What Resources Do You Use For “This Subject”?

“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! 🙂 Here’s how/where you can find these on our website!

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 Renovation

Since this page is UNDER RENOVATION (spring/summer 2023), for most of our list of core curriculum resources, please see the following blog posts. Initially, some of my blogging was to answer about how a week might go and what I might use personally. Now that we either sell most of those resources or are affiliates of where you can find them, I’m taking the resources “out” of those blogs and putting them into lists of subject-based products instead. But this will take time. My goal is to have that sort of information pulled into just ONE post (which is this page) to make it easy to find.

(Explaining the below “blog post titles” of “Monday”, “Tuesday”, etc.: Homeschool schedules are only a tool and should be very flexible. The “days of the week” titles were given because I was giving examples of what our family might generally do on each day of the week. In no way does this suggest that you can only schedule certain subjects on certain days of the week. The original purpose of the posts was to provide ideas for homeschool moms who are wondering about how flexible scheduling can work well in a busy household. However, those posts ALSO contain the lists of resources our family uses – towards the bottom part of those posts so keep scrolling on them.)

“Monday” – lists for Phys. Ed, Visual Art (some), Geography, Printing/Penmanship, Creative Writing (some), Music (some), Math for Grades 3 and up, Homesteading/Agriculture/Family Studies.

“Tuesday” – lists for Health, Math for Grades JK-2, Grammar, Upper Level Visual Art, Reading (literacy, including phonics, readiness), Spelling, Science.

“Wednesday” – lists for French, Writing (e.g. Compositions, Creative).

“Thursday” – lists for Reading (including comprehension, literature studies), Special Languages (e.g. Latin).

“Friday and Summary” – a few more resources listed for Science.

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

I’ve begun to write a series of key posts with links to various blogs within our website on the topic (e.g. teaching tips) plus the products which we have published. So far in this series we have…

• Links for Writing (Creative Writing & Composition)
• Links for Printing and Penmanship
• Links for Math
• Links for Art
• Links for Canadian Geography
• Links for Science

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) 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 supplement our studies with. To see what we might consider a good choice for those, please go to:

• Character-Building Titles for Children
• Character-Building Titles for Juniors and Tweens
• Character-Building Literature for Teens and Adults

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:

This page contains some affiliate links and some non-affiliate links.

Science

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 recent homeschool conference. The link to her website is Twig and Daisy.

Biology

Chemistry

Physics

Environmental (Ecology)

Outer Space (Astronomy)

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!

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. (Math Mammoth is better than some curriculum we’ve tried for grades 5-7 and we’ve also used Jump Math briefly and it was good too.)

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

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.

And we like 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.

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.

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)

Grade 1

Grade 2

Grade 3

Grades 4/5

Grade 6

Grade 7/8

High School – see English under “Writing”

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.)

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.

Grades 4-8

• Handwriting Designed for Grade 4
• For grades 5+, I use a selection of penmanship copywork which I put together a number of years ago (but is not published).
• 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 end in grade 7 or 8 (usually grade 8).

Grades 9-12 – “English”

Arts

Visual Arts — Music — Creative Storytelling/Presentations

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 and not as technical step-by-step style as Barry Stebbing’s “I Can Do All Things” video curriculum (which are quite technical although we’ve gone through portions of it too).
• Art lessons within the Nature Friend magazine , occasionally.
• 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.

High School Levels:

We’ve sometimes combined portions of the following resources (including ignoring some lesson material and changing assignments for some) 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.

French (or other languages)

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 AP 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.

Canadian History

Canadian History – for now, please see our current listings in our shop here.

• 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).
• 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.. Often 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.

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.

Science

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”, “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.
• 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 – again, a high school level (in my opinion). This is something I’d consider using alongside other related resources such as “Making Herbs Simple” (video by Easling/Pearl), a medical reference guidebook, and other reference material. 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) and post with free printable – 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 websites (she teaches about organic gardening, grinding flour, etc.)
• Homesteading for Beginners video series (Erin and Mark Harrison and family) (about small farm life, etc.)
• Sewing skills –