What Resources Do You Use For This Subject? | Peppermint Stick Learning Company

“What resources do you recommend for ____?” is a very common question which all of us homeschool moms have asked as we make plans for educating our children. Hopefully some of our suggestions will help you! 🙂

Sometimes our family uses resources which are very well-known to other homeschooling families. Sometimes, however, we end up liking something less common better. After trying a variety of resources and previewing others along our journey, we’ve settled generally into using the resources you will read about on my lists.

Only YOU will know what will be the best fit for YOUR family. And just like us, sometimes that will only be discovered when you try something for a while. 🙂 These are just suggestions to help you on this quest for great educational resources to use for homeschooling!

Page Under Construction

This page is UNDER CONSTRUCTION but hopefully will soon be generally completed. Thank-you for your patience as I move the rest of the information out of older posts into this one spot for you.

“Where Can I Find Help and Ideas for Teaching ______?”

Sometimes I write blog posts with teaching tips for specific subject areas. Any current or future posts can be found by either going to the “Our Twist” tab or “Encouragemints” tab and then to the subject(s) you are looking for.

What does our family like for the subject of ____?

Note 1:

The lists for this page (that you are reading right now) will focus on core curriculum resources (e.g. “spines” – unit studies, worktexts, textbooks, programs) and then some supplementary resources that our family prefers to use in our homeschool journey.

Please note that these lists do NOT generally include the various novels, picture books, videos, etc. which we would also supplement our studies with. To see what we might consider a good choice for those, please go to the tab “LISTS” or the links here:

Note 2:

The lists for this page also does NOT include resources for teaching Bible studies or family Bible time (a.k.a. devotions). This is because we do not view “Bible” as a “school subject” that one graduates from or needs to have a spot on a “report card” for evaluating what is learned. To see what resources we recommend for Bible-related and Christian-character-education-related studies for families, please see go to:

Compilation of Bible-based Resources (a list of various pages and posts on our website(s) to help families learn together from God’s Word)
Bible and Christian Ed. (a shop category of resources we sell)
(And the Character-Building lists mentioned above include some Bible-related resources as well.)

Note 3:

FULL DISCLOSURE: This page contains some affiliate links and some non-affiliate links.

Science

Early Learning – General Science

Our family uses these for K-3 science –

Beginner Science, Health, and Technology (2nd edition) – Kindergarten or a non-writer Grade 1
Science, Health, and Technology LEVEL A (2nd edition) – Grade 1, able to copy short notes
Science, Health, and Technology LEVEL B (2nd edition) – Grade 2
Science, Health, and Technology LEVEL C (2nd edition) – Grade 3

Supplemental Resources:

Kits which we have not used personally but would have I think if we had found out about these earlier in our homeschooling, are hand-cut educational felt and sensory sets by someone we met at a homeschool conference. The link to her website is Twig and Daisy.
I liked what a couple of Cindy West’s (not an affiliate) resources looked like to supplement some science for our family, such as for grades 4-6. She is a homeschooling mom who also develops curriculum, such as for creative nature walks – which is good for ANY age! Sometimes the student pages of her typical unit studies resemble “fancy writing paper” so we do not find those very useful. But her suggestions for video content, some literature, and organizing of the topics are fairly good. To me, she offers some good resources to supplement our studies.
See also some resources listed under the “Health/Phys. Ed” heading.

Middle to Upper Grades – Various Science Areas

Personally for my own family, I do incorporate a lot of things which I’ve either developed or organized from “wherever”, including my own life as a student years ago. But here are some resources we have included in our science studies beyond the primary levels:

Pearson Education Prentice Hall Science Explorer Series (e.g. Earth’s Waters) – There are life science titles, earth science titles, and physical science titles (which includes chemistry). They are full-colour, thin hard-cover, straight-forward, pleasant layout/font/graphics, comprehensive textbooks. The majority of the lessons in most textbooks of this series are presented very well for grades 4 (advanced) to grade 10 levels. You might have a challenge finding these but they might be offered as “used” somewhere. (Note: These are secular materials although in many (but not all) of the titles, the objectional content is not as much as some other textbooks I’ve seen.)

Ellen McHenry’s Basement Workshop (affiliate link): Ellen McHenry develops curriculum differently than some homeschool publishers and we like how that is. See her website for titles. We began with her Botany curriculum and also printed out her chemistry books (the general one and the one for carbon chemistry). She has printable e-books for some curriculum. See my review about her science curriculum at this link.

Science Shepherd (not an affiliate link) has a senior high school level Biology textbook, DVD, and lab course (with all labs on DVD if you can’t do them in real life). It is very comprehensive but presented quite well. It has a solid science foundation with a lot of great details and comes from a creationist perspective. If a “conversational style” for curriculum bothers you this might be the answer. (Conversational style is where there are paragraphs upon paragraphs telling you sort of a story to get to the main points. We didn’t want that style ourselves so that is why we searched for something that would be a better fit for us.) The downsides to this program was that the videos were mainly done in “a talking head” style and that the chapters were sometimes more detailed than what they needed to be for high school levels.

Journey Homeschool Academy (affiliate link) has online science courses with a great video and notebooking component to them. See my reviews describing the senior biology and senior chemistry courses at these links: Biology and Chemistry

Other Science

Environmental (Ecology)

I’ve been using my own compilation or draft version over the years for this subject area. It has not been published yet but perhaps someday.

Water Science

(These are not affiliate links.)

Properties of Water: “Science Mom” has 7 excellent videos (YouTube) of MESSY EXPERIMENTS and accompanying free, downloadable booklets with activities. See this link for part 1 and the rest follow it on her website. https://science.mom/science-mom-s-guide-to-water-part-1
Water (critical thinking): Here is an interesting website from a retired chemistry faculty member in B.C. and his summaries of water and its scientific properties are quite good for upper level thinkers. Avoiding scams which prey on people who don’t know or remember scientific principles is the main purpose of his site. Click here for that website .
Bernoulli’s Principle (air): These experiments are only a bit “messy” but I’m adding a link from “Old School Science” here, partly to show you that science can be “a blast” to learn! 🙂 These take more room/space so you might want to take these ones outside.

Outer Space (Astronomy)

I’ve been using my own compilation or draft version over the years for this subject area. It has not been published yet but perhaps someday.
- Homeschool Astronomy (not an affiliate link) is presented quite well. However, if you want something simpler, you have to summarize some of the details or leave them out. I use this as a resource to supplement my own (draft version) curriculum for my high school students, although younger ones might watch the slides as well.
- Moody Science Videos – We also supplement our studies with videos relating to astronomy (including Planet Earth).
- “What You Aren’t Being Told About Astronomy Volume 1: Our Created Solar System” (Creation Astronomy Media) is also a video resource we would use for high school level.

Math

Reinforcement of Facts – Our favourite drills are Mad Minute: Mastering Number Facts (reproducible drills for grades 1-8, all in the same book) published by Dale Seymour Publications. (We have sold this book and might have one or so left in clearance.) I usually allow 2 or 3 minutes to complete the page, rather than 1 minute. My reason for using drills is not speed but rather review of facts. I don’t use drills every year. When I use them, I like to use them right at the beginning of the school year, before I have the students work much in their new math books. This is partly because it’s what I think my grade 1 teacher did years ago (when I started liking Mad Minutes) and partly because it’s easy to do while I’m still busy with my work such as canning and harvesting in the fall.

Beginner Level (e.g. Kindergarten, Pre-primary, Preschool) – Beginner Math Sticks (or former title, Beginner Math JK/SK)

Grade 1 – Math Sticks 1 – This is the kind of math where a kid might announce, “Math is my flavourite subject!”

Grade 2 – Math Sticks 2 – One of my oldest wished I could make her math just like it but at her level!

We continue to include manipulatives, as desired, since playing with these or having the grade 3 student show the grade 1 student how to work with math manipulatives is both fun and reinforcing for concepts. To see what manipulatives we like in our family, see Our Twist on Math for a downloadable, printable list.

Grades 3-8 –

To find out what we have done for math for the JUNIOR/SENIOR ELEMENTARY, you can read the following blog post: Homeschooling Math for Grades 3-8 and Up

Essentially, our favourite math programs for these grades are either Prism Math or “vintage” math textbooks (e.g. from the 1980’s/90’s) but sadly, these are out-of-print and difficult to find.

The “Keys to….” series (McGraw Hill from the late 1970’s I think, available through Christian Book Distributors) might have some similarities in methods/approach and it is still in print. (We are currently previewing some of those titles.)

For our family, I gathered various worksheets we had from my parents and aunt being old-fashioned schoolteachers, some Remedia Publications math units books, and other odds and ends, and organized these according to sub-topic in binders to use, at least for some of the time. I write about it in a blog post: Homeschooling Math in Unit Chunks for Grades 3-8.

We have also appreciated the Nelson math handbooks (Canadian versions) – Math to Learn (gr. 1-2), Math to Know (gr. 3-4), Math at Hand (gr. 5-6), and Math on Call (gr. 7-8) (which may still be on clearance in our shop). Also the high school titles – Algebra to Go and Geometry to Go.

High School Levels

To find out what we have done and are doing for math for grades 9-12, please read this blog post: High School Math. Additionally, we will also be previewing Remedia Publications high school level math reproducible resources.

Our family prefers “procedural math” in units or chapters of the same sort of skill practiced (not spiral, not mastery).

Logic Skills

Our family learns “logic” in the subject of math. But the “logic” we tend to use are a selection of fun puzzlers and charts – some pages from resources I found at a yard sale, others from a series called “Perplexors” ( ).

Some families teach logic with a philosophical reasoning method in a specific course/program but we personally have used very little of those type of resources. My overall view on teaching philosophical logic concepts (e.g. fallacies, truths, debate skills for if a=b and b=c, then a must mean c, etc.) is that it is generally unnecessary to do so formal lessons if a student learns common sense in real life situations as he/she grows up naturally with conversations in their family and if a student has a good grasp on reading/interpretation of/application of the Scripture. (Apologetics however, is a topic which we personally include within history or science, depending on the topic, and within Bible studies, of course.)

Reading

Literacy (“how-to” read) — Fluency (practicing reading by reading)

— Comprehension (understanding and expressing what is being read)

For my explanation of READERS (as in the kind of book called a reader) and for a printable list of vintage readers which we personally like to read if/when possible, please see this blog post: Types of Readers

Beginner Level(s)

(e.g. Kindergarten, Pre-primary, Preschool, OR Grade 1)

Readiness books such as Does It Belong? Getting Ready for Math and Reading, a farm animal maze book, hands-on activities mentioned in Designing a Home Preschool, and some of preschool readiness books (various skills) – Note to me – get the titles/links we’ve liked!
Let Me Read: Step 1 (and readers such as these)

Let Me Read: Step 2 (and storybooks such as these)

Grade 1

Let Me Read: Step 3
Spelling lessons are now included within Let Me Read: Step 3. They were originally titled “Gingham” and “Calico” (as two parts of grade 1 spelling available separately).
For spelling in grades 1-2, I recommend using a chunky letter manipulative set such as Unifix cubes (or “Reading Rods”) which have vowels in one colour and consonants in another colour. The chunkiness of the cubes makes it easy and fun for little hands to put together to make words, rather than the flat paper kind of letters.
Phonics is Fun! Unit 1 Consonants (some of) and often Phonics is Fun! Unit 2 Vowels (the hands-on and listening activities for short, long, and y as a vowel)
Hallway Vowels Posters (introducing these but using them more in Grade 2+)
Phonics Readers Set 1 (Reading Rods, stories include “A Bath for Rags”, etc.)
Readers from the Canadian Reading Development Series (reprinted) and Sally, Dick, and Jane series (vintage), Sandy and Susan series (vintage, Canadian), and sometimes the Alice and Jerry series too. We like using story readers as well as little thin information books and picture storybooks! I also try to choose one or two short novels for the end of grade 1 such as “In Grandma’s Attic” (Arleta Richardson) and/or Heidi (adapted, Spyri).
In the past, we have also liked and used to sell Level A of Sadlier Phonics for grade 1. It is good but American-based (and very very American-based in themes for grade 2 and up so we just kept to the grade 1 level). We did discontinue it partly because they were going to “update” the edition and partly because we preferred something that would be Canadian or at least, not American, for us.
There are two other phonics reproducible books which our family uses when we are studying “consonant blends and digraphs”. These are: Little Books of Blends and Digraphs by Sherrill B. Flora, Key Education Publishing Company LLC, and Investigating Phonics: Blends by Kevin Rigg, World Teachers Press. (The “Little Books” one is particularly a family favourite and have very cute stories! We circle the letter combos as we read the story together, colour and cut, and sometimes (but not always) do an extension activity. Sometimes we’ve also used some cute phonics posters from “Teacher’s Friend” publishing but I think the kind we have are out-of-print/unavailable. They show one sound per poster with common example words and can be helpful for a visual learner.

Grade 2

Spelling lessons are to be included within Let Me Read: Step 4. They were originally titled “Denim” and “Canvas” (as two parts of grade 2 spelling).

We generally use our own lessons for reading and the remaining titles of this series are not yet finalized for publishing/sale. You can see our notes on the page “Bundles”.
For reading comprehension, our family uses the activities in our older book entitled “Let Me Read: Reading Comprehension for Primaries” (out-of-print).
For fluency, we simply read a variety of materials. By this point, our kids typically understand “how-to” read but just need more practice time.
For phonics, we use more pages of the resources listed under “Grade 1” and sometimes the Phonics Readers Set 2. The topic of vowels is what we focus on, including introducing vowel digraphs and r-controlled (which are good to also study in grade 3). Of course, the other phonics skills are taught too (e.g. plurals, prefixes, suffixes, ending blends, etc.).

A funny story about our spelling curriculum… 🙂

Generally, the curriculum that I’m using is easily understood by the student and I don’t need to be interrupted while say, teaching or modelling a writing skill to one group to answer questions about spelling. In other words, spelling is often something my kids work independently on, without needing me.

However, I will admit that one afternoon, Dandelion (webname) did indeed need me to explain something in his spelling lesson… his little brother was still napping when I heard “bang-twang-BANG-TWANG” GETTING LOUDER AND COMING FROM MY KITCHEN!!!

“What ARE you doing?” I queried, still amazed at his boldness to continue to crash two of my pot lids together.

“Oh,” he replied calmly, with such a sweet smile beaming across his face and announcing with an increasingly important and pleased-with-himself tone of voice. “I’m doing my spelling! It says I’m to do this right in the book!”

Now, keep in mind, that I had written that curriculum and that declaration made me very puzzled – I hadn’t remembered instructing children to bang lids together for spelling – I was sure I hadn’t done that!

“OK, hold it a minute,” I said, “WHERE does it say THAT?”

“Right here! It says I’m to clap cymbals for each word.”

Dandelion pointed to a sentence of instructions:

“Clap the syllables for each word….”

So yes, depending on your situation, you might need to help someone with spelling!

Grade 3

Spelling

We have used an old Canadian school speller from the 1980s, published by Nelson – I think it’s called “Spelling in Language Arts” – it’s the same title I used in school and I liked it back then too. Sometimes though, we might try other spelling programs.
“Word Ladders”, a reproducible book by Scholastic, is a supplemental resource we’ve enjoyed.
Some of our kids liked to use Target Spelling (Steck-Vaughn) for junior levels; we used to offer these but they are quite pricey and not reproducible. They are also harder to judge which level a student might be in.

Grades 4/5

Spelling curriculum for this level has been created which our kids use and really like! Look for it to be included in Reading Sticks or as a title on its own soon! (It’s almost ready!)
Test-taking Strategies (Remedia Publications) is a good “reading comprehension” resource for teaching students (grades 4-8) how to write tests. Our family uses this reproducible book at some point in junior or senior elementary grades.

Grades 6, 7, and 8

Spelling curriculum is under current editing and plans are to include it within the Language Arts Sticks Grades 6-8 title, alongside grammar and penmanship. As of 2025, it is in draft version.
Working with Syllables is available separately now but would also be part of the newer title.
Our family likes to focus on either composition writing OR reading comprehension each year, rather than having too much of both. In other words, every other year, reading comprehension means learning skills. But even in the years when reading comprehension is emphasized, it is not a daily subject; instead it is more likely to be once or twice a week.
- On the “off” years (when writing skills are emphasized), it more so means that kids simply enjoy reading a bunch of books and I provide them with a suggested book list. I like allowing students to simply read a good variety of literature without the pressure to dissect everything. Sometimes it spoils the delight of a book or article if a child/teen “must” write a report to show they have understood the theme or fill in answers to chapter questions and feelings. While I agree with doing these sorts of activities with books occasionally, it is only occasionally.
For reading comprehension, our family has a variety of lessons which I’d like to compile into the “Literature Studies” title someday. The main characteristic is to learn about some general categories/genres, literary terms and techniques, and to use one’s own choice of literature for analytical skills.
- In general, I like to illustrate a point about literature by using short stories or excerpts instead of through longer novels. It takes less time, is more fun in my opinion, and helps a specific point stick easier because usually it involves one storybook (or poem) for each point rather than several lessons appearing at different portions of a single plot-line. That means it is easier for students to recall by memory that such-and-such literary feature matches with such-and-such story and thus, if associated with something easy enough to recall, the point can be applied to new stories/poems quickly because that point truly “sticks” in the student’s mind clearly.
  - As an aside, this method of “associating something with another thing that is short and easily recalled by memory”, is also sometimes seen in how a piano teacher might teach musical intervals – to associate one familiar tune which begins with each type of interval, e.g. Amazing Grace begins with a perfect fourth and knowing that point/fact, helps music students to figure out/apply this knowledge in new pieces of music. See https://www.musicnotes.com/now/tips/musical-intervals-train-your-ear-with-these-easy-songs/ for more examples in music if you’re interested further.
- I try to present “reading comprehension” as learning useful skills for various subjects. Once a specific skill is understood then sure, we’ll review it from time to time but I don’t feel that reading comprehension needs tons of practice in and of itself. Nor do literature studies need tons of practice in order to learn to enjoy good literature or respond to how an author expresses something. If reading skills can be understood with just a few examples, then those skills can be applied whenever and wherever they are required or desired in the future. That ability to apply knowledge to other pieces of literature (including non-fiction) is the main point of why teachers teach reading comprehension! We want students to feel confident to apply comprehension skills when reading (or listening to) historical perspectives in textbooks, geography articles, science information books, health-related research versus scams, poetic structures in an essay, absorbing the vivid language of a novel, understanding the richness of a piece of music, etc.. Too often, I feel that the focus has traditionally been on “content” (studying one piece of literature after another piece of literature to enjoy a different storyline). I like to put the focus on the SKILLS needed to enrich comprehension instead, give some examples, and then move on to other topics.

High School

See English under “Writing” (below).

Writing

Composition – Penmanship – Grammar

Beginner Level

Beginner Printing (or the newer title – Beginner Printing with Fine Motor Skills) – I use this program for both kindergarten years (JK/SK)!
I also typically add a page or so of supplementary pre-handwriting and/or maze books for meaningful busywork, either from my childhood days or from a book or so that I have around here. Examples: Pre-Handwriting Practice published by Key Education, Fun Farm Animal Mazes published by Dover (sometimes available through us). I also like including items such as large beads, sewing cards, clothespins, and homemade playdough.
Tell Me Cards: Modelled Writing for the Very Young – I like using this title in kindergarten to grades 1 or 2 or until the student is confident to write short stories on his/her own. (In this title, the student dictates and then copies what the parent writes. And also, other basic writing skills are learned in this curriculum.)

What can many kindergarten-age children do? They can learn to print in large letters. They also love the hands-on activities and pre-writing art skills including scissors skills! They can dictate their own stories from little journal prompts and copy under “Mommy’s” printing. They can learn by modelled writing about basic grammar and basic sentence writing. It is fun to learn! By grade 1, they can begin to copy very short summary notes to make a science notebook, use a ruler to help them make a diagram, and help to sew a picture storybook they created with dental floss!

Primary Levels

Printing Lessons for Primaries – I use this for grades 1 and 2 (both grades) or grades 2 and 3 (depending on the student and how old he/she is in the grade level).
Handwriting Designed for Grade 3
(I have also occasionally used a supplementary extra practice book for fun that came from an old schoolteacher. The book is entitled: First Lessons in Written Language for Second or Third Grade by Claire Roberts, Hayes School Publishing Co., Pennsylvania. It has vintage-style drawings for some pages so that children can colour and cursive write answers.)
Tell Me Cards: Modelled Writing for the Very Young alongside or followed by…
Creative Writing for Primaries (which is designed for grades 1-3 – all three grades in one helpful resource)!
Songs, Riddles, and Poetry – designed for all grades (elementary and high school) – ideas for writing such (not for analyzing famous poetry). We don’t use this every year. But it can be nice as a short unit study for writing poetry.
I use a number of my own designed lessons for grammar too. But I haven’t finalized most of those for publishing yet. 🙂
Our family also uses sometimes, the writing handbooks (Canadian editions) called Write Source Handbooks, especially the Write Away and Write on Track as reference resources.

Grades 4-8

Handwriting Designed for Grade 4
For grades 5/6, I use a selection of penmanship copywork which I put together a number of years ago. I have to make a cover and get an ISBN number for it and then it should be ready for our shop.
Keyboarding lessons (typing on a computer): The resource (book) our family has used is “Writing Skills Keyboarding Skills” by Diana Hanbury King, published by Educators Publishing Service.
Aaron’s Story: Advanced Penmanship with a Twist
Mastery in Writing Fluency Unit Level Eight of A Basic Writing Course by C.E. Stothers and J.W. Trusler, published by W.J. Gage & Co., Limited, Toronto and used in public schools many years ago. (vintage, out of print) One of the reasons we like this title is because it incorporates fluency in scribbles as well as some “real life” interesting and practical things to write for a lesson, along with numbers. (In other words, it isn’t just about writing alphabetical letters and poetic or famous quotes.) In our family, penmanship lessons have ended in grade 7 or 8 (usually grade 8).

Writing Stories, Letters, Reports, Essays, and Speeches is designed for grades 4/5-12 and useful grade after grade.

Grades 9-12 – “English”

Writing Stories, Letters, Reports, Essays, and Speeches is designed for grades 4/5-12 and useful grade after grade.
We also like to use what is mentioned in our blog post “High School-Level English (that isn’t boring)”.
This is also a subject where the topic of “Career Studies” might fit well (learning about different careers, options for post-secondary training, how to do a resume, etc.).

Arts

Visual Arts — Music — Creative Storytelling/Presentations

Visual Arts Elementary Levels:

Art for Grades 1 to 8 (renamed and updated as Multi-grade Art Projects)
Lessons in Perspective Drawing by Lester E. Showalter (not sold by us; you can find it at Rod and Staff Publishers)
FreeSchool YouTube channel for Famous Artists for Kids
“How to Draw” lessons of mine (unpublished) – These are basic drawing lessons from my school-days.
The above lessons that I provide for my children not as technical step-by-step style as Barry Stebbing’s “I Can Do All Things” video curriculum. I find though that his lessons are quite technical and although we’ve gone through portions of it too, none of our children have enjoyed it enough to complete all of the lessons he teaches.
Art lessons within the Nature Friend magazine , occasionally. (Our kids have enjoyed these.)
David W. Emke’s Art to colour – We sell this Canadian artist’s miniature drawings in our shop and include some of them in our ministry website, The Word In Our Hearts. He wrote the “Pencil Points” portion (drawing lessons) in Art for Grades 1 to 8 as well. Children, young and old, enjoy colouring these and getting ideas from them for drawing details.
And for the “littles” who are finished early or are not involved in the art lesson, “Paint with Water” books are nice to have on-hand.

Visual Arts High School Levels:

We’ve sometimes combined portions of the following resources (including ignoring some lesson material and changing assignments for some other lessons to be more relevant and/or less boring) into a one-year course:

Artistic Pursuits Senior High Book One: The Elements of Art and Composition by Brenda Ellis (not sold by us)
Artistic Pursuits Senior High Book Two: Color and Composition by Brenda Ellis (not sold by us)
The Eye, the Shutter, the Light, the Color: An Introduction to Photography by Chloe Lee, Oak Meadow Inc. (not sold by us)
Nature Friend Magazine – drawing lessons (only one art instruction book of theirs – You Can Draw Wild Birds – is sold by us at the moment). Click here for the link to the magazine.

In the teen years, an art course could be general (e.g. traditional education) and/or specific to a student’s career or hobby interests, for example, woodworking or jewelry-making or stock photography (digital art). Sewing and similar hand-crafts are mentioned under “Family Studies” (continue scrolling) but could be considered an art course instead.

Some other potential ideas:

“See the Light” is a drawing/painting unit study video approach.
Photography – James Staddon at https://www.lenspiration.com/ (Full disclosure: This is not an affiliate link). I heard him speak at a Christian online homeschool conference and had a bit of contact with him at that time. I would definitely recommend his website although none of our family have gone through his course(s) yet.

Music: See this blog post “Joy’s Picks for Music…” for resources and ideas

French (or other languages)

French can either be taught together or on their own with a CD or both. The program we like the best is Mission Monde by MFB Publications and it is sold in our online shop here. This French curriculum could also be arranged to be a daily lesson sort of schedule. Some of our kids went through it more so as a once-a-week lesson and often it was used as an independently-learned subject rather than with much input from me (other than to mark tests or check to see where a student as at). One of our kids also took the Spanish program for a year from the same publisher and enjoyed it too.

I think one of my favourite ways to provide French lessons is to take this subject out of the regular school months and use it as a special study over the summer break, when we can take more time to use the language.

We might supplement our French studies with:

Lyric Language videos (Penton Overseas Inc.) – These are kids’ songs using both French and English words to learn the second language. It also uses Bil Keane’s “Family Circus” cartoons.
Hide & Speak French by Catherine Bruzzone, Susan Martineau, Claudine Bharadia, Louise Comfort (ISBN# 9780764125881.
ELI Dictionnaire Illustre Francais – a French-English Illustrated Dictionary (ISBN# 9788881480906). This colourful dictionary used to have a fun black-and-white consumable activity book to go with it too (which is not really a school-like “workbook” but rather like a fun activity booklet to reinforce the vocab).
French posters – We’ve used some from “Poster Pals” (and may still have some of these in our clearance). I also handmade a set of posters for our family’s use with cut/paste pictures when appropriate. (These would be similar to a French-English Dictionary but instead be posted on a wall to reinforce memory of new vocabulary.)
(I personally also began writing a basic French program for my children based on my French books and charts that I kept from my elementary student years. But this sort of thing is nicely covered in the Mission Monde curriculum so once I found that publisher, that program was better.)

If a second (or third, etc.) language is desired to be learned by and used in frequent conversation with the whole family including parents, then I might recommend Talkbox.mom kits and “phrase book”. Besides the commitment to regularly use the language in daily life, the other potential disadvantages are small print posters needing some wall space and cost of the program. For our family, this program did not fit us well but some of the concepts of learning quicker through speech instead of writing earlier, I felt were thought out quite well.

Greek or Latin? Beyond understanding some roots to the English language in upper-level spelling, our family does not study these languages unless there is a personal interest. One year we used resources from Song School Latin (DVD, workbooks) for a son who wanted to understand more botany. Another year, we provided a few introductory resources for Biblical Greek including an Interlinear New Testament for a son who has some interest in this. But we don’t personally have these as general subjects for everyone.

An introduction to Linguistics is another possible resource to consider with this. See our blog post “High School-Level English (that isn’t boring)”.

Canadian Geography

Canadian Communities – This is what I use for students for full-year curriculum somewhere in grades 2-5. (I can pair it with Making Maps of Canada if there are older siblings needing a higher level of map skills during the same time as the younger children are going through Canadian Communities.)
We also like using Apple Press Map Skills reproducible books, usually one per student per year but not always. (Some years, we might focus on atlas skills instead and some years, a student might do two Apple Press books.)
See the Canadian History section (below) for my comments about the other Apple Press books.
See the World Geography section (below) for my comments about the atlas I especially like to use with K-4 students.
InfoCanada Books (Nelson Canada) – These are produced for public schools but are nice to use as reference books in grades 4-10. There is a series with titles by the province or territory and a series on the geographical regions of Canada. While we look at them in the junior levels, we use these more for project-based and notetaking in grades 9-10. (If desired, these could be used in a more traditional manner since there are questions and ideas written in each of the books.) One student of ours used a series of these but expanded it more with other information sources such as some videos we found on related topics for a full-year history/geography course she called “Across Canada: Past and Present”. We might have a few InfoCanada books left in stock.

World Geography

For marking up one (or more) large poster-size maps (17×22″), we have liked the “class set” of 30 identical world activity maps by McDonald Publishing (McM236). We no longer have stock of these. It seems that Teacher Created Resources acquired some of their past publications but it doesn’t look like this specific product is in print. (Michaels (the craft store) also used to carry these.) Topics I can teach with this kind of resource include latitude/longitude, time zones, locations mentioned in the Bible including prophetic names, world weather patterns, mountains, deserts, rainforests, etc..
Beginning Geography, Grades K-2 by Evan-Moor teaches some basic map skills and I have liked using it for this rather than some other beginner level map books.
Our Big World and People – We use this for full-year curriculum somewhere in grades 2-5/6. There are so many neat things to learn and do and this one is fun for the younger children too! (Sometimes I’ve divided this one into two years’ worth for our family, especially if I want to slow down and expand it for the older students.)
Atlases:
A globe (we use a beach ball version) or an inexpensive fold-out/rollable world map
Mapping the World Through Art (Ellen McHenry, this is an affiliate link) is video-based curriculum which teaches world geography through art. Our older kids went through this one year; it was different but pretty good.
For our family, we compile various points of information about countries on posters as one of the ways to learn about them.

Canadian History

Canadian History – please also see our current listings in our shop here. (I still need to list some other resources below.)

For a high school textbook of Canadian History for the 1900s, our family uses Canada: Our Century, Our Story by John Fielding and Rosemary Evans (published in 2000). (We used to offer it in our web shop but have discontinued Nelson products in more-recent years and we have none in-stock of this title.) It is a good, straightforward history textbook. My dad (who taught high school and liked history too) also previewed this book briefly and thought it was a pretty good one.
For a study on Canada in the 1900’s to present day, I have liked using the Powerpoint slides created by Mike Zietsma (designed for high school level).
We also have used a couple of other “slide” presentation resources:
- One of those resources was “generally OK”. There were many pictures (good) but sometimes we rearranged the lessons to be more chronological (especially for Unit 2) and there were a few corrections needed too. It was designed for a senior high school level. (We did not care to do the assignments but some of the test questions for a final exam were selected from this material (and some from other resource).) Bundle Unit 1 up to 1774, Bundle Unit 2 from 1774-1867 (non-affiliate links)
- The other ppt presentation slides were very good and designed originally for grade 7 (middle school). We enjoyed these slides and here is a non-affiliate link to the bundle of those sets on TPT’s site – New France, British North America.
Provincial or regional history/geography – We have used a variety of “local resources” for making our own unit studies to study “close to home” maps, industries, communities, stories, etc.. Sometimes we have also included one or more of the province titles in the Land and People series by Apple Press (e.g. Ontario, Nova Scotia or even the one for P.E.I. while studying Anne of Green Gables for literature or British Columbia to supplement a unit study on agriculture). These worksheets can inspire further study a particular sub-topic so you could also expand these into project-based learning opportunities for some of the lessons or use what you learn on the worksheet to do keyword searches for supplementary literature, multi-media or virtual field trips. In other words, if you like learning with “rabbit trails”, these resources could help guide those. Apple Press books went out of print and we sold our stock; you can check The Learning House or another homeschool vendor for availability.

American History

For our teens who have also enrolled as students with the North Atlantic Regional High School (see here about this option for homeschooled students), that diploma has a requirement of one credit in U.S. History. So, as non-Americans, and as a family who do not feel the need to learn tons of details about it, we had to design a high school level course of study for this subject instead of just using a typical history program.

One year, we used a selection of videos on USA history (e.g. Youtube, Vision or Christian History Institute videos, etc.) and the students wrote notes and wrote a video script as one of the creative projects. Then for an independent project (on a “science fair” presentation board), the topics chosen were about people groups (e.g. Mennonites, Amish) which exist in both countries, so it was something relevant and of interest to our teens. (The resources were specific to sub-topics often and were sometimes primary source materials.) Another year, the teen used the upper-elementary textbook and student activity book from Notgrass’ America the Beautiful up to 1877) and added more notetaking and projects to make it into a high school level for expected work. The projects again related to what would have shared similarities in both countries, so that the studies became more relevant to a Canadian student. Think of projects such as researching how canoes were made, making moccasins (measuring, drawing pattern, cutting, leather sewing), real clay dish, basket-weaving, cooking something without electricity, candle-making, rug-braiding, etc..

World History

Ancient Civilizations (Creation to the Roman Empire), Biblical History

Early Church Period to 1600’s, European History (Dark Ages, Renaissance, Reformation)

Latin American History, General World History, (Music History listed elsewhere)

More Recent World History, Missions

We personally study this section of history sometime during grades 4-8 but not as much in other grades.

Grades K-3: Younger students might listen-in on lessons or just use world history time to play to colour, perhaps something related, perhaps not. For example, a younger student might colour a simple picture of a castle if his/her siblings are learning about castles. But I don’t worry about finding corresponding material for the younger level on this topic as I think it is not overly meaningful to the little kids.

Grades 9-12(+): If a high school student desires more in-depth study on this topic, he/she simply reads or watches more about it but we don’t use it as a history course at that level. If a world history resource is used for “schoolwork” at that level in our home, it would be for perhaps an English assignment such as an essay or report. Alternatively, if a high school student has interest in world history at his/her level, then he/she might study in a unit approach where a specific area of history is researched for 4-6 weeks instead of other topics for that time (other than math, practical work skills, and music practice). But we have not had a high school student who works on a half or full-credit’s worth for world history yet (and we’ll be graduating our 4th next year). It is a possibility that our 5th might end up with such a course due to his interests as an elective. (One of my electives in public high school was ancient history and I liked studying and presenting in that class, especially my project on Jewish history. Later in university, one of my electives within my science degree was European history, another one was History of Medicine, another called Understanding Israel, and another was Christian Hymnody (music history). I do see its value as an elective.)

What we do?

We read, discuss, watch films, and make a notebook (which includes diagrams, charts, maybe a small project type of thing).
Apple Press’ book has three short quizzes which we might do individually or together as a group.
We spend a fair amount of our time looking at world maps, including historical maps and how things changed
Sometimes, my children have worked independently on learning world history with minimal guidance and other times, I’m more involved in the lesson work if the students are more talkers than readers/writers.

Another way we have studied world history is alongside in-depth Canadian history, adding in what is happening in the world (major events or people who are significant-enough to be mentioned to our family). We’ve done this through adding in various videos, books, stories, and a timeline. Some pictures from the timeline were purchased from Homeschool in the Woods. (However, we only used a portion of those and for Canadian people or events, we had to find our own pictures for the timeline.)

Both of these resources work very well together:

Images of the Middle Ages (Apple Press) – It is currently part of this World History Bundle in our online shop.
Story of the Middle Ages {Michael J. McHugh and John Southworth, Christian Liberty Press). This book might also be a part of our World History Bundle in our online shop. I don’t tend to use the test/answer key part. The textbook gives enough details in a great way but is NOT overwhelming like so many other world history curriculum. It’s readable but not verbose, has some pictures and maps but doesn’t put every little detail (which is unnecessary anyways) in it. We use it almost more like a reference book rather than a textbook but it does come with discussion questions, vocabulary, etc.

General Resources for World History:

Because our own children understand Christianity to the extent that they can handle more stories and more explanations of church history, we have used Christian History Institute’s “Reformation Overview” (Gateway Films/Vision Video), “History of Christianity” with Dr. Timothy George, and Day of Discovery’s video series by Dr. Joe Stowell “The Dawning: Christianity in the Roman Empire” plus some of single titles of events or biographies of interest. Note: For most students, especially those still in elementary grades, the “overview” in my opinion, in better than the full-movie versions. If later, when they’ve grown up more, they want to watch more details, then fine. But for elementary, I’d rather keep to an “overview” approach for world history.)
For studying more in the early church period, our family really likes Discipleland’s Acts curriculum (Eyewitnesses, Powerful Messengers, Valiant Voyagers) and the Visual Bible’s Acts of the Apostles (Scripture word-for-word acted out).
For British History, you might like to read about the links in the high school English unit study we like here.
The timelines we use most often are The Human Register (Rod and Staff) and the one I designed, Pictorial Bible History Cards (here). Because we have either not had appropriate wall space or used the limited space for other posters, we personally do not bring our timelines out as much as some homeschool families. The children make a couple of simple timelines in their notebooks near the beginning of a study and/or we’ll look at one together that I have made on regular paper for a lesson or so.
Short Lessons in World History (Walch Education, Churchill’s) – We don’t use it as “curriculum” but rather as a quick reference resource to get an overview. (We have tried using a couple other traditional world history textbooks but we did not find them overly attractive so if we can get sufficient historical information from this book alongside our novels and videos, those textbooks are not needed.)
Understanding Latin America (Rod and Staff) – Again, we don’t use it as “curriculum” but this specific textbook IS a good reference resource to read selections from, for any age. It covers the history of Mexico, Central America, and South America well, is from a Christian missions perspective, and includes geography and cultural information for current times.
We also might use, as reference resources for projects or discussions about ancient civilizations, these books: The Puzzle of Ancient Man: Evidence for Advanced Technology in Past Civilizations (D. Chittick) and/or After the Flood: The Early Post-Flood History of Europe Traced Back to Noah (B. Cooper). For an additional upper-level history reference, we have the Annals of the World (Ussher) which is very thick and small print. (It’s rarely used.)
The Integrated Atlas: History and Geography of Canada and the World (Harcourt Canada) – Over 75 full-colour maps of world and Canadian history (includes political and physical maps of Canada and the world). This has been our regular atlas for historical maps over the years.
The Student Bible Atlas (Tim Dowley) – nice for any age of student!
Rose Then and Now Bible Map Atlas (Paul Wright) – overlays and detailed explanations of Bible geography; for older students.
Map Trek Set (Master Books, Terri Johnson) – This is a newer resource which we look forward to using this next year. One book has full-colour maps while the other book has the same maps in black-and-white outline map format. It has over 200 maps (in each), divided into four periods of time (thus would be useful as historical maps, not just for a world geography): Ancient World, Medieval World, New World, and Modern World.
For a student who wants world history as an elective in high school levels, we might consider such resources as
Resources for world history from Christian Light Publishers, and/or Church History in Plain Language (by B. Shelley, an older edition but not current 5th which isn’t as good apparently), or perhaps World History (Revised) (by Master Books; we’d hesitate since MB has not usually been a good fit for us; they tend to be more conversational or wordy about integrating other thoughts instead of focusing on the title’s point).
- Something to pay attention to in world history courses marketed as based on a “Biblical” or “Christian” worldview, is to be aware of from “which” perspective of such a worldview is the author presenting the material? Preterist or futurist? Covenant Theology or Dispensational? It’s fine to read from a variety of Christian perspectives but it’s also wise to know the differences since these impact how one will be trained and/or encouraged in those materials to understand God’s Word and the role of people groups in history and onwards.
Music history resources are listed elsewhere but yes, this would be considered a unit study within world history.
Recent world history – we would tend to use resources such as missionary flashcard stories (e.g. Bible Visual International and other ministries have these), videos which are specific to countries or people groups we want to study more about, and those listed under Canadian or American History.

To me, “looking back” in world history has a certain amount of importance, BUT “looking ahead” in Bible prophecy has also great importance and we do not want to neglect that. Often-times homeschoolers spend a great deal of time studying details of paganism in cultures and/or history which has very little significance to lives today. Much time is typically spent reading about and memorizing useless information for tests and scholarship.

We wanted to minimize wasteful time in our homeschooling overall (e.g. Eph. 5:16, Col. 4:5), so this is why our approach to general world history is less in comparison to most homeschool styles which, for whatever reason(s), emphasize world history instead. See our approach for minimalistic homeschooling here and here.

Health and Phys. Ed

Health Studies:

Our family learns with quite a variety of resources, including many past notes from my schooldays including notebooks I made in elementary school, high school, and university courses. (The science degree I graduated with was essentially a pre-medical kind since I took several from the health or medicine faculty.) I like to also supplement our studies with online articles, visuals and multi-media presentations.

Here are some resources we might include:

Essential Atlas of Anatomy, Barron’s Educational Series Inc., 2001.
The Human Body charts, TREND Enterprises Inc., 2001
Videos by Dr. David Menton (e.g. “The Hearing Ear and The Seeing Eye” (there is a simpler version for kids and a more detailed one for older students of Dr. Menton’s for this topic), “Fearfully and Wonderfully Made” (human reproduction) are the more interesting ones); “Where Did the Races Come From?” (genetics and skin melanin) by Ken Ham, Answers in Genesis-USA; “Human Life” by Moody Science, Chicago, Illinois; YouTube videos such as “Human Immune System” for kids – Body Defense Mechanism (Biology) by www.makemegenius.com and “Digestion” by Bill Nye the Science Guy, Buena Vista Television, 1993.
A family-favourite series for review or reinforcement of human biology lessons is the body systems series of videos from “Once Upon a Life”, found on YouTube. (Note: Some of the other videos in this series are not recommended by us, for example, I think the topic of cells and genetics can be explained much better elsewhere than they do.)
The “First Aid” book from the Canadian Red Cross
We used to sell a superb thin reproducible curriculum book for K-3 levels where the child traces his/her body on large paper and then has simple summary notes and parts of the body to colour, cut, and paste onto the body shape. It is called My Body (TCR0211 – Teacher Created Resources) and has been in and out of print over the years.
One (interactive/visually-appealing) website that we appreciated for understanding some of the cells and genetics topics for a couple of rounds through that unit over these years has been: https://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/basics/
A blood typing kit can be fun
Understanding Nutrition (6th ed. by Whitney, Rolfes) – a colourful university textbook which remains very useful as a reference and to simply read.
Guide to Good Food (11th ed. by Largen, Bence) – one of our high schoolers really liked going through this textbook/workbook on her own.
“With the Skills of Natural Medicine” by Campfire Curriculums is “OK”, alongside other related resources such as “Making Herbs Simple” (video by Easling/Pearl), a medical reference guidebook, and other reference material. It is important however, to carefully consider this topic as what is actual science (which is good) and what might be just a philosophy/idea (which might not be good).
Melissa K. Norris’ website is also a resource with some parts to it which we’ve used for natural health information and food safety. Melissa’s courses can be accessed through a yearly subscription and for a year, one of our teens subscribed and the content was very good.
The Wonderful Way Babies Are Made by Larry Christenson, Bethany Publishers
How You Are Changing (one title is for Boys 10-12, one title is for Girls 10-12), Concordia Publishing House.

Physical Education:

Many homeschooling families sign their kids up for competitive training in their community for learning phys. ed. skills. Our family is more musical and less into vigorous sports. Physical activity of course is still important for healthy habits and it’s good to understand some of the science of movement and enjoy playing and working together with family and friends! Here are some ideas:

Skills for Work and Play (product) – This is how I’ve liked arranging our phys. ed. during elementary levels. At times, we’ve added swim lessons or horse riding experiences or similar by a qualified instructor in a local community and a homeschool co-op or local school might have occasional sports event(s). Hiking on park or community trails is always enjoyed by our family too!
One year we took time to study the skill of orienteering on our property and plan to repeat that unit study again since it was a lot of fun!
For high school levels, our family includes more written studies in with involvement of participating in physical activities of one’s individual interest(s). One can learn rules and tips for games easily through online videos (e.g. YouTube) and playing among family and friends (e.g. teen youth group). For written resources for projects, we might refer to a phys. ed. teacher’s textbook, Developmental Physical Education for Today’s Elementary School Children (D. Gallahue) that I picked up at a used book sale – it explains movements and techniques for various sports. We might use something such as Sports Science: 40 Goal-Scoring, High Flying, Medal-Winning Experiments for Kids (Jim Wiese) or novels or videos relating to athletes or activities of interest.
Biographies such as Terry Fox (Canadian), Eric Liddell (Olympic runner), Dave Dravecky (American baseball player) in novel or video format.
Another nice resource is Games for Everyone (Aaron Hershberger) which includes active group games used at schools including smaller private schools. (Sometimes we have put this book in our shop. If it isn’t listed there and you’re interested in it, we might still be able to special order it.)

Family Studies and Home Skills

A virtual or actual farm tour, example – https://www.farmfood360.ca/
Melissa K. Norris’ website (- she teaches about organic gardening, grinding flour, etc.)
Homesteading for Beginners video series (Erin and Mark Harrison and family) (about small farm life, etc.) (Note: When I’m meaning “homesteading”, I’m NOT meaning a survival-prepper type. Instead, I’m meaning the idea of putting into practice home and land skills that people have been using for centuries in order to work with their hands (1 Thes. 4:9-12) and by doing so, lower family expenses and benefit their community in Christian love. A Christian homesteading lifestyle should reflect dependence on God and love for people, not self-sufficiency and isolationism.)
Skills for cooking, baking, blanching for freezing, canning, making yogurt, etc. are naturally a part of our lives, especially in the summer or breaks. We do not need specific curriculum for these things unless it’s a study on food science. For that topic, I like “Digest Your Dinner” by Ellen McHenry as a unit study curriculum.
Sewing skills – If you aren’t teaching skills yourself (perhaps you don’t have these or perhaps time is tied up with other needs), Christian Light Publishing has a high school level course for this which is quite well done. And a good reference book is Reader’s Digest Complete Guide to Sewing (which was used in a university-level sewing course).
Other topics in this section that you might consider are survival skills (e.g. scouts, wilderness/camp skills), orienteering, weather forecasting, hair-styling/cutting, spool-knitting, rug braiding, basketry, embroidery/cross-stitch, crocheting/knitting, wood burning, macramé, quilting, making slippers/shoes, pattern-making (e.g. hat or other clothing), how to iron safely, driver’s education, ropemaking and knots, etc.
My kids each have a “long-term binder” for handouts or notes about some of the topics listed – a “long-term binder” means that they can add to it year after year and it becomes a reference guide for them by the time they graduate. Theirs includes this book (of mainly recipes) plus other pages that I’ve added for their copies.