. Currently the girls are listening to Tennis Shoes Among the Nephites. The narration is SO well done!! Deseret Bookshelf has a free 30 day trial.
🦋 HISTORY, SCIENCE, GEOGRAPHY, MUSIC:
*The Family School: K-12 LDS Based
https://thefamilyschoolonline.org/#/
Oh! This was River’s (and all of our) favorite part of homeschool. I teach History, Science, Geography, and Music Appreciation like a one-room school house. All the kids join in the discussion for the lesson, and then can do assignments at the end that are on their individual level. I learned something myself with each lesson. It was SO incredibly neat to watch the light come on in their eyes and learn things and apply it to themselves. Each lesson teaches strong academics - and then ties each topic back to the gospel of Jesus Christ with LDS Gospel Perspective. I have LOVED the insights into the gospel making all of us ponder more. It then takes it one step further with how does this apply to me?
You can try it out for free: Complete zoology and US History Course free.
It is on the internet - so I can read right off the ipad and it has links directly in the lesson to videos or pictures that I cast to the tv to compliment the lesson.
*Science and History - Bible Based
https://www.goodandbeautiful.com/pre-k-8-curriculum/history/
The Good and the Beautiful has Science and History with a Christian Focus - Bible Based. I prefer the Family School because of the LDS perspective, and that it's all linked on the internet for me, but I know many families that this is a great fit. We LOVE history SO much that we actually do both The Good and the Beautiful and The Family School history courses. The Good and the Beautiful has audio recordings that go along with many of the history lessons that are SO well done and engaging. I love having two resources to work with as they both teach in a different manner and emphasize different things about the topic. Joan of Arc was probably on the tippy-top of our favorite people from history list.
https://www.goodandbeautiful.com/pre-k-8-curriculum/science-health/
https://www.goodandbeautiful.com/sciencevideos/
The first link is to their science curriculum and the 2nd link is to the free science videos including science experiments.
🦋PRESCHOOL
https://thefamilyschoolonline.org/#/
The family school also has a preschool. It is called HeartStart. I love that it is also linked to the gospel and more of a joy-school format. My thought the more I go on this journey we call life is how important the foundation we give our kids is. I feel that they need matters of the heart more than of the mind while they are small. The sections are tied to nature, family, love, joy, goodness, and God. Along with learning their letters and numbers they learn character and manners and are exposed to good and beautiful things. You can try out the first unit of HeartStart for free.
🦋 Preschool free craft for Learning the Letters of the Alphabet
Speaking of learning the letters: Tanzi and I did this together for her preschool. The one-on-one time was something she looked forward to. We put them in a 3 ring binder and added one page at a time. She enjoyed watching her animal collection grow! This was HIGH motivation to learn the letter names and sounds.
A free download for both the uppercase and lowercase letters.
https://blog.allaboutlearningpress.com/category/abc-crafts-uppercase/
https://blog.allaboutlearningpress.com/category/abc-crafts-lowercase/
🦋MATH:
Hands down the Good and the Beautiful is my favorite math course! The Good and the Beautiful is Christian and Bible based - brings God and goodness into learning math, and ties each math concept to a story of how this is applicable in your life. Beautifully done in full color lessons! All learning types - Auditory, Visual and Tactile are brought into the lessons. Fun games and such variety in their worksheet pages and the way they practice math. Develops a strong number sense. All of my kids LOVE this math...and I do too!
Levels K-3 are available – they hope to release level 4 by the end of the year and are developing 2 levels each year.
*I've also used Math U See. The lessons are taught online (or DVD) by a great math teacher. Then they have workbooks for the problems. River did this course mainly independently! She watched the lesson and for the most part understood how to do the work. There is also an instructor manual. So if she occasionally didn't understand the lesson - I would watch it online with her and then read the instructor manual and together we could figure it out. One thing about this curriculum is it is very thorough and every year covers one major concept: Addition, Subtraction, Multiplication, Division, Fractions, Percents and Decimals... Pro: the kids definitely mastered that concept by the end of the year. Con: It got to be a little tedious when the entire year was on division. Of course they also regularly review all concepts previously learned.
🦋Language Arts: K-12
I am passionate about teaching kids to read! If they have a love for learning and an ability to read - they can learn anything! I have 2 programs I use simultaneously for K-3. Yes, it is probably overkill - but they each teach in a similar way with the phonics, but in completely different ways with the activities and way that it is presented. What I like about doing both is the variety the kids (and I) get and the extra exposure to words and practice. I set a timer for 20-30 minutes and go back and forth between the 2 programs. Once we get to 4th grade we do only the Good and the Beautiful. And once in 4th grade, the curriculum supports the kids being much more independent learners.
*All About Reading
This is My Favorite Way to teach reading to little ones! Engaging stories to read and activities that build step by step. They only teach one concept at a time so all of the words they read are either previous ones or from the last lesson.
*The Good and the Beautiful
Phonics, Reading, Spelling, Grammar, Punctuation, Literature, Art Appreciation, Writing, Geography
This one is Christian Based. Beautiful engaging stories are a foundation of the curriculum. Building character and morals hand in hand with language arts. It is advanced - so be sure to take the placement test to start where they are at.
*Letter Tiles app
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/letter-tiles-for-learning/id1314838376
These tiles go along with the All About Reading Lessons - but are fantastic for any reading program teaching the kids to break down words into the different sounds.
🦋HAND PUPPET
My favorite tip! A hand puppet for the little ones!
This diffuses tension/frustration when it is hard and gets them to laugh and enjoy!
Ours is named Ziggy and he is so silly!
PIANO:
I teach my kids their piano lessons. I just started back up again after years when adding on more of my time to teach piano was just too much, so we turned to Online Piano lessons. Colt and I knew Joseph Hoffman at our BYU student ward back in college. He is a WONDERFUL teacher. The kids LOVE him – he is funny and entertaining while also teaching technical concepts in such a good way! The lessons themselves are all free. If you choose to do a paid subscription what you pay for is the sheet music and the practice sessions. These tell the student exactly what they need to practice each day until it is ready to pass off! They even have duet tracks where you play your part of the duet. Really fun and quality lessons! https://www.hoffmanacademy.com/
🦋Math Facts & Reading Practice
*Math Seeds, Reading Eggs and Fast Phonics: An App with a Yearly Fee for all 3 programs - The kids progress through maps with each lesson having several practice games. They get to crack a seed for math or an egg for reading and get a different animal with each lesson. It is really Fun and gets more practice in - especially for the younger ones when I need to work with older sisters. 30 day free trial to see if its a good fit.
*Free math fact Drills from math u see - you can put in what concepts to drill during that session. Can focus on only one fact or go over several. Covers addition, subtraction, multiplication and division.
https://mathusee.com/wp-includes/popup_math_drill.php
*Squeebles - One time purchase app. The kids get to practice math facts with games and earn little animals. They enjoy playing these to practice math.
* LDSHE - Stands for LDS Home Educators
LDSHE is a homeschool conference that I've attended for 4 years and River attended for 2. Once kids are 12 they have their own youth conference where they bring amazing speakers and presenters. River got to dissect a pig's heart and lungs and was so excited...asking the college professor all sorts of questions. They have fun activities and games and enjoy getting together with other kids doing homeschool.
What I've loved is they record all their sessions - so you can for an annual fee listen to the recordings of all their conferences. From Beginner How do I do this homeschool thing to any topic under the sun. Come learn from veteran moms who have done this for a long time.
Lets Make Art
This has been so fun to watercolor paint! You don't need to buy the kit that comes with everything you need to make the project. Every outline and tutorial is free. Click on a project you'd like to do - and scroll to the bottom to find the outline and tutorial. She teaches great tips along the way on how to improve!
*Typing
2 things I like about this typing tutor: *It's free! *Instant feedback. The kids know if the key was correct or not. They learn one new key at a time and only 1 rule: Don't look at your hands.
*Kahn Academy
Kahn is a free website that has courses on Math, Science, Grammar, History, etc.
It is a solid math curriculum on its own. They want everyone to be able to have access to a free quality education. I've used it to learn how to teach certain math or grammar concepts.
*Games
Games can teach so many things. One thing we are especially working on right now is how to play and have fun...even if you don't win. How to become a great loser is such a valuable class.
Some of our recent Favorites:
*Skull King
*Quirkle
*Cover your Assets
*Nerts (This was one of River's favorites. When she was feeling good she could make the cards fly - I have no idea how she could think and move that fast!)
Please send me some of your favorite resources - especially math facts practice, how you do spelling, and favorite read-aloud books - I love to hear what is a good fit for other families.
I know this was a HUGE list gleaned from 5 years of homeschooling. Hopefully it is inspiring more than overwhelming. Please contact me if you have any questions or if you want to come sit down and flip through some of our resources, or have me show you around some of the websites...you are more than welcome!
