NOTE: A free placement tool is available on the Torchlight website to help families determine which level might work best for their children. The themes of the Torchlight levels and the suggested age range are as follows: Pre-K: Curiosity & Character (ages 4-5) K: Worldly Wisdom (ages 5-7) 1: Myth & Magic (ages 6-8) 2: Logic & Legend (ages 7-9) Read more
Target Grade Level: 6th – 8th Middle School Chemistry from the American Chemical Society is my favorite homeschooling find of the year. It’s their free offering to schools and individuals, and it is science education at its best. After a rather ho-hum run through Real Science 4 Kids Chemistry I, my younger and I were looking for more chemistry to learn. Read more
Target Grade Level: Elementary (1st – 5th) and Middle School (6th – 8th) Real Science 4 Kids offers curriculum options for the following science subjects: Astronomy Biology Chemistry Geology Physics You can purchase the Focus On series that take a year-long deep dive into each one of the the scientific disciplines. The following review is based on the Focus On Read more
Target Grade Level: 9th – 12th Brave Writer’s Help for High School is a semester long program designed to “help teens learn how to think, argue, and create their own powerful writing at the same time.” It’s aimed for a teen to read and work through independently, with the parent as “ally” (the author’s word), available for support and conversation Read more
Early Years Curriculum Give your child a beautiful beginning with Blossom and Root Early Years. Hands-on, play-based, secular preschool and pre-k for your homeschool. Includes nature study, the arts, literature, early literacy, STEM, early math play, and more. Each volume is affordable, flexible, and contains 36 weeks of curriculum. Kindergarten Curriculum Blossom and Root Kindergarten is a playful, gentle, Read more
Mapping the World With Art (which was written as an alternative curriculum to Mapping the World By Heart) is one of the most popular homeschool geography curriculums on the market. The concept is simple and easy to implement: Read a 2-page mini-history lesson on mapmaking and then draw a map about the historical and geographical region. For the less artistic, Read more
Each book of REAL Science Odyssey is a complete one-year science curriculum based on a strictly secular and science-backed approach. Each topic in the REAL Science Odyssey series is presented in an entertaining story-like format and is followed by hands-on activities along with background science information, parent instructions, labs, reading lists, journaling ideas, and websites. RSO Biology (Level 1 – Read more
Target Grade Level: 4th – 7th If you’ve got a quirky kid who likes logic, enjoys word humor, and picks language rules up quickly, then Language Mechanic may be a good grammar curriculum for your family. Each individual lesson begins with an attention “grabber” – a basic fact which is then followed by three sentences: You Write; Reader’s Think; and Read more
If your student has completed a 6th grade math program and you’re looking for something more rigorous, the Art of Problem Solving Pre-Algebra and Introduction to Algebra could be a good fit. Be warned, though; AoPS unapologetically states: The text is written to challenge students at a much deeper level than a traditional middle school prealgebra course. Developed by the Read more
Back in the 1990s, a group of 3 college friends who had met during the Math Olympiad Summer Program, created a new math contest which they called the Mandelbrot. The first year of the competition didn’t go so well, so the trio decided to write their own math book to help students think deeper in math. That book is what Read more
