Welcome to The Contemporary Homeschooler! Academic excellence, lots of experiential learning and high-quality books are hallmarks of our household. With a good structure in place, homeschoolers are able to complete their academic work in around half the time of a typical conventional school day. We like to use that extra time to engage with the world and follow our passions. I don’t box our family into following a particular homeschool philosophy. Rather, I see myself as an entrepreneur for my family: nimble and adaptive to our needs and learning opportunities.
I see myself as an entrepreneur for my family: nimble and adaptive to our needs and learning opportunities.
As a homeschool family, you have the freedom to put your children on the cutting edge of education. You can customize and personalize their academics. There is a huge selection of curriculum, both web-based and paper-based, available to homeschool families. You can incorporate abundant experiential learning opportunities into your schedule. I will not squander my time away with my kids as a slave to excessive busy work or dawdle around the house all day. We finish our work and get out into the world. Now, more than ever, there are wonderful opportunities for homeschoolers! Carpe diem!!!!
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within your own family to different ages. I have absolutely loved reading SOTW aloud to my kids over the years, and there is a four year gap between my oldest and youngest children. 
hands-on activity–usually one from the activity book.
can be adapted for co-ops and school settings
15-25 minutes each day over 3-6 months, your child will be reading on a 2nd-grade level upon completion. It is 
Grammar—
the students should be able to work fairly independently. This curriculum helps foster a deep understanding of math. 
our family’s favorite read-alouds. Some great ones to start with are 
speech, sentence diagrams, and skills in beginning writing, storytelling and narration. Classical education concepts of memorization, dictation, copywork, and narration are part of this program. Sit down with a cup of hot chocolate or tea together and enjoy these lessons that are entirely scripted for you. The 
Math—
cozy place and enjoy reading 20-30 (or more if she wants) minutes each day. Also, read aloud with your child as much as you can. Here is a 
support her viewpoint.
persuasive writing skills. Two opposing viewpoints are presented in short videos on each topic to encourage open discussion and critical thinking resulting in a balanced lesson. Each video is about 5 minutes. Some examples of topics include What Should we Do About Student Debt, Should We Tax the Rich More, The Climate Debate, and Should We Have Single-Payer Healthcare. You child can watch both videos on a topic and write a persuasive essay about why she supports one of the sides. Further research can be required, if you choose, with 
sources and data to support her viewpoint.
(or more if she wants) minutes each day. I suggest he reads The 
what I have learned over the years to help any of you who want this for your children. I was highly influenced by the classic Dale Carnegie book, 
Fleming is an absolutely gripping narrative of Russia’s last royal family. My kids especially enjoyed learning about the Romanov children and Rasputin. This non-fiction work is anything but dull. We started here because we wanted to better understand the events that led to the Communist Revolution.
boy who has always been devoted to Communism, the Communist Party and Comrade Stalin. His world is shaken after his faithful father is arrested. This compact novel also features dramatic black-and-white pictures.
Communist Russia. It shows both sides of the Russian Revolution opening in 1913 when this aristocratic girl goes to live with the Romanov family because her widowed mother is lady-in-waiting to Empress Alexandra. We get to know the Romanovs in a warm and personal way and see what a doting father Nicholas II is to his children. However, she also witnesses the exploitation of workers in the cities and the terrible living conditions of peasants. Meanwhile, war is spreading throughout Europe and Russia is collapsing. We give this fast-paced and absorbing book our highest review possible. This book is a must!
Russia. This book, which opens in 1934 in Leningrad, a generation after the Communist Revolution, is every bit as engaging as the first. The children of the heroine and hero in Angel on the Square are alone and desperate after their father is arrested and mother is exiled to Siberia. They are determined to find their mom and embark on a 1,000-mile journey in hopes of reunification. Filled with adventure and suspense, the children encounter many obstacles and confrontations and even a beautiful experience with the Samoyed tribe in the Siberian wilderness.
Berlin Wall from the perspective of twelve-year-old, Gerta. When the Wall was erected, her father and brother were on the other side looking for work in West Berlin. This left the family divided. We encounter Gerta’s struggles along with her other brother, mother and others surviving in East Berlin as well as their persecution in this Communist city controlled by the Soviets. One day she spots her father on a viewing platform giving her clues to tunnel beneath the wall. This is risky because, if they are caught, the consequences are death. We loved this book. If you only are able to read one book on entire this list, I suggest you choose this one.
led by Chairman Mao in Communist China. Twelve-year-old Ji Li is an accomplished student and athlete and joins her classmates in frenetically denouncing The Four Olds: Old ideas, old culture, old customs, old habits. She witnesses relatives, teachers, neighbors and friends publicly humiliated and tortured but still remains fervent in her Communist ideology. Her family eventually becomes reviled due to their wealthy family background including her grandfather being a landlord. Friends and neighbors turn on them, and they are constantly afraid of being arrested. After her father’s imprisonment, Ji Li is forced with a big decision. This autobiography received multiple awards including Publishers Weekly Best Book. ALA Best Book for Young Adults and ALA Booklist Editors’ Choice.
autobiography of a peasant boy born into extreme poverty in 1961 just before the Cultural Revolution. Despite his poverty and witnessing the brutality of the Mao regime, he revered Chairman Mao and Communism. He details life in school that is focused more on Communist indoctrination and Mao worship than the basic educational tenets of reading, writing and arithmetic. At the age of 11, Li was selected from his village by delegates of Madame Mao’s art program to study ballet at the Beijing Dance Academy. The opportunity opens many unimaginable doors including a cultural exchange in Houston with the Houston Ballet in 1979. While in Texas, he begins to realize much of what he was told about the USA was a lie. He loves his taste of freedom in America and is in awe of such abundance and modernity. The story is of his defection, the climax of the book, is nail-biting!
Communist Khmer Rouge in the early 1980s, tells the story of twelve-year-old Dara. When the story opens, Dara along with her mother and brother are making their way to a refugee camp along the Thai border. As with most Cambodians at the time, 
North Korean prison camp and escape. He was born in Camp 14 in 1982, escaped to China in 2005 and made his way to South Korea in 2006. The account will inform the reader of the barbarian cruelty towards the slaves in the work camps that is still happening today and the obstacles encountered as they flee and eventually try to adapt into the a new world. While this is the only book in this post from the adult section, I do find it appropriate for mature children. Additionally, in much of the book, he is a youth to help the student relate.
Joseph Stalin and completely annhilates the viability of communism through scathingly exposing its flaws. The book concerns a group of barnyard animals who overthrow and chase off their exploitative human masters and set up an egalitarian society of their own. Eventually the animals’ intelligent and power-loving leaders, the pigs, subvert the revolution. Concluding that “all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others”, the pigs form a dictatorship even more oppressive and heartless than that of their former human masters. All three of my kids very much enjoyed this book and followed the allegory due to the previous books we had read about communism.
the lives of today’s wired generation to some of the most disturbing childhood trends: the rise in obesity, attention disorders, and depression. This is the first book to bring together a body of research indicating that direct exposure to nature is essential for healthy childhood development and for the physical and emotional health of children and adults. More than just raising an alarm, Louv offers practical solutions to heal the broken bond.”
conceptual understanding, number sense and mental math. While mastery- based is excellent so the students can explore a concept in-depth, I do not feel comfortable without the repetition of a spiral program.You may consider purchasing the color version for just a few dollars more.
to be reinforced. Each set of exercises are in short chunks, so it does not feel cumbersome like some other more tedious math programs. Additionally, the colorful pages and puzzles make it very visually appealing.
with my 10 and 11-year-old children and do our IEW. Y
encouragement for young authors to pen their own novels. I taught this class at co-op with the free curriculum during our fall semester. This spring, I am using the 
the classical method of studying history chronologically. I highly recommend 
copywork, dictation and narration assignments as well as reading passages from classic children’s literature. I like that it is also entirely scripted so that I do not need to prepare. The publisher states the workbook lessons “are the only materials you’ll need to provide your student with a complete first year of writing instruction. ” 
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