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One of biggest struggles homeschool parents have is over curriculum. Think about it, every spring you see catalogs upon catalogs of curriculum come through your mailbox. There are homeschool conventions and curriculum fairs every weekend across the United States. And, when you’re a homeschool newbie, one piece of advice you get from veterans is to “attend a convention, so you can SEE the curriculum”. I have given that advice myself. Through the years, I have used a variety of different curriculum. You can see some of what we have used here. I have found three of these to be our favorite curriculum choices. Does that mean we will stick with them forever? I’m not sure. However, I do know that when curriculum season starts these three have consistently crossed my mind.
Apologia 
We LOVE Apologia. It is very thorough and the hands-on activities included in the book are fun and easy! Most of the time we have had everything on hand to complete the activities, and if we didn’t we could choose another option from the awesome note booking journals. 
Christian Light Education Math
A few years ago, I had a huge math dilemma. We had been using Horizons but it was no longer working for my oldest. I ordered numerous different math curriculums (because I was unable to get to a convention) and could not find one that I thought would fit. A blogger friend recommended CLE and I ordered it. We have loved it! I have gone from having a little girl who thought she was dumb in math, to one who is confident in her abilities. Her standardized math scores were excellent, and she is able to finally complete speed drills (which for her is a huge accomplishment). I loved seeing the excitement in her eyes when she realized she can do math, and do it well. CLE Math has made a huge difference in our homeschool.
Notgrass
For me, the thing that I love most about Notgrass is that when it comes to textbooks vs. literature it truly is the best of both worlds. I have always been a fan of literature based history, yet I love the ease of textbooks. Notgrass History gives me both in a package together that my kids actually like! I don’t have to choose one or the other and that has changed the way we do History.
What are your favorite curriculum choices?
We’ve used mostly Memoria Press, but there are SO many interesting options out there that we would love to explore! In January we brought home our new 8 year old son from China and figuring out what he knows/ needs is a daily treasure hunt. He is our 5th child and 3rd homeschooler so we would very much appreciate help with the costs…..especially after paying for airfare to China at Christmas, ha! Thank you for this opportunity.
Thank you for sharing!
I am not entering the contest, but I read through some of the entries and see that many mothers here are are having a bit of financial difficulty this year affording curriculum. I wanted to let everyone know that there is an organization called The Book Samaritan in Oklahoma that sends out books free of charge to Homeschoolers all over the country that can’t afford them. It’s a ministry. If you look up their website it will tell you how to request curriculum, its: http://www.thebooksamaritan.com. Hope that helps someone!!!
We will be able to buy some extras.
We’ve recently got news that means big changes and extra expenses. We are also trying to remodel our home, and it would mean so much to be able to ease my husband’s stress a little bit! 🙂
I love seeing others’ curriculum choices but I don’t think I’ve heard of any of these before. They certainly sound good and solid!
Thanks so much for sharing (and for linking up to the #SHINEbloghop)!
Wishing you a lovely day.
xoxo
We are going to try Apologia Zoology this year! We have used it for high school science and loved it. We also like the CLE curriculum. I know you have a while to go but CLE has great high school electives too!
This is my first year homeschooling. I am a single parent to a 13 year old son and a 11 year old daughter. Winning this giveaway would mean we could afford to do more field trips and I would be able to increase the size of our schooling supplies .
Your welcome! Thanks for entering 🙂
Winning the money for homeschool curriculum would be amazing. We have done k12 for our first homeschool year and would like to adventure out from it. This would give us a chance to do so. Thank you for this give away.
Winning this would enable me to buy more books that will be needed soon for school. We are in a tight financial situation, so it would be a huge blessing to our homeschool journey!
This will be our first year homeschooling and we’re super excited. My kiddos are coming from public school and my middle schooler has so many missing chunks from throughout the years. I’ve found so many wonderful tools to help get him up to speed and boost his confidence in his abilities. This giveaway would bless our family tremendously by helping make more of those tools a possibility.
Your welcome! It has been a blessing to hear so many families homeschool stories.
Our favorite curriculum for our first year was Math U See, but we primarily unschooled. Winning this would be an overwhelming blessing for our family and would enable us to expand on our curriculum choices. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for this opportunity 🙂
I would use the money to buy some little extras for our homeschool that we couldn’t afford to buy. I would like to be able to teach them a foreign language and buy more art supplies 🙂
This would be a blessing to my family in order to finish up purchasing our curriculum for the new school year for my 7 year old son with autism. It can be a struggle to find curriculum to meet his unique needs while being affordable.
We still have curriculum to buy and we really wanted to make it to the Creation Museum this year.
Ladies, it has been a blessing reading all of your responses. Thank you for entering 🙂 I wish I could give all of you the $500!
Thanks for the reviews! We are beginning our 2nd year of homeschool. My husband is the sole supporter of our family of 6, and although we live comfortably at times, other times we have a super tight budget. For this reason we aren’t able to purchase curriculum. I pull as many quality, free resources from the internet, blogs, and our library and compile them. This money would allow us to purchase at least one curriculum for our kids so they can experience all the cool experiments and activities, as well as lightening my load of taking care of all household things plus planning curriculum for 3 elementary + a toddler. Thanks again for the reviews!
We have no budget for homeschool this year (working hard to pay off debt), and while my boys are young and aren’t yet required to be in school, they are eager to learn and it would be so wonderful to have fun books and materials to work with! Thanks for doing the giveaway!
With 9 children – 7 of them in homeschool, homeschooling gets expensive. Thanking God for the freedom to still be allowed to teach our kids at home, though.
It would help with curriculum and supplies. I have a chronic illness that prevents me from working anymore. So the funds are always tight.
The creation museum is awesome! I’ve thought about doing a post on that. Happy first year!
We just started homeschooling last week and are loving My Father’s World! We would still love to get Mystery of History. We would use the money for that and for field trips. The top of my boys list for field trips being the Creation Museum!
That’s exciting! Congrats 🙂
Yay! We will be doing Little Hands together 🙂
You are fine! I asked what favorite curriculum was, and the giveaway asked what you would do with the money 🙂
Oh this would help us SO much! There’s still several things I’d love to buy! 🙂
Oops, I didn’t read directions well. Sorry 🙁 This money will be great for those little extras I just didn’t have in the budget for homeschool or a jump start on Christmas shopping.
We are eclectic and every year our style changes some. The kids play a role in what type of learning we do. Workbook, text book, unit study , Charlotte Mason, games. It all just depends. Gideon, 3, will be using Little Hands to Heaven like I did with his older brother. I’m excited to use it again!
Okay, this would be awesome to win! I LOVE Mystery of History and God’s Design for Science.
Hoping to use Apologia in the future. Also, Heart of Dakota has always interested me.
2 of my favorites and 2 that we will be using this year – Zoology 2 and Little Hands to Heaven!
My eldest son is getting married in 4 months, so we’ve got some extra expenses to go along with that, such as special clothes, lodging, etc.