Back to Homeschool: favourite resources

This is the final day of the Back to Homeschool blog hop.

Day One: The Overview
Day Two: Lunches for every day of the week
Day Three: Surviving the difficult days
Day Four: Celebrating the joys

Today, I'm looking at some of our favourite resources.

Top of the list has to be Five in a Row (FIAR). This is a literature based programme, officially for children aged four to eight but this can be flexible. I have used FIAR with a two year old although in retrospect,  Before Five in a Row which is designed for two to four year olds, might have been even better. FIAR uses high quality picture books and weaves a week of learning around each one.

One of my regrets is selling the manuals which detail the work, subject by subject, that can be done with each book. My children still love the picture books and often ask for them for bedtime stories.

Some of the picture books can be difficult to obtain in the UK so I was pleased to note that there is now a UK based literature study, Branch out world, again based on picture books. I haven't used one of these units yet but have purchased the unit which goes with Katie Morag and the new pier to use at the beginning of term.

Artistic Pursuits
Younger Daughter loves art but this is an area where I'm challenged! This last year, we purchased Artistic Pursuits Early Elementary book one. This book has 36 lessons each of which introduces a theme, a famous work of art which illustrates the theme and a project with details about a technique. The projects are open to the child's interpretation and the book contains examples of children's work. I particularly like the way that the materials required are detailed at the start.

The Usborne Big book of Science things to make and do
This book is full of easy, home based science projects for young children. We've used and used our copy and have done virtually all of the activities. My children pulled it out again today to do a couple of activities. We don't use it for our science curriculum anymore, mainly because we have really finished it but this is a loved book.

One of the activity pages

 and an explanation from another page.

Galore Park maths books
This series is UK based and spiral in nature meaning that each topic is revisited, each year but at greater depth.

The books start at year 3 with Junior maths book one, pictured above, and go onto So you want to learn maths book three which is for year eight. The age spread is because these books are designed for private schools working for Common Entrance exams so don't go up to IGCSE. My understanding is that they are a sound stepping board for IGCSE.
Now,I do have to admit to not having used the youngest two books before as Middle Son was in school until near the end of year four so I don't quite know how well these two books work. I expect to find out in September!
Veritas Self Paced History
This is new for us, this year, but has been greatly enjoyed. Youngest Son was talking about how much he is looking forward to watching this again and he really just watches along!

 My review is here.

Do you have favourite home education resources? Please do share in the comments.

Please pop over to visit other Schoolhouse Crew members who are taking part in this blog hop:

Nikki @ Angels of Heart
Tauna @ Proverbial Homemaker
Laura @ Day by Day in Our World
Melanie @ finchnwren
Joelle @Homeschooling for His Glory
Linda @ Linda's Lunacy
Leah @ As We Walk Along the Road
Hillary @ Our Homeschool Studio

 

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