Homeschool Curriculum Picks for 2022-2023

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I’m actually quite shocked (and proud) for how long I waited to nail down our homeschool curriculum picks for our upcoming school year. Usually by March I am ordering things and looking at new curriculum before we even finish up for the current year. It’s so fun to look at new things and to get excited about a “fresh start”. This year though… I have been recovering from some major burnout. I needed a good, thorough break from thinking about next steps and just focusing on what we needed to get finished, engaging with my children on a deeper level, and revisiting my “whys” and not being concerned about just barreling ahead.

Disclaimer: This is for OUR family, and not meant to entice, persuade, or sway you in any direction… especially if you’ve already got your family set to go for the coming year. I am a curious person though, and I like to see what other people are doing. Some links are Amazon affiliate links and I earn a very small commission through these links. Thank you for supporting my family in this way.

Grade 5 – Individual Subjects

Math

So, the only core subject area that my oldest son will be doing that isn’t the same as his siblings is math. We are going to continue using Teaching Textbooks (TT). He started in first grade with Teaching Textbooks Math 3 when we transitioned from Math-U-See because he needed something that moved on a little quicker. Less mastery based, and more of a spiral based approach. He finished up Math 6 with TT this past school year, so he has already started Math 7 and is working on some lessons off and on during our summer break. I love using Teaching Textbooks because the lesson lecture, grading, and questions are all right there in the program and it’s super hands-off for me. I do get involved if he is stumbling on something (which is rare honestly right now), or if he just needs some good ‘ole moral support.

History (Secondary)

When I asked my children what things they wanted to learn more about this coming year, my son expressed interest in learning more about the history of the Lithuanians. Suuuuper specific, I know. He plays a historical real-time strategy campaign computer game with my husband, my sister, and brother-in-law called, Age of Empires. He’s always loved history, but this game has been an amazing resource for him to really engage with history and learn logic, reasoning, strategy, and teamwork… bonus that it’s spent with family!

When I mentioned this interest in Lithuania to my husband, he suggested, because of the extreme specificity of it, that I try to encourage him to pick something in addition to that. The Greeks, British, or Spanish, etc. His thinking was that it would be more relevant to recent history. So I am thinking of having him do a deep dive and using the whole year to study what he wants, complete some oral and written narrations, complete some projects, etc. I haven’t fully worked it all out yet, but he seems pretty excited about it!

Personal Assigned Reading

My kids read lots of books on their own and have a selection of to-be-read books at the ready. However, I took some time to peruse Ambleside Online to check out some assigned reading selections. This is just a short list to start with, but books I think my oldest son (10) will be interested in:

Grade 3 – Individual Subjects

Math

We will be transitioning my oldest daughter away from Math-U-See (she did Beta Level this past year) to Teaching Textbooks Math 3. I looked into how Math-U-See teaches multiplication starting in the next level, and while I understand why they teach it the way they do, I wasn’t keen on the idea for how my daughter learns. For her I think it would confuse her more than the way that we’ve traditionally learned it. She’s also been asking to do the same math as her brother, and she currently has never used a computer for any of her learning. I do think it’s good to have exposure to using a keyboard, mouse, and navigating on a computer. Just enough to get comfortable with using these tools that they will need for the rest of their lives.

Handwriting

This year she will be using Handwriting Without Tears: Cursive Kickoff. In the past she’s used The Good and the Beautiful and Dash Into Learning’s Handwriting Book 1. She’s still learning cursive, so this book seemed like a good fit for her and I think she will like how it’s set up. If you are interested in Dash Into Learning resources, you can get 15% off with the code thewhisperingglen15!

Phonics

So, she’s really past the need for phonics review… but she LOVES the Explode the Code books so much that she wanted to finish through Book 8. I wasn’t going to say no. ha! She will be completing Books 7 and 8 this year.

Personal Assigned Reading

In addition to some of her own to-be-read books at home, these are the initial selections I made from the Ambleside Online Year 3 list:

Grade 1 – Individual Subjects

Math

We will continue using Math-U-See for my 6 year old. She completed the Primer Level in Kindergarten, and will be starting the Alpha Level next. It’s about 30 lessons, and she moved through Primer quickly, so there’s a chance she could move on to the next thing within the same year. We shall see! We’ve used Primer, Alpha, and Beta so far now with our kids, so we only have to purchase new Student Packs for the next kid using a level.

Reading

We started All About Reading Level 1 last year with my youngest daughter, and we are still working through the end of it. We are probably about three-fourths of the way through. After we finish level 1, we will continue on with Level 2. This is the reading curriculum I used with my older two and we just love it so much. They are both really strong readers now. We have been able to use the same materials without having to repurchase anything, so that saves a TON of money.

Phonics

We are going to continue using Explode the Code, and she’s currently working on book 1 1/2. She may finish through Book 2 this year, or depending on how quickly she works through it, perhaps Book 3.

Handwriting

She happens to be finishing Dash Into Learning Handwriting Book 1 right now, and then will move on to Dash Into Learning Handwriting Book 2 after that. I had already purchased it last year for her to move on to. She really enjoys these and they are full of fun drawing and coloring activities too!

Last year I picked up the Dash it All Grammar Games Book as well for some more fun to sprinkle in! This can be a group activity as she hasn’t learned all of these grammar concepts yet.

Combination Subjects Homeschool Curriculum

The older three will continue to do science, social studies, and beauty subjects like music, hymn study, art, and Bible studies together. It makes it SO much easier to be able to do as many subjects together as possible. My older two will also be doing language arts together, but I have a feeling my first grader will join in a bit too with that.

Science

There is so much great homeschool curriculum out there for science. It’s usually the area I have the hardest time deciding on. However, we really enjoyed Sassafras Zoology (Volume 1) this past year from Elemental Science, so we are continuing on with Human Anatomy (Volume 2). It’s set up for a semester, but we will stretch it for the whole year like we did with Zoology. This year I only purchased the teacher’s book and the MP3 of the “textbook” which is set up with a storyline. My kids are really enjoying the story, so I decided to just get the MP3 and not get the physical book this year. Instead of the SCIDAT Logbook from Elemental Science, we will be using SchoolNest Science Notebooks. Some of the other book resources that we will be using include:

In addition to our study of human anatomy, we will be having body talk, early maturation, and age-appropriate sexuality discussions as well. Resources I have collected over the last couple of years, and most recently include:

Social Studies/History

Our time spent “traveling” to different countries and cultures last year was so enjoyable, we will be doing it again! This year I have very high aspirations of immersing ourselves in 18 different countries. This would mean about 2-3 weeks spent on each country. We shall see how many of those we actually get to. We will be utilizing country units from both Little World Wanderers and Thistles&Biscuits again. The countries I have slated for us are as follows: England, Greece, Ireland, Oman, Thailand, Haiti, Vietnam, Ethiopia, Iran, Philippines, Norway, Mexico, Japan, India, Germany, France, Brazil, and Puerto Rico. I have plans to outline how I organize the 2-3 weeks spent in each country in a future blog post! So be on the lookout if that’s of interest to you!

Language Arts

We absolutely LOVED trying a few single BraveWriter Darts at the end of the last school year for my oldest two. I decided for this year we would just go ahead and get the year-long Emerging Writers Bundle as the core of our language arts for my older two to do together. This includes 10 read-alouds with corresponding Dart handbooks that cover grammar, spelling, punctuation, and reading comprehension and more! This bundle also includes a manual called Growing Brave Writers to help me teach my kids how to write, as well as oral language activities and writing assignments for their age level (Partnership Writing). Lots of the BraveWriter pieces can be purchased separately as well.

The Dart for a House at Pooh Corner was a 2021-2022 selection we are doing before August.

The Dart selections for the 2022-2023 school year are:

Read Alouds

While not homeschool curriculum, I thought I’d share the selections I made for a few read alouds to get us started for the year. This is not a complete list, so I will add as the year goes on. These are all books we currently own, or have picked up from the library. The short list of books so far are:

Music

We have LOVED using Woven Melodies by Thistles & Biscuits over the last year. It has literally been the highlight of most of our weeks! We have a few instruments left to learn about in Woven Melodies, but I am soooooo excited to begin using their latest music curriculum release, Living Harmonies (*gifted, but totally would have bought anyway!). Their website states that “Living Harmonies is a tour of musical genres from around the world. In order to foster a broad appreciation for music, this curriculum explores ten musical genres. Along the way we’ll learn about the instruments that make this music, and we’ll be introduced to major musicians who’ve defined each style.” I’m so excited to jump in with the kids!

Image courtesy of Thistles&Biscuits

Hymn Study

I always have great ambitions to study a hymn a month with my children, but it has just never worked out that frequently. I will attempt it again this year with a little more intention by using Happy Hymnody’s schedule and resources. Do you do hymn study in your homeschool?

Art

Jenese with Idlewild & Co. reached out to me about looking at some of their curriculum. After taking some time to look at her offerings, I settled on the Art Study program (*gifted) because I honestly needed something like this to help me out! It’s very simply laid out, and while it’s only 19 weeks of lessons, I plan to stretch that out for the whole year as we won’t be doing art lessons every day. This is a beginners course and will cover different types of mediums, art forms, and the technical aspects of art itself. I purchased these two books (here and here) as suggested to reference as we go through.

Bible Studies

I’m excited to be using a curriculum for our biblical studies this year that comes highly recommended by an organization near and dear to my heart, Women in Apologetics. My sister is the co-founder and President of this organization and I turn to her for recommendations in this arena. (They have a huge list of resources on their website by the way! Scroll closer to the bottom for resources specific to children by age range.)

This year we will be using the Foundation Comparative Worldview curriculum by Elizabeth Urbanowicz for my older two. I printed the PDF pieces at home, but the rest is video based. Elizabeth Urbanowicz teaches each lesson via a pre-recorded video. This curriculum is geared toward 8-12 year old’s, and there is a secondary level for 10-14 year old’s which they will complete another year. My younger two will work through the brand new Early Childhood Series Part 1 (three lessons) as well! My sister and her husband very graciously wanted to gift this curriculum to their nieces and nephews!

A few months ago I took advantage of a great deal for five of the Christian Heroes: Then & Now books (not pictured) and as we can we will incorporate these as a read aloud. We probably won’t get to all five this year, but I hope to read through at least 1-2. The ones I picked up are:

A few other resources we will continue to use for Biblical studies are The Ology, Indescribable Devotional, How Great Is Our God Devotional, gonna check out the newest The Wonder of Creation Devotional, the kids’ individual Adventure Bibles, and Little Pilgrim’s Big Journey.

Any Questions?

That’s it! It looks like a lot at first when it’s all typed up, but not everything is worked on everyday, and sometimes not even every week. My older two do a lot independently, and that’s become really helpful as I get my soon to be 1st grader geared up for really reading well. If you are interested, keep scrolling down to check out our prior year’s homeschool curriculum choices.

Also, if you didn’t know it already, I have my own Customizable Homeschool Planners that I use to plan all of this out now that I’ve selected our resources. There are pieces included such as places to plan beauty subjects on a monthly grid, multiple weekly spread options depending on the students you have, and even a place to pop in your course of study for the year. Essentially a one page snapshot of this blog post for me!

There is a teacher planner only option available, a teacher and student planner combo option, or a student planner only option. Those links will give you a closer look at the pieces included. I also have a walk-through in my Instagram videos (linked below).

If you are interested in reading about prior year’s choices, those are linked here:

4 thoughts on “Homeschool Curriculum Picks for 2022-2023”

  2. Emilie

    This is all so helpful and inspiring. I feel ready to give homeschooling another shot. My question is: what do your children do (or do you do with them) when “school” is over? I felt unable to fill our days.

    1. The Whispering Glen

      I think a lot of it depends on their ages. My kids are about to be 5, 7, 9, and 11 so they are quite capable of entertaining themselves and playing after we’ve finished lessons. They either read books, play outside, play with LEGO or other toys, make a mess creating something…etc. There were days where we’d run an errand, hang out at the library, meet friends at a playground, or we’d get some chores done around the house. I find we don’t really have any problem filling the days up!

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