Thread: Returning Homeschooler (New England)

Welcome back to homeschooling. There are so many resources out there. I don't know if a complete package curriculum will fit well if you are eclectic and like using a mix of materials and resources. We have tried online (private online school) and the Build Your Library (BYL) curriculum in the past and found that neither of those suited our eclectic tendencies.

If you really want something that has most things in it, with SOTW, I would look at BYL. It does have good book lists and it is cheap so you are not out a lot of $ if it does not work out. We just found it too scheduled and DD did not like doing the chronological history thing. I am planning to give it another go for the older years where the focus is on around the world (level 7) and history of science (level 8). If you do use BYL, keep in mind that you may want to modify it to suit. It has them reading two books at once at a slow pace and for my DD it was best to read just one at a time and a lot faster. Along with not liking the chronological history approach, that the other reason we ended up stopping it was because DD would read a book about 4 times faster than all the copywork and activities scheduled for it in BYL.

I will list our mix of things in case that gives you any ideas:
Math: Beast Academy supplemented with math games (Right Start), online (Khan Academy, Prodigy), and math reading. DD11 is just finishing up her last book of BA and I am not 100% sure what we will be moving onto but maybe a mix of AoPS pre-algebra + Jousting Armadillos.
Science: we mainly do interest-based topic/unit studies with resources we put together ourselves. We have tried Real Science Odyssey (physics and chemistry) but always find it a bit of a drag to get through the whole thing (best in bursts of doing a lot at once and then leaving it for a while).
Social studies/history: again interest-based that we put together ourselves. We usually pick one thing to focus on for a 10 week block.
Language arts: a mix of Bravewriter curricula (writing projects with Partnership Writing and the odd Arrow), then our own copywork, writing prompts, cursive, poetry etc.
Art: we have a few project books that we use or we pick a topic to focus on for a 10 week block (have done origami and kawaii sketching recently).
Music: practice musical instruments that are being learned, and SQUILT for study of composers/eras.
Foreign language: spanish and mandarin with a mix of practice books and online resources.

Yes, sorry for using abbreviations, it is Build Your Library. I put it in the first paragraph but then resorted to abbreviating it as it is quicker.