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The fall is here and so is new homeschool curriculum! Here are five new-to-us pieces that we will be trying in the 2023-2024 school year:
SIMPLY CHARLOTTE MASON
For years and years, I’ve cobbled together my school curriculum, planning lessons and searching for just the right books. But since my life is so full right now, I decided that I needed to take some things off of my plate. I needed someone to do the heavy lifting for me! After a little research, I decided to try Simply Charlotte Mason. We are using the “Modern Times & Epistles, Revelation” history/geography/Bible curriculum plan for my youngest four children, along with the corresponding Individual Study plan for each. Not a perfect fit, but good enough. I’m confident that I can make some easy tweaks if necessary.
AMERICAN ART HISTORY
Art has always been an important part of our family culture. After years of basic art lessons, I decided to change course a bit and try something different! This year, we’re using the American Art History book along with the Drawing American Art Volume I. We are already a few weeks in and loving it.
GUEST HOLLOW’S GOVERNMENT AND PERSONAL FINANCE
For my junior, I found a high school level Government, Economics, & Personal Finance Curriculum from Guest Hollow. I love how she uses a wide variety of books and I can pick and choose what works best for my son. The workbook she created is also incredible and very well done.
TYPING CLUB
The Individual Study plan for my 5th grader (see above) included typing. I looked around for something easy, engaging and preferably free and TypingClub fits all three!
MOVIES AS LITERATURE
My freshman loves movies so I am hoping this Movies as Literature course will be a natural fit for him this year. The course uses seventeen classic movies (like Rear Window, A Man for All Seasons and Raiders of the Lost Ark) to introduce and study literary elements. He will be watching each movie a couple of times through and then writing a paper answering one of the essay questions. Really looking forward to our discussions.
Update from last year’s post: Spelling You See was ultimately shelved, but is getting a second try this fall. We LOVED the birds study and are continuing on this year. Apologia’s Human Body was good and got the job done. My kids LOVED the first Legends & Leagues book, but interest fizzled with the second. We also LOVED Simple Spanish and will be continuing this year too.
The movies as literature course sounds cool! When I had my hs school freshman at hone for the term last spring, I tried to pick literature that had connections to movies as sort of a treat, and we cobbled together some questions. A more formal course would have been so much better. If I decide to bring him home again, I’ll have to try this.
I hope you gave a smooth honeschool year!
So fun! I’m doing something similar with my oldest son, a junior: he has To Kill a Mockingbird, The Great Gatsby and Hound of the Baskervilles for literature this year and I found the old movies to watch after. We always enjoy comparing how different movies are from the original books, so I’m looking forward to the discussions. 🙂
We actually liked the newer version of The Great Gatsby a lot. The music was modern, but it fit the decadent nature of the house parties. And the people playing the characters you’re not supposed to like really did a good job of portraying indifferent narcissists. But the old version has a classic Robert Redford – so there are advantages!
The War of the World novel has some nice comparisons to the Tom Cruise movie. They’re different, but my son talked a lot about how the book was reinterpreted. And Romeo and Juliet made so much more sense for him after watching the movie (the one from the 70s?).
As much as I am glad he’s back in school, I do miss this part of homeschooling. I need to cultivate it more in our day to day life now.
That’s so helpful to know, thank you!
Your homeschooling has always been so inspiring to me.