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I'll admit, I was a little wary of the idea of doing a study guide for A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens with my kids. Yeah, yeah...it's Dickens. It's a classic. There's a million adaptations. Even a Muppets version, after all. But then I went back and re-read the short story as an adult, and [...]
This is a free The Bridge of San Luis Rey study guide, designed to be used over four weeks in a homeschool co-op or tutorial. I first read Thornton Wilder's The Bridge of San Luis Rey in high school, and his beautiful, heady, aphoristic writing has stayed with me ever since. It is the story [...]
If our country had a required reading novel for high school students, it would be To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. People have been trying to ban the book since it was published in 1960, and it does contain racial slurs that make it problematic to read with children today. However, it is an [...]
Before I launch into all the details on these incredible free 10th grade homeschool curriculum options, you might want to read my perspective and background, first. TLDR version: I'm familiar with what's being taught in public schools, in private schools, and what's available in homeschool curriculum. You probably know that homeschool can be pretty expensive [...]
Chinua Achebe is the great Nigerian author of the 1900s, and Things Fall Apart deserves a spot in any high school world literature course. In my opinion, at least. I've put together a free curriculum unit for Things Fall Apart with weekly homework, quizzes, and teaching notes that I used at our once-per-week homeschool co-op. [...]
Before I launch into all the details on these incredible free 9th grade homeschool curriculum options, I want to give a brief explanation of my perspective and background. I'm a bit unusual, in that my kids all started in a college-prep private school, then we pulled them all to homeschool, and at this point, I [...]
I'll be teaching several English literature courses next year, and I'm very excited about the books in my 10th grade World Lit class. These aren't all heavy-hitters, but I think they're all books that will challenge or inspire the kids in some way. Our school year follows a calendar of four 8-week quarters. Here's what [...]
*This post includes a free high school literature teaching unit on The Great Gatsby. * Two lines of literature that I was required to read in high school have stuck with me until today...many years later. The first: "In the room the women come and go / talking of Michelangelo," from T. S. Eliot's classic [...]
When I was tapped to teach 5th to 8th grade Geography last year at my homeschool co-op, I was really excited but totally clueless about where to start looking for a (preferably free) middle school geography curriculum. I really wanted to teach a fun class that opened my students' eyes to the diverse beauty of [...]
Now in my fourth year of homeschooling, I've tried my fair share of literature curriculum for my kids. I've been on a search for diverse high school literature curriculum for the last two years, and if it's free it's even better. Curriculum can get expensive. We've done Memoria Press, with its classical (borderline boring) approach [...]
Spilled Milk 