Big Life Changes Mean Homeschool Changes

We very recently found out about a big lifestyle change we will be making in our family and it means a lot more traveling. I absolutely love the Blossom and Root curriculum but it is not what I would call open and go, so using it meant that we would have to take lots of breaks while we traveled. That just isn’t ideal. The only curriculum I knew of that was pretty all inclusive and open and go was The Good and the Beautiful which I think is an excellent curriculum for a Christian family, which we are not. I have been wishing that there was a secular version of it since I first decided to homeschool. Well. It happened. Harbor & Sprout came out with a preschool and kindergarten curriculum with a first grade one to come soon. It is just language arts, math and reading, but they also offer unit studies that cover social sciences, science, art, music, etc. And it is absolutely beautiful! After looking closely at the samples I decided that it was worth trying the digital copies for preschool and then if it works we can buy the physical copies next year and save ourselves the hassle of printing and binding everything ourselves.

Along with the language arts, reading, and math curriculum I have decided to try out her patchwork unit studies. We are starting with the Human Body. The resources are so aesthetically pleasing and I am so excited to try it out with A. I think he is going to absolutely love it! But I have also been thinking that it would make an excellent curriculum for a co-op because it’s fun unit topics with a wide age range covering lots of different subject areas. Still kind of forming that idea and how I want to make that work but definitely banking it for later. I plan on using the Patchwork Studies at least twice with A: once during his pre-writing years and another time once he is a more confident writer.

I’m also planning on continuing with the art, music, and nature study portion of Blossom and Root. I really love how they have set that up and feel that it is simple enough to plan every week and blends in well with the Harbor & Sprout curriculum. I know that when he is in the older grades I will have to consider a science and social studies program to add onto language arts and maths, but for right now I think this combination will do.

With our frequent travel, I plan on schooling language arts, reading, and math even when we travel for extended trips and saving unit studies and extraneous stuff for when we are at home. Literally everything I need for the core subjects fits inside of one small tote (materials and all) that I can take with me everywhere. Planning is a breeze because I just literally open up to the next page and the lesson is laid out. The lessons are relatively quick. I don’t think they will take longer than 10-15 minutes to complete per subject. I am over the moon to have found this and cannot wait to start. I have planned out our first week for next week and we will see if A is as hyped about it as I am!