Have you heard of these resources? I’m going to share my top 5 resources that have changed my homeschool planning life for the better.
And by the end of the article, you will have at your fingertips several places to gather tips, encouragement, curriculum ideas, reading lists and much more!
Ready? Let’s dive in!
Resource #1: Rainbow Resource
Rainbow Resource is an online bookstore for everything homeschool. They are a family owned business with competitive prices and amazing customer support. They will even help you find the right curriculum if you need a little help. They know their stuff.
Rainbow is often also at some of the larger curriculum fairs around the country and you can buy things in person after flipping through the book – so helpful! But if you can’t make it in person there are also a few sample pages on the site for most of the books. The online site also has a great search feature where you can search by subject, grade level, etc. if you are unsure what your curriculum options even are!
If you want to use a great online store in planning your curriculum choices, check out Rainbow Resource here.
Resource #2: Sarah Mackenzie with Read Aloud Revival
Sarah Mackenzie is one of the most encouraging and joyful homeschoolers I know about. There are several amazing resources when it comes to Sarah. She runs a fabulous podcast and website/blog called Read Aloud Revival where she talks all about books, reading and especially about reading aloud to your kids. She interviews authors and really knows her stuff. I’m not a huge reader but I still love her podcast.
Sarah’s website has a huge amount of amazing free booklists for near every category you can think of – picture books of the month, books for boys, books for grieving, books for moms, and so many more.
Sarah has also written a couple books. One of these is, in my opinion, the best homeschooling book out there. It’s called Homeschooling From Rest: A Homeschooler’s Guide to Unshakable Peace. It is not a long read but is incredibly encouraging. I can’t recommend it enough.
If you want to check Sarah’s booklists in your planning, check those out along with all of Sarah Mackenzie’s other resources on her site here.
Resource #3: Pam Barnhill with Your Morning Basket
Pam Barnhill is another amazing woman who has contributed a ton to the homeschooling world. She has a nice website/blog, a couple books, at least two podcasts, and is involved in quite a bit of other things collaberatively.
Pam’s main website is called Your Morning Basket where she talks all about creating a homeschool morning time. She has pre-made morning time plans and talks all about the ins and outs of getting a morning time set up for your own family. She also runs a podcast under this same name. One of her books, Better Together, is also all about morning time.
In the past, Pam blogged and spoke quite a bit about homeschool planning and wrote a wonderful resource called Plan Your Year: Homeschool Planning for Purpose and Peace. In this books, she walks you through a great process for planning your homeschool year. She also has another podcast I enjoy called 10 Minutes to a Better Homeschool with general homeschooling advice.
To use some of Pam Barnhill’s resources in your planning time, you can check them out here.
Resource #4: Cathy Duffy Reviews
Cathy Duffy has put a huge amount of time and effort into helping homeschoolers pick a curriculum that works well for their family. Cathy has a full website of reviews of curriculum options as well as multiple books on the topic. These reviews are very thorough and helpful and discuss how each curriculum can be used, including helpful things like how “teacher intensive” different programs are as well as if the teacher guide and other “extra” books are truly needed.
If you prefer having something in your hands, Cathy has also put a great deal of this same helpful info in her two books, 102 Tops Picks for Homeschool Curriculum and How to Choose Homeschool Curriculum. These books, as well as her site, are a great starting point for choosing a curriculum that works for your family. There are even good lists for each subject and level that are helpful for seeing what all is out there.
For great reviews of a ton of homeschool curriculums, check out Cathy Duffy’s review site here.
Resource #5: Homeschool Solutions Podcast
I recently re-discovered this podcast and really enjoy it. I believe it was started by Pam Barnhill (see above) but is now hosted by another homeschool mom, Wendy Speake. It is mainly a collaborative effort between several names within the homeschooling world. Those involved take turns each podcast talking about a lot of encouraging topics and will send you off on many rabbit trails of all the homeschooling info that is out there.
Episodes tend to run around 20-30 minutes each and cover a variety of topics. There are several great podcast episodes about planning too! A couple from December of 2021 are quite encouraging, about goal-setting and setting aside a day for planning for your homeschool.
If you want to listen to other homeschool parents and some of their resources that can help in your planning, you can learn more about this podcast here.
Wrap it up
So there ya go!
I hope you have found a new resource or two that can help you in your homeschool planning! These 5 resources are just skimming the surface of what is out there, but they are resources I use quite often in our homeschool planning. From the point of figuring out what curriculum resources I want to use, to getting inspiration and other ideas for our days, these are my go-tos and I hope they will be your as well.
