As I continue our homeschooling journey, I’m learning more about how to create a tailored curriculum for my children. Thankfully, my first assignment in my new role as a Schoolhouse Review Crew member is reviewing a Yearly Membership to SchoolhouseTeachers.com, a product which is helping me build a homeschool curriculum tailored to each of my boys.
Yes, I’m a 2016 Review Crew member, which is pretty exciting! I’ll get to try out all sorts of homeschooling products and curriculums and let you know what they are all about and how they can help you in your homeschool.
I’m pretty eclectic when it comes to homeschooling. I often explore several options to get a good fit or supplement our core curriculum.
How can parents build a homeschool curriculum that best fits each child’s age, learning styles, and interests?
A student’s age is one small factor in building your curriculum, but the truth is, age isn’t always an indication of learning level. Some students are way ahead in one subject, yet struggle with others.
SchoolhouseTeachers.com has focused learning centers so you can find resources related to specific subjects and skills.
One child might love to read to learn, while in the same family, you have a child that loves to be active and learn hands-on.
Literature-based studies and “Ditch the Desk” courses are both on the long list of courses at SchoolhouseTeachers.com
Your child may be obsessed with space, or the Renaissance, or be interested in Guitar or ASL. It’s important to let kids explore interests, yet you don’t want to break the bank.
With SchoolhouseTeachers.com, you can let children take introductory lessons to a wide range of subjects before investing further in advanced coursework.
As a parent you want to be flexible to allow students to grow and stretch. While the local library and Internet search engines are a good start to opening doors of discovery, the library may not have every book you want on the shelf (when you need it!). And often search engines lead to resources that each require a different paid subscription.
SchoolhouseTeachers.com is a homeschooling resource that can simplify curriculum building and supplementation by curating a wide selection of lesson plans in one spot.
What you’ll find on SchoolhouseTeachers.com
A collection of courses and lesson plans organized by subject and by grade level.
Plus, a quick links page organized by subject, where you can easily go to the lessons, or read more about the course. This new feature saves you some clicks!
Find a range of subjects and courses – from the Constitution to Christian Values in J.R.R. Tolkien. Imperial Russia? Homesteading? Lapbooking, Lit Kits, the Middle Ages. Ahhhhh! I can’t stop looking!!!
Plus SchoolhouseTeachers.com has printable homeschool planners ($125 value!). Several planners include: special needs, primary, intermediate, high school, and moms – as your children grow, the type of organization you need will change.
How to utilize SchoolhouseTeachers.com resources
Go shopping with a list – Write down topics or subjects to add or supplement in your curriculum.
Bookmark pages and lessons – when you find lessons you plan to use, bookmark them in your browser (use a new folder designated for your SchoolhouseTeachers.com lessons). Then they will be easy to return to later.
Save PDFs to Evernote or Google Drive. Especially if you’re supplementing your curriculum for a child’s interest, you may find you don’t reuse the lessons. So save yourself the ink and paper and keep these lessons digital.
Use their checklists – Courses lists, course trackers, and skill trackers, as well as a variety of homeschool planners (mentioned above) will keep your year flowing smoothly and give you a record of your child’s studies.
Have fun browsing! – For me, it was fun just to browse lessons and courses, get ideas for the future, and see all the possibilities we have as homeschoolers! Unlimited learning!
How we used our SchoolhouseTeachers.com lessons
As I advised, I had a “shopping list” – I wanted to connect our ancient history learning with exciting hands on art activities. I searched the art lessons, keeping a flexible mind and looking for something that fit either the era or geography of our studies. I found Everyday Easels 5-day study of Byzantine Floor Mosaic. A perfect tie-in for us, as we’ve recently covered the Byzantine Empire.
The five lessons fit a broad age range (with variations to the final project). The lessons included discussion of poetry connections, links to examples of Byzantine art and historical facts.
To avoid printing, I saved the PDF lessons to my Evernote app. The lessons are short, and we won’t use them next year, so they aren’t something I need to print and keep. I referred to PDFs on my phone while I taught, which also gave me quick access to show them online examples of art pieces.
The boys had fun with their final project: sticking mosaic paper pieces to large coloring sheets to create their own version of Byzantine art!
Final thoughts on SchoolhouseTeachers.com
The lessons I opened are simple and easy to implement. In the preschool section, there is often a lot of color printing. This makes sense as little kids love color, but would make me think twice about using those lessons due to the cost of printing (some parents may just use the PDFs digitally).
I wish some of the courses had an option to download the full course or lesson set in one PDF, as from what I can tell, you have to open every lesson separately – this is helpful for parents who want to supplement with one specific lesson, but bulky for parents who intend to use the course as their sole curriculum for a subject.
I’ve only been using this site for about three weeks, but already see the value in the range of resources, the planners, and the “extras” like free ebooks, and parent sections.
You could choose to build an entire curriculum by finding courses in each subject for each child. Or if you have a core curriculum you love, pick and choose selectively to supplement.
PIN THIS–>> to your Homeschool Pinterest boards so you’ll know where to find a great resource later!
Get a yearly membership to SchoolhouseTeachers.com!
SchoolhouseTeachers.com is $139 for a yearly membership, or $12.95 / month if paying month-to-month.
You could also do a one-month trial for just $1! The trial is a great way to see how SchoolhouseTeachers.com can work for your homeschool.
Having everything in one place makes SchoolhouseTeachers.com a great value for homeschooling families in my book.
Laura H
Tuesday 5th of January 2016
Thank you for sharing this, I will be checking it out for my little home schooler :)