2025 Homeschool Curriculum Picks for Family Subjects – with Free Resources!
Homeschooling multiple kids can be a challenge, but family-style subjects can make it so much easier – and way more fun! This year, I’m teaching my 5, 8, and 11-year-old using a mix of structured curriculum and free resources for the subjects we learn together as a family.
Below you’ll find an overview of our homeschool curriculum picks for each subject, the resources we’re using, and how we incorporate them into our weekly routine, including a link to our free Geography printable and links to other amazing free resources we’ve loved using so far this year.
Science
For science this year, we chose to continue with The Good and The Beautiful science units. Last year, we started our studies on living things with: Kingdoms and Classifications, Botany, and Marine Biology. This year we are continuing the ‘Living Things’ theme and selected three more units:
Each unit has a course book and accompanying student journal. They also have recommended reading materials but we chose to use the books we have, can get for free, or on Kindle Unlimited.
Also, since my 5-year-old has started sitting in with us this year, I purchased the new Science Activity Books for K–2 for him and it’s been great! The journals are filled with age-appropriate activities aligned to each unit, so my son feels included in our family subject without feeling overwhelmed.
Social Studies
When it comes to History/Social Studies, I’ve personally found it hard to find a curriculum that engages and keeps my children interested. So this year I wanted to try something different and created my own plan.
I designed a geography curriculum where we explore countries from around the world. I plan to share more on the full-year curriculum in the future, but for now, here’s a sneak peek of what it entails.
Each week we focus on a new country, with 38 countries total for the year. We do short lessons every day from Mon–Thu focusing each day on a different aspect of the country and then we end the week on Friday with a fun, and usually hands-on, activity. Here’s what our week looks like:
- Mon – Introduction to the Country
- Tue – Physical Geography
- Wed – History
- Thu – Culture
- Fri – We cook a new recipe from that country together – and then we will also try to play a sport, take a language lesson, watch a movie/documentary, etc.
We are using a variety of paid and free resources each week to help us learn but some books we are using throughout are:
- Children’s Illustrated Atlas by DK
- Where on Earth? Atlas: The World As You’ve Never Seen It Before by DK
- Children Just Like Me: A new celebration of children around the world by DK
- The Everything Kids’ Geography Book by Jane P Gardner
- The Travel Book: A Journey Through Every Country in the World by Lonely Planet
If you’d like to see the countries we’re visiting and plan your own year of traveling, check out this Free Printable Passport activity book. We complete a page in this each week on Monday as we learn fun facts about the country!
Art
I knew early on in my homeschool year prep that I wanted to do the geography plan above. While planning it, I realized we could do a lot in Art and Music that tied in with each country. So I decided to make my own plan for these subjects too, which has helped add additional learning to what we’re learning in social studies.
While we practice creativity daily, we have one official art lesson each week aligned with the geography curriculum. For each week, I found a famous artist, artistic style, or cultural craft related to the country we’re studying. Here are a few examples:
- France – We learned about Impressionism and Claude Monet. We then created our own version of Monet’s bridge drawing in the impressionist style.
- Peru – We learned about panpipes in Music and made our own panpipes out of straws for our art lesson.
- Mexico – We learned about Day of the Dead and then designed and decorated our own calaveras.
YouTube has been a great place to find specific guided art lessons, but here are some other websites/pages with free resources that we like to use:
- https://www.deepspacesparkle.com/
- https://kinderart.com/
- https://www.youtube.com/@artforkidshub/videos
- https://www.youtube.com/@jennalaytonart7909
Music
We don’t have many instruments at home, but we can still explore music through history, listening, and making our own instruments! Like with Art, each week focuses on an instrument, composer/artist, or musical style from the country we’re studying.
- Mexico – We learned about Mariachi and even got to see a live mariachi band play!
- France – We studied Claude Debussy and listened to his impressionist music while we created Monet-inspired drawings in Art class.
- Chile – We learned about rain sticks and made our own with paper towel rolls, popcorn kernels, foil, and tape.
Here are some of the free resources and lessons we’ve used:
- https://www.classicsforkids.com/
- https://allinonehomeschool.com/individual-courses-of-study/
- https://underthehome.org/
Foreign Language (French)
Since my children speak both English and Spanish, we are learning French for our foreign language – and since French is our third language, we’ve been taking a more relaxed approach with it for now.
My two older children use Duolingo daily, which they enjoy, and once a week we have a 30-minute lesson with French with Alexa on YouTube. I wasn’t sure if they’d focus on a video-style lesson, but they love her! She’s funny, engaging, and keeps their attention. Many of her beginner videos include a Kahoot quiz, which my kids love – they’ll keep playing long after our lesson is over trying to beat each other’s scores!
If there’s no quiz, or if we need extra practice, I find worksheets on Pinterest or make my own to reinforce the skills we’ve learned – like this French Bingo Numbers Game (You can also use this for Spanish)!
Computer Science
This is our first year with a dedicated weekly computer lesson. Until now, computer ‘class’ was just typing practice, but now that my two oldest have their own computers, I wanted to dedicate more time to this.
For Computer, we are covering three main areas:
- Typing – They can choose from Typing.com, TypingClub.com, or Nitrotype.com. This year, Nitrotype has been a big hit – they play even outside of their daily typing practice!
- Programming – We’re doing the Express Course (2025) on Code.org. It’s fun, engaging, and teaches the basics in a way kids enjoy.
- Digital Citizenship – This was important to me as they grow more independent online. Common Sense Education has been amazing! Their free lessons and prompts have led to some great conversations about online safety and responsibility.
Health
This is our first year with a dedicated weekly health lesson. As my kids grow older and more independent, I want to help them build healthy habits and stay safe.
For health, we’re doing two units from The Good and The Beautiful:
Also, we are doing a weekly cooking class (based on the country from our geography curriculum), and during this time, we have a lot of conversations about nutrition and the importance of healthy eating. Some of the other resources we are pulling from are:
Physical Education
For Physical Education, we try to keep it flexible and fun. My main goal is that they move their bodies and enjoy it! Right now, this is what our P.E. activities look like:
- Daily movement – This can include trampoline, running, biking, walks, hiking or YouTube exercise videos for kids.
- Weekly soccer lessons and practice
- A 6-week Sports camp – A day camp in our local area which includes swimming, tennis, basketball, karate, mountain biking and more.
I hope this gave you a helpful look into what we’re doing this year for our family subjects! If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment and I’d love to hear what you’re using in your homeschool too!
