1My son, forget not my law; But let thine heart keep my commandments: 2For length of days, and long life, And peace, shall they add to thee. 3Let not mercy and truth forsake thee: Bind them about thy neck; Write them upon the table of thine heart: (Proverbs 3:1–3, KJV)
Great Christ-centered Christian Homeschool Curriculums and Resources
It’s important to find good Christian Homeschool Curriculums and Resources to educate our children in the way of the Lord, pointing them to God in every subject. Below is a list of homeschooling resources which we find helpful.
Table of Contents
English
- LEM Phonics: “is an intensive, systematic phonics program designed specifically for Australian English and is continuing to achieve excellent results in schools and amongst home schoolers around Australia. In contrast to many traditional phonics programs, LEM Phonics teaches writing, reading and spelling simultaneously to enhance the learning of essential literacy skills through multi-sensory strategies. LEM Phonics utilises applied synthetic phonics (as distinct from the analytic approach to phonics). To see how thorough their phonics program, you can view all their phonograms on their youtube channel. Using LEM Phonics, two of my children learnt to read fluently by age six having started when they were 5 years old.
- We supplement LEM Phonics with our handwriting/copywork worksheets which can be found on our website
- Some good Christian literature that helps training character and faith:
- Building on the Rock Series, 5 Vols. (Beeke & Kleyn)
- Grace and Truth books – The Children’s Character-Building Collection (11-Volume Set) (very encouraging read)
- Grace and Truth books – The Children’s Heritage Series – Boy’s Collection (8 Volumes) (in our wish list)
- Grace and Truth books – The Children’s Heritage Series – Girl’s Collection (8 volumes) (in our wish list)
- This great video “Harry Potter vs Huck Finn vs Pilgrim’s Progress” by Generations will challenge us to think through about what literature you use to teach your children or let your children read. Before listening to this video, we thought most classic books would be good. But this Generations video drove home the fact that we are gravely mistaken to assume that any classical books are good. We have been persuaded that we should first ground our children in God’s Word and secondly introduce children to critical analysis of literature according to God’s Word. Analysis of literature is best done by firstly reading and critiquing Christian literature before we help them read and critique secular literature by God’s moral standards.
Science
- apologia science , particularly elementary level (see https://www.jeanniefulbright.com/apologia-science )
- God’s Design for Science (Grades 3–8)
I find that apologia science is easy to understand. God’s Design for Science series is a little harder than Elementary Apologia science, in my opinion, because it has many technical terms introduced in a lesson. Nevertheless, I like the history and apologetic aspects being presented in God’s Design for Science. Therefore, after using apologia science, I also like to use God’s Design for Science to equip my children how to defend their faith.
History/Geography
- Mystery of History: We use this history program because it presents history in chronological order. Events of World history are presented subsequent to events of Biblical history of similar periods. This program will help us to cover world history thoroughly. Whenever we learn history, our children are encouraged to record the events in our book of timeline by subject areas.
- Generations’ history books are also great for history & geography, very Christ’s centered.
- Evangelical Heroes + Puritan Heroes + Reformation Heroes (Beeke, Bond, Mathes, Kleyn) are great reading aloud. Terrific stories of faithful Christians encourage children to learn church history. The authors present a well-balanced, warts and all, view of believer’s personal strengths and weakness.
- Imagination Stations series by Focus on the Family is great for reading aloud or self reading. It is written in a fictional form to help children learn history.
- Lightkeepers Girls Box Set: Ten Girls by Irene Howat
- Lightkeepers Boys Box Set: Ten Boys by Irene Howat
- The Trailblazers series by Focus on the Family (7 boxes set)
Biblical study
- Bible: we read to our children straight from the Bible. We also illustrate bible passages through use of various media such as puppets, toys, objects, images, videos, bible story telling, and dramatically acting out the story.
- Family Worship Bible Guide – by Michael Barrett; Joel R. Beeke; Jerry Bilkes; Paul Smalley – great for dads to lead family workship. There is so much riches in this book, particularly very insightful connection between the Old and New Testaments
- A Rhyming Baptist Catechism: Based on Keach’s Catechism (1689) by Tyler Scarlett – a great book to teach catechism. This is worth supplementing with bible memory verses from the Baptist Catechism.
- Singing: Metrical Psalter is the closest form of worship English speakers have to the ancient Hebrew temple worship practice. More significantly, the Psalms bring us face to face with the emotions of Jesus Christ on earth in his abandonment, and to the focus of his heart in exaltation; God’s glory through judging the nations and saving his covenant people (for more on this, see Christopher Ash’s commentary). Metrical Psalter also introduces poetry.
- Hard back copies of Metrical Psalms (1650 version) are available from the Trinitarian Bible Society. (For regular family worship printed copies are much more convenient than digital, in our experience). This version (1650) of metrical Psalms is the closest to the original Hebrew in meaning in comparison with all other editions of metrical Psalter.
- We have found it easiest to follow along with the work of professional solo tenor Neil Mason. You can find Mason’s epic project here:
- Singing psalms is something of a lost Christian practice in many churches. Many of us are familiar with Ephesians 5:19 and churches sing hymns composed by non-canonical authors thinking that this is the meaning of “Hymns and Spiritual Songs.” But the biblical evidence is that “Hymns and Spiritual Songs” are different groupings of Psalms inspired by the Holy Spirit.
“God’s Word encourages us to sing Psalms and Hymns and Spiritual Songs in Ephesians 5:19 and Colossians 3:16, where the references seem to be taken from the headings given to the 150 Psalms in the Greek Septuagint translation of the Old Testament widely used in Paul’s time. But how many of us know how to sing the Hymnbook of the Bible, the Psalms?”