2026-2027 Homeschool Curriculum Plans

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Planning for this coming school year looks so completely different this time around. Usually I have everything nailed down by January and am so ready to be finished with the current year so we can begin the next. Anyone else? I tend to struggle with follow through - I create big plans only to only follow through with half of them. The 25-26 school year was my first step towards simplicity and digging deep into the wonderful things we had planned. There is always room for growth, but it was definitely a good first step.

So this coming year I am continuing to lean into the simplistic mindset (well, what seems simple to us). But also, having goals that we can aspire to.

One quick note before we begin: These curriculum picks are what has worked/is working/or will hopefully work for our family. I have struggled for years with curriculum and resource FOMO (fear of missing out). I know what it's like to jump from one thing to the next because something always looks better (and it sure is promised to solve all of my problems. :) I share these, not so you feel like you need to ditch all of your current choices, but as a resource for new homeschool moms or moms who are trying to find their homeschooling feet.

Let's jump in!

Toddler Years

I have a super spunky three-year-old daughter who tries to keep up with her brothers in all of the things. She is VERY sure that she also needs to "learn her ABC's". While we won't be doing anything super formal, I am planning a few things for her so that she feels included and we are able to share some quality time.

• Reading Books

One of her favorite things that she requests every single day is for me to read books to her. She is gently graduating from board and "baby" books to wanting longer and more in-depth stories.

I have created a list of books that I would like to read with her throughout the year. They are mostly books from our shelves that her brothers really enjoyed, but also include some other amazing living book classics.

A few of the books on our list:

Little Bear Books

Little House on the Prairie Picture Book Treasury

The Little Red Hen, Goldilocks & the Three Bears, The Three Little Pigs

Blueberries for Sal and Make Way for the Ducklings

Mr. Putter & Tabby Series

The Bear Books by Karma Wilson

If you'd like more book suggestions that are perfect for ages 2-4, check out my picture book list!

• Gentle Morning Moments for Toddlers

I am looking forward to using this beautiful morning time resource to help bring connection with my toddler before the busy moments of the day begin. This month we started using the summer bundle and she is absolutely delighted to be doing "school".

The creator, Laura, has Morning Moments available for each season and month throughout the year. The bundle includes poetry, song suggestions, gentle readings, Bible memory verses, book suggestions, and a few activity pages that introduce shapes, colors, numbers and letters. This is completely open and go and can be implemented whenever it works out in our schedule.

SECOND AND FOURTH GRADE INDIVIDUAL SUBJECTS

I am going to share our individual subject choices first and what I'm using for each

grade within that subject. You can scroll further down for a list of our family

subjects and electives.

• Language Arts

Grade 2: My son has been using Language Arts from Not Consumed and he thoroughly enjoys it. So we will be continuing that for him using their Connections Reading Program.

Currently, Not Consumed has focused only on LA curriculum for younger grades Preschool - 1st grade. I have asked them if they are planning on expanding their LA program into other grades and they said they are, so I am hoping that will be coming soon.

Grade 4: My oldest will be continuing to use The Good and the Beautiful Level 3 for his language arts this year. This curriculum has worked well for him so far, and we both really enjoy the beauty and format, but I wouldn't say he is thriving. I am praying through whether I should switch him to a less rigorous curriculum in the future, but we will give this program another year and see what happens.

This is a side note for those who are curious, because I often get questions -

Due to the fact that the curriculum is owned and written by a Mormon, I know there is a lot of concern about this in Christian circles. My husband and I continually pray about what is best for our family, we feel peace to proceed with this curriculum for certain subjects as needed. I'm not connected to this curriuclum (as you will see in my curriculum choices), however after trying several other programs (especially math) we feel like it's better to use the curriculum that helps our children thrive.

While I do recommend their curriculum, I am not part of their affiliate program.

• Phonics

We enjoy using Explode the Code for extra language and phonics practice. This isn't something we use every day, but we will pull them out every so often for extra practice or a shorter school day. I have no idea what levels we will be using this year, I need to see what I have on hand. :)

• Handwriting

While I feel like our language arts curriculum provides plenty of opportunities to practice handwriting, we are currently enjoying the handwriting program from The Good and the Beautiful.

In the past, we have also used Handwriting Without Tears and really enjoyed that one as well, so I kind of go back and forth between the two as needed. I may have my oldest begin their intro to cursive.

• Math

Grade 2: My son will be using level 2 of the Math program from The Good and the Beautiful.

Grade 4: My oldest will be using level 3 and starting level 4 of The Good and the Beautiful.

Both of my boys really enjoy and thrive with this math program so we are going to continue this for the foreseeable future!

FAMILY SUBJECTS

These subjects are my favorite because we get to do them together and they truly are the backbone of our day!

• Morning Time, Bible, History, and Nature Study

One of the best decisions I made for our homeschool last year, was starting to use Without Doors curriculum. (If you're interested, you can use the affiliate code "SONYA10" for a 10% discount off your entire purchase).

The creator, Ann, is honestly one of my heroes for creating this curriculum and I am so glad I found her. Her units include everything you need for family learning: Bible, memory work, poetry, hymn study, poet and composer studies, geography, history, nature study, narration, notebooking and more. I love that it is completely adaptable for all ages and grades by using literature to teach the history. There is a picture book list for the entire unit as well as chapter book suggestions for every age level. We thoroughly enjoyed our Early America unit last year!

This year we will be using the Modern America unit which covers the American Civil War through the early 2,000's.

Hymns: “Battle Hymn of the Republic,” “It is Well with My Soul,” “I Surrender All,” and “Great is Thy Faithfulness.”

Composers: Duke Ellington and Aaron Copland.

Poets: Emily Dickinson and Robert Frost.

Artists: Winslow Homer, Henry Ossawa Tanner, Grant Wood, and Norman Rockwell.

Nature Study:

This summer we started the nature study unit Seasons Afield from Beautiful Feet. I don't know how far we will get, my original thought was that we would continue through the fall and beginning of winter to try to finish by the end of the year. But I think we will possibly stop in September to switch to our nature study with Without Doors which is: Farms (Among the Farmyard People) and Tide pools (Pagoo). This is all to be determined!

History:

Along with a huge list of picture books, we also have these chapter books that we would like to read. The reading plans in the curriculum only calls for six books, which is extremely doable. However, we usually end up reading faster than the plan suggests, so I like to have a few extra on our list. Also, one of the book suggestions is Farmer Boy, which we have read and the boys have listened to multiple times, so we may skip that one even though it is one our favorites!

All-of-a-Kind Family, by Sydney Taylor

Caddie Woodlawn by Carol Ryrie Brink

Gold Rush Girl by Avi

Homer Price, by Robert McCloskey

Mountain Born, by Elizabeth Yates

Rabbit Hill, by Robert Lawson

Understood Betsy, by Dorothy Canfield Fisher

My Side of the Mountain, by Jean Craighead George

Where the Red Fern Grows, by Wilson Rawls

• Bible

While Bible is included in Without Doors, I felt like I wanted something that helped us dive into Scripture in a deeper way. This summer we began using a Bible study program from Driven By Grace. Her Bible studies include Scripture reading, extra book and video suggestions, and activity pages for the kiddos. The readings are super short and easy to implement into our mornings. We will finish up our current study and then decide if we will continue with volume 2 or do something else.

• Missionary Studies

This is not included in our main curriculum but I enjoy adding in missionary or early church read alouds. We read these at a slower pace, but I think it is crucial for our kids to hear stories about true-to-life church "heroes". It gives a rounded perspective on life, Christianity, prayer, relationship with God and others, and so much more.

Here are a few I'm considering:

Hero Tales Volume 1

Hidden Heroes Series

Vinegar Boy by Alberta Hawse

I've also been wanting to begin watching the Torchlighters series and The Story Keepers series. So we will add them in for fun screen time here and there.

• Geography

This subject is also included in our Without Doors unit. We were supposed to begin learning about the 50 states in our unit last year and then continue them in this unit. We didn't get many done last year, so we have our work cut out for us, but I'm hoping to begin this summer.

I created my own guide called Read Through the USA. It includes book suggestions for each state, as well as, recipes, video suggestions, facts, and a simple craft idea. We will be using that alongside our studies.

Another fun thing we did this spring is to send letters to each of the state tourism departments explaining that we are doing a state study and requesting them to send us any information that would help our studies come alive. We have received 18 packages back so far and my boys are ecstatic!

We are planning on using these state notebooks from School Nest which will allow us to create a scrapbook for each state. Note: You definitely don't need to send letters out to accomplish this. I'm also planning on looking up photos for each state's flower, tree, bird, etc for the boys to glue into their books.

We also love this huge U.S. state map from Beautiful Feet which we color in as we go!

• Science

Honestly, this subject isn't necessarily needed due to us having a thorough nature study program (this is maybe where my simplistic mindset breaks down). :) However, I do like to have one or two of these Science units from The Good and The Beautiful picked out for our year. These units feel a little more "complete" in the Science field than just nature study (although I do understand that a lot is learned in reading living books and observing nature). Last year we completed the Mammals study and really enjoyed it. This year I would love to dive into the space unit for sure, I'm not sure if we will do the marine one, but I have it on hand if needed.

You can get activity books for any grade of children you have which makes these units super easy to do as a family. They also have picture books that go along with the unit. We don't do every single thing recommended in the study, but we have enjoyed all of the studies we have done so far.

Note: Once again If you're looking for simplicity, I would stick to either focusing on completing the given nature study in the Without Doors curriculum or if you want something a little more Science-y you could do a complete swap for untis like this.

• Art and Notebooking

Art comes in many forms for us like clay, play doh, drawing, coloring, painting, projects, etc. We do combine our art with our notebooking method. As we study people, places, or nature, we will be documenting our finds in our notebooks. I use Jodi Mockabee's watercolor method and we really enjoy it.

We also enjoy using Lily & Thistle's Watercolor School! They just released a new unit that includes art pieces for each of the 50 states so we will be using that along with our state studies. There are so many art units available for tons of various topics like history time periods, science, nature, learning, and so much more!

• Reading

Both of my boys have been reluctant readers so I've had to just rest and allow them to move at their own pace, while also being creative in how to challenge and encourage them. My oldest has improved so much already this summer, giving him some incentives like the library summer reading program (which give free tickets to a local theme park) has definitely helped.

My second grader will continue working on building confidence in reading by using early readers and shorter books that we have on our shelves.

My plan for my oldest is to have him read one required book a month. These will be a mixture of books that go along with our history studies and fun reads. There are history book suggestions in our Without Doors curriculum so I will pull from that and also come up my own. Our home library is free to use at any time for all other reading that they desire!

• World Watch News

World Watch News was a new addition to our morning time this past year and we all really enjoy the program! Each day World Watch has a new 10 minute video that includes current news. It is created for kids so most of the segments are super gentle, leaning into random facts and events from around the world. That being said, they do not shy away from sharing current news which may include segments on war or unrest as well. It is all handled very gently, but I would personally recommend this program for ages 7+.

• Homeschool CO-OP

For the first time ever, we have joined a homeschool co-op that meets once a week for most of the school year. The classes include: music, art, phys-ed, and communication. Even though it is a new rhythm we will have to adjust to, I am excited for the boys. I know they will love it!

• A few other things:

Typing: I am excited for the new typing program that was released this year from The Good and the Beautiful. We will be implementing that this year.

Language: Last year I had great plans to use Homeschool Languages Spanish Level 1. Since that definitely didn't happen, I am really hoping we can at least begin using it this year. My boys (especially my oldest) love to try to talk Spanish so I know they would enjoy it. This program is super gentle and includes so many games and hands-on activities that you can do together as a family. I am very excited to use something that feels attainable for us!

Guitar Lessons: My oldest has been begging for guitar lessons. I don't know if we will begin them this year, but I am keeping it on my radar. Maybe as a birthday present! :)

And that about wraps things up! Like I mentioned, it's all pretty simple (we basically just read a ton of really good books together), but I am so excited about the beauty we will be learning.

And just a reminder, we don't do all of this every day. There are seasons for certain things and honestly, I never do every single thing that a curriculum recommends. We pick and choose what works for us. Last year we didn't do any composer or artist studies, it just didn't work for our schedule. Will we do them this year? I have no idea, but that's the beauty of making the curriculum work for your family.

I'll be sharing bits and pieces of our homeschool days on the 'gram (@thisnewday_). Feel free to follow along. Thank you all for being a part of the This New Day community!

- Sonya