Resources

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Bible Study

The Bible Study (Zach Windahl) – This Bible study is a wonderful resource that I’ve used it to fill in many gaps. I really like that it’s divided into two books (one for the Old Testament and the other for the New Testament) as well as the varying degree of difficulty in the questions it asks. This makes it a wonderful guide that the new and born again Christians can enjoy too. It’s been a blessing to be able to do this Bible study alongside my kids as we strengthen our faith together!

The Bible Study Kids (Zach Windahl) – We love this Bible study for kids! It includes games and activities (like fill in the blanks, crosswords, and coloring) that can be used for a wide range of ages. Our family is currently finishing it with our 4 and 8 year old and we’ve really enjoyed the short lessons and activities that have kept the kids engaged during readings. It pairs perfectly with The Bible study so you can reflect on the same scripture together each day.

I really enjoy waking up early to reflect on scripture and then being able to discuss those same readings with the girls afterwards.

The Woman’s Study Bible (NIV) – This was the first Bible I purchased after coming back to Christ. I enjoyed it as a reference and as a means of getting to know scripture better. It works well with the Bible Study above and I read it while listening to the YouVersion Bible app.

Journal the Word Bible (NKJV) – This is my daily Bible. I purchased it when we started attending our church and love that there’s room to take notes at home during my morning studies and at sermons. It’s really enhanced my learning experience and the translation is beautiful.

The Action Bible (Sergio Cariello) – This is a wonderful bible that’s really engaged my oldest daughter! She loves having the beautiful images to look at while she reads. I’d recommend it as early as 7 years old (with more advanced reading skills) up to 12 years old.

The Adventure Bible (NIrV) – This kids bible is easy to read and packed with colorful images and interesting facts! It’s great for kids between 6 and 10 years old.

General Education

The Good and The Beautiful – we started our homeschooling journey with this curriculum and used it with our first daughter until Grade 3 – having went through the private and public school systems ourselves, my husband and I were completely new to the homeschool world at this time.

In the beginning, we loved it because it provided an easy open and go structured learning experience. It’s easy to use, requires little to no preparation, and is simply beautiful.

We did the following courses:

• Language Arts from Pre-K to Grade 2
• Math from Kindergarten to Grade 2
• Science for Little Hands & Hearts – Fields and Flowers

That said, I felt convicted to switch our curriculum this year.

Math with Confidence – For Grade 3 math, we’ve switched to this curriculum. My goal for the year ahead is to make learning feel more natural and play based. We’ll also be diving into the Facts That Stick series for Addition, Subtraction, Multiplication, and Division.

Institute for Excellence in Writing (IEW): Structure & Style for Students – For language arts, we’ve switched to this program. While my oldest is reading at above grade level, I have noticed that we need to do more work on our spelling and creative writing.

Gather Round Homeschool – We’ve enjoyed several unit studies from Gather Round including: Europe, Music, Life Skills, Growing Up With God, and Farming & Food. The studies are great for learning family style and include the option of purchasing accompanying copy work for kids to practice writing and spelling skills.

You will need to purchase a Teacher’s Guide plus the levels needed for your kids – there are several levels to choose from including: Pre-Reader, Early Reader, Early Elementary, Upper Elementary, Middle, and High School.

I have found that pre-reading and cutting down dialogue is important to keep younger kids engaged though as some lessons are acatered more towards older children.

We’ve had experience with both Pre-Reader and Early Elementary levels so far but look forward to going back and doing these units again at the Middle and High School levels.

Growing Up With God has been a personal favorite of ours!

This unit is 10 chapters long and teaches kids about the changes their bodies and minds will go through as they develop into young adults.

It’s an excellent resource that focuses on God’s design for our lives and bodies without delving into topics young kids aren’t ready for!

Music Education

Hoffman Academy – I absolutely love the way Joseph Hoffman teaches piano for kids!

Lessons are fun and concise and Mr. Hoffman always includes humour at the end of his videos.

This has absolutely been worth the investment as my daughter is much better at reading music now than she was when she first started with Simply Piano.

If you’re familiar with the game Guitar Hero, Simply Piano is kind of like that! It’s more about playing the notes on the screen at the right time than actually gaining a comprehensive understanding of music.

Mr. Hoffman teaches kids to memorize songs early on as well as diving into topics like rhythm and basic music theory.

You can try it for free or sign up for a premium membership to get access to musical games and worksheets.

I can’t say enough about this amazing program!

Chordify – This app is amazing for getting kids (and adults!) excited about playing piano and guitar so skip the nursery rhymes and teach your kids the songs they actually want to learn how to play!

Search any song your heart desires and browse the results on Chordify to learn it.

You can even find songs in your native language – we play a lot of Croatian music at home and have never had much luck finding guitar tabs for them. Chordify solved this problem for us!

This app plays the track as you strum and sing along showing you when to change chords. Then, it’s up to you to strum or arpeggiate accordingly.

Pickup Music – this has been a great resource for me as an adult!

Pickup Music has helped fill in the gaps that have taken me from solely rhythm guitar player to an all around guitarist.

I love the structured approach of this program and think that both adults and middle school aged kids (12+) could learn a lot from it.

Electives

Coming soon!

Manipulatives

Learning Resources – I love these products for teaching at home!

We’ve collected clocks, geometric shapes, currency, mathlink cubes, fraction magnets, and pattern blocks over the past couple of years and they have made ALL the difference in our home learning.

My oldest is a visual learner and retains new information best when she’s experiencing things hands-on.

Being able to show kids why instead of simply telling them is a very powerful method of teaching!