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Our Homeschool Curriculum for 2025-26 (with an 18-year-old and a 15-year old)

Updated: Aug 8

This will be my daughter Alina's senior year and my son Ian's sophomore year! Alongside our all-together schooling a few mornings weekly, they will both continue their self-directed studies plus my Liberty Scholars teen program. We're focusing on Physics, Geometry, Algebra, American and World History from 1910-present, the Constitution, and following the passionate, unique interests of both of my kids.


This post details our curriculum and resources for the 2025-2026 school year. Scroll below to see what we're using for:

  • Character

  • Life Skills: household responsibilities, farm-to-table, and cooking

  • Individual Interests

  • Academics: reading, writing, math, civics, history, science, Spanish, and current events

  • Beauty and Creativity


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Character Comes First

Education is much more than academic learning; it involves our emotional and spiritual development as well. I believe that teaching my children to be honest, responsible, kind people is more important than the acquisition of academic knowledge.


I messed up on this in the early years of our homeschooling by focusing too much on academics. Through painful experience, I was re-oriented and realized that character development has to be paramount over everything else we do in our homeschool.


I intentionally focus on character development through:

  • Relationship development

  • Household responsibilities

  • Discussion of character during read-alouds

  • Service within our community

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Life Skills

When my kids were younger, I focused on teaching them life skills that we worked on together. Now that they're older, my kids are learning independent life skills to ensure that they'll be ready for life on their own.



Household Responsibilities

Both of my kids have a fairly large list of household responsibilities, which they have been taught and are expected to complete on their own. They are working to master all aspects of home care, including laundry, cleaning, maintenance, yard care, etc.


Since both of my kids are in high school now, they each have stewardship over specific areas of our daily home tasks. Currently, Alina is responsible for doing the family's laundry and Ian is responsible for unloading the dishwasher and washing the family's breakfast dishes. They are responsible for mowing and trimming our back yard, as well.



Household Shopping and Errands

Alina drives independently and Ian will soon, as well. This allows me to task them with running household errands on their own.


They have now mastered family grocery shopping 💖💖💖 and also run other errands such as returning books to the library, dropping off donations at charities, etc. In this way, they are learning the skills they will need to be householders.



Farm-to-Table

Vegetable gardening is part of our yearly curriculum. We each choose a few veggies/fruits to grow and then we each nurture our plants and harvest the rewards. This year, Alina is growing swiss chard and cucumbers, Ian is growing watermelons and okra, and I am growing tomatoes and zucchinis.


Although they know all about raising chicks and keeping chickens on a day-to-day basis, one aspect that I'm continuing to focus on teaching the kids is how to butcher and prepare chickens for our dinner table. Old hens must be periodically culled in order to keep our flock productive, so I'm continuing to teach the kids all about respectful chicken harvest.




Cooking

Alina and Ian each cook dinner for the family once a week. They choose the menu for their assigned dinner days. They have mastered many simple recipes (spaghetti, burgers, pizza, etc.) so we are now focusing on more complex meals (when my schedule allows me to be present to teach them).


Some recipes my kids are currently learning are:



Individual Needs and Interests

The homeschool philosophy we love is Thomas Jefferson Education. In this homeschool model, rather than children being in specific grades, they are in “Phases” which each have a specific learning focus. There is more info about the Phases here, and in brief, they are:

  • Core Phase – Age ~0-8 years old – Focused on character development, right and wrong, good and bad, etc

  • Love of Learning Phase – Age ~8-13 years old – Giving the child the opportunity to fall in love with learning through nurturing their own interests and providing opportunities for exploration of academic subjects

  • Scholar Phase – Age ~13-18 years old – Focused on study in a wide range of topics with increasing ability and commitment


Since both of my kids are now in Scholar Phase, they each have independent studies in conjunction with a Scholar Contract (that is negotiated each semester). There is more info about how we implement self-directed Scholar Phase here.


An important part of continuing to nurture a love of learning in my kids is through encouraging them to pursue their own interests. One of the biggest advantages of homeschooling is that my children have as much time as desired to follow their passions. I'm supporting my children's current interests as follows.



Egg Business

My kids are partners in a small chicken egg business. They work together to take care of the chickens daily and sell a few dozen eggs weekly (besides the 2-3 dozen our family consumes).


Owning their own business has given my kids the opportunity to learn much about raising and caring for animals, handling and saving money, profit vs. loss, the value of hard work, perseverance, and long-term commitments. They've become experts in management of the flock, and they make the hard decisions about keeping their business viable throughout the productive and unproductive egg laying years of their hens.


Data Entry Work

My kids have now joined me on the Raw Milk Institute team. Alina and Ian are partners in handling monthly test data submissions from farmers across the country and internationally. Through this work, they are gaining proficiency in using Microsoft Excel, writing professional email communications, website editing, etc.



18-year-old daughter Alina – Scholar Phase + Writing + College Classes

For the last three years of her Scholar Phase, Alina has created her own study plan each semester (with my guidance). Last school year, she added in a dual credit class each semester at New Mexico State University. She will be continuing with independent studies and dual credit classes during her senior year. Alina also set a goal for this year to read 52 books in 2025. She's read 31 so far!


Alina loves books and aims to be a fantasy author someday. We support this interest by:

  • Making sure Alina has uninterrupted time when she can read and write,

  • Frequently discussing books with her, and

  • Supporting her participation in online writing workshops and competitions.

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15-year-old son Ian – Scholar Phase + Cars Cars Cars

Ian transitioned into Scholar Phase during last school year. He will continue with independent studies this year, working towards his goal to take the SAT in spring 2026. That will allow him to potentially take Dual Credit classes at the university the following school year.


Ian has had a lifelong passionate interest in cars and other machines. We support these interests through:

  • Giving Ian plenty of time to practice driving,

  • Teaching Ian how to perform routine maintenance and repairs on our cars and 4-wheelers, such as changing spark plugs, changing oil and transmission fluid, changing coolant, changing batteries, servicing carburetors, etc. (My own car maintenance days are long past 😎, but my husband Ryan and Ian spend many Saturdays working on our vehicles.😍)

  • Including a focus on inventors and inventions in our history studies,

  • Paying Ian to do home maintenance jobs that involve power tools such as sanding the picnic table, clearing brush piles, chopping wood, etc., and

  • Making sure Ian has plenty of books about vehicles and machines to read.


Academics

Now that both of my kids are in high school, our all-together school time is a bit more focused and purposeful (whereas it was more freeform and interest-led in the younger years).


We currently have all-together school time for ~2-3 hours ~3 mornings a week, before the kids go off to do their independent Scholar Time. There is more about the how we make our homeschool successful and sustainable here.



Liberty Scholars Program

I created the Liberty Scholars program for my kids and other local teens at the beginning of 2025. In this program, my goal is to help kids be prepared for adulthood and leadership, with a solid foundation in US constitutional principles.


The first semester went well, so we are excitedly continuing on for the coming school year. Class is full with 10 teens signed up! 😀 Overall, the program consists of:


  • Reading two classic books per month (generally one non-fiction and one novel)

  • Participating in online discussions about our readings in a private discussion forum

  • Attending in-person book clubs twice a month

  • Fun group activities such as movies and hikes


Here's our reading list for the next few months:

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Literature

Literature is foundational to our homeschool. It gives us exposure to different cultures and values, allows us to "walk a mile" in others' shoes, and facilitates important discussions that lead to character growth.

Family Read-Aloud, Kids’ Book Club, and Independent Reading

Even though my kids are in high school, we still read aloud classic books frequently. Read alouds spark many of our most important discussions about culture and character. Since my kids are older now, we take turns reading aloud to the family in the evenings; this is helping my kids learn public speaking and how to project their voices.


My kids also participate in an all-ages homeschool book club once a month.


Our recent and upcoming reads include:

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Classic and Fun Audiobooks

Audio books have been a tried-and-true way to give my kids exposure to a wide variety of classics. I generally find it works best to limit audio books to no more than an hour a day.


Recent and upcoming audiobooks my kids are listening to are:



Writing, Spelling, and Typing

We don't generally use a formal curriculum for writing or spelling. Instead, we find ways to incorporate writing into our everyday lives, so that the writing my kids do will have real meaning rather than being a forced exercise. There is more about writing in our homeschool here.


Some of the current ways in which my kids engage in writing and spelling are:

  • Writing stories and poetry

  • Spelling bees, once a semester as part of our homeschool group

  • Email accounts for work, friend, and family communications

  • Spelling games such as Quiddler and Scrabble


Math

Both of my kids set specific math goals this school year, as part of their long-term goals. Some of the resources we're using are:


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History

Each semester, we alternate between focusing on science or history. This reduces the stress of trying to fit it all in and allows us to dig deeper into specific topics.


We use the following a 4-year-cycle for history:


We have completed two iterations of this four-year cycle, gaining more complexity and nuance each time.


Last year, we started working through our third iteration of 1850-modern history with America: The Last Best Hope by William Bennett. That book is written for adults, so it is very long (786 pages!) and detailed. Thus, we only made it through 360 pages last year and will continue with it this school year, once we have completed our Physics unit. Overall, our main history resources for this year will be the following:



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Science


We have completed two iterations of this science rotation and are working through our third iteration. Last year, we *intended* to study Physics but never got to it 😜 because we were deep into Bennett's American history book. That's just how homeschooling goes sometimes!


So, we started Physics over the summer, already crashed and burned with two different curriculum plans, but have now *hopefully* settled on what will work well for us. Overall, our science studies will include the following resources:



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Spanish

Spanish is a subject that I struggled to fit into our homeschool routine for years. However, we finally found our Spanish groove a couple years ago! These are ways that are currently working well for us to learn Spanish together:

  • Reading aloud Spanish children's books - this works best when I can find the ones that have both English and Spanish text; I cover the English part up and we try to figure out the Spanish, then reveal the English to check our translations.

  • Having a weekly Spanish video night as a family, watching in Spanish language with English subtitles; this can be done with movies or TV shows (we're watching Frasier in Spanish now)

  • Translating into Spanish as much as I can when I'm reading aloud to the family

  • DuoLingo.com app

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Current Events

1-3 times per week as part of our morning homeschool block, we watch The World from A to Z with Carl Azuz. This is a short current events show; the episodes are 9-minutes long, perfect for adding into our routine. This gives us many opportunities to have discussions about complex issues in the USA and around the world.

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Beauty and Creativity

I'm not naturally a very artistic person, but both of my kids are. I nurture these interests in the following ways.


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Arts and Crafts

Here are some of the resources we are currently using for arts and crafts:

Music Appreciation

We cultivate music appreciation through:

  • Homeschool band class 3x per week; Alina plays flute, Ian plays trumpet and clarinet; both kids now attend the beginner's class as mentors/helpers for the younger kids as well

  • Music and arts focus in December, culminating in a small family music recital and A Christmas Carol reading on Christmas Eve

  • Attending live music shows including classical music, jazz, and classic rock

  • Listening to a wide variety of music including classical, world music, classic rock, and pop

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Physical Education

Some of our current favorite ways to get physical activity are:

  • Walking or jogging, solo or together

  • Strength training with Dad

  • Weeding and working in the garden

  • Hiking in the mountains ~2x/month

  • Yoga

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What changes have you made to your homeschool for the coming year?


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