Best Homeschooling Curriculum Resources for Elementary

"He knows how to read and write, has an interest in mathematics, science, geography and history, so that it is easy to introduce him to any amount of further knowledge. The teacher is confronted with an individual who has already acquired the basis of culture, and is anxious to build on it, to learn and penetrate deeper into any matter of interest."

- Maria Montessori

Montessori philosophy as applied to the Elementary years is known as Cosmic Education and it stresses the interconnectedness of all things through its interdisciplinary approach.

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• How to Homeschool Elementary
• Best Homeschooling Curriculum Resources for Elementary
• Best Homeschooling Curriculum Summary
• Homeschooling Courses for the Elementary Years
• Best Homeschooling Curriculum Resources for Elementary

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Free Montessori Great Lessons Series

Do you want assistance with planning your year? We've put together a FREE series on the Great Lessons for elementary and family-style learning that will take the overwhelm out of the beginning of your school year and keep you moving with ease all the way to spring.

Explore the Montessori Great Lessons, the introduction to the Cosmic Curriculum, traditionally given to Elementary students near the beginning of the school year. This free 5-part weekly email series will help you tell the story of how our universe began all the way to the origins of language and numbers.

Montessori's Five Great Lessons provide children with a contextual understanding of who they are, where they come from, and their unique purpose or cosmic task. Sounds like a big undertaking, right? Well, it doesn't have to be.

Learn more about this elementary homeschool course.

Best Homeschooling Curriculum Resources for Elementary

Montessori Cosmic Education Resources

• From Childhood to Adolescence
• To Educate the Human Potential
• Children of the Universe: Cosmic Education in The Montessori Elementary Classroom
• The Deep Well of Time

These are all great resources for the Elementary years and their focus is different for each one. Children of the Universe is particularly useful for the Great Lessons and understanding the umbrella of topics to cover for each story.

Maria Montessori's books are extremely helpful for the elementary years and we found ourselves pulling them out frequently during the Second Great Lesson. They're a great resource for learning about the characteristics and differences between the elementary learner or second plane child versus their younger selves in the first plane of development.

The Deep Well of Time is all about storytelling in the Montessori environment. It talks about the importance of storytelling to enhance learning and to inspire creativity. There are stories to accompany many of the traditional Montessori materials we use as well as the great lessons themselves. While this book is not new, it's a new addition for us and I'm excited to use it this year.

Free Montessori Albums From Cultivating Dharma

• Math
• Geometry
• Language
• History

I will list these under the specific subject areas. However, I just wanted to give you a look at these free albums. The price is right and they are very thorough drafts. There's also a Math II available for Upper Elementary.

We have found the Language Album to be very useful in our Fourth Great Lesson while the Geometry Album was very useful for the lessons given in the Fifth Great Lesson.

Best Homeschooling Curriculum for Practical Life

• Recipes for Every Continent
• The Work of Wool: A Montessori Handwork Album
• Wings, Worms, and Wonder
• 4-H Rabbit Curriculum Level 1
• 4-H Poultry Curriculum Level 1
• Practical Life Books

We have a variety of printable recipes with pictures available for download. They encourage confidence & independence in practical life skills and many have come from the beautiful and diverse cookbooks pictured above.

The Handwork album is beautiful and thorough. You can see an example of how we use it in our Third Great Lesson.

You can also stop by our shop to see more Family & Kid's Cooking Resources, including Flavor+Us: Cooking for Everyone by Rahanna Bisseret Martinez, Top Chef Junior finalist. In this cookbook, Rahanna shares recipes from around the world that respect Mother Earth, workers, & consumers.

The Simple Art of Rice by Chef JJ Johnson with Danica Novgorodoff will take you around the world and dive into history while simultaneously teaching essential cooking skills.

Helpful photos and illustrations invite readers of all ages to learn more about rice: its history, its beauty, and its importance on our plates.

With more than seven thousand varieties, rice is the king of staple crops. Without rice, whole civilizations around the world would be unimaginable. Rice can tell you so much about who someone is, where they're from, what sustains them.

- Chef JJ Johnson

Start a Garden with Kids

Keep it Simple. Using household materials and simple tools, empower kids to grow food and eat healthy with this easy series of lessons that will help you start a garden with your learners.

Best Anti-Bias Curriculum Resources, Peace Curriculum

• Raising Antiracist Children: A Practical Parenting Guide
• Don't Look Away: Embracing Anti-Bias Classrooms
• What If All the Kids Are White?
• Different Differenter: An Activity Book About Skin Color
• Native-Land.ca
• The Indigenous Digital Archive Treaties Explorer

Raising Antiracist Children is a must-have parenting guide for change. Want to demystify your role and actions toward raising anti-biased, antiracist children in an environment of curiosity & empathy? Even if you don't homeschool, I highly recommend this book.

If you're interested in learning more about Anti-Bias Education, this course by ABAR teacher-educator Britt Hawthorne is another great place to start.

We plan to continue using these resources and add This Book is Anti-Racist in Upper Elementary.

Native Land and the IDA Treaties Explorer were very helpful for researching the land we live on and creating a meaningful Land Acknowledgment. We continue the learning in our homeschool as well as through this collection of Indigenous Education Books. These resources can be seen throughout our site.

Best Homeschooling Curriculum for Language

• Cultivating Dharma Album with Traditional Montessori Language Materials
• Waseca Biomes Reading Program
• Waseca Biomes Grammar Materials
• Draw.Write.Now Drawing & Handwriting
• Waseca Biomes Cursive Boards
• Learning Without Tears Cursive Kickoff
• Tellin' Children Our Story
• Montessori Tube Academy - Narrative Writing 101
• Montessori Spanish Printables
• Bilingual Spanish-English Books
• Song School Spanish CD

We love Waseca Biomes! As a result, we are continuing to use their curriculum materials through the Elementary years.

In addition, we have the Cultivating Dharma Language album as an additional resource.

For Spanish, we have a nice variety of printables and books to go along with our subjects. There is also the Song School Spanish CD for extending the learning through music.

You will see in our Montessori Fourth Great Lesson, we are also exploring Chinuk Wawa, the Indigenous language of our area.

The recipe printables in the Practical Life section explore language on various continents.

Elementary Mathematics & Geometry

• Cultivating Dharma Albums with Traditional Montessori Math & Geometry Materials
• Montessori Tube Academy - Upper Elementary Geometry
• Montessori-aligned Materials from Mirus Toys
• Printables
• Spielgaben Lessons
• Sumblox Lessons
• Math Play

For Math, we are using mostly these beautiful traditional Montessori materials and Montessori-aligned materials from Mirus Toys along with some printables. These works pair well with the album.

The Elementary Fraction Cabinet contains a lot of geometry lessons that are used in lower and upper elementary. And let's be real, it's just fun to play with. All our kids like this cabinet.

The Spielgaben is a versatile set of materials and our kids use it for open-ended exploration. We also incorporate this set into some of the lessons in the Cultivating Dharma album. The dual-sided playboards and the variety of manipulatives make very creative solutions to some activities. The Spielgaben has something for all ages.

The short bead chains and the thousand bead chain are for primary and elementary. As a result, kids are definitely getting a lot of hands-on opportunities as they learn elementary mathematics in a concrete way before abstraction occurs.

Sumblox are not a traditional Montessori material but they have self-correcting properties and come with lessons for addition, multiplication, etc. Sumblox are also great for all ages.

You can find more of our math works in the Fifth Great Lesson.

Whether you're exploring math with manipulatives or through the use of technology, Libo Valencia's Math Play offers strategies, tools, & resources to make math fun for all ages. It's conversational & thoughtful.

Elementary Science, Geography, & History

• Cultivating Dharma Album with Traditional Montessori Materials
• Waseca Biomes (Save $15 on your first purchase)
• Montessori-aligned Materials from Mirus Toys
• George's Secret Key to the Universe - Complete Series
• Astronomy for Every Kid
• Chemistry for Every Kid
• Physics for Every Kid
• Earth Science for Every Kid
• Rock and Mineral Curriculum by Fossilicious
• Clock of Eras: Creative Connections to Science and Art by Fossilicious
• The 1619 Project
• Dinosaurs: How They Lived and Evolved
• Ancient Sea Reptiles: Plesiosaurs, Ichthyosaurs, Mosasaurs, and More
• Dinosaur Behavior: An Illustrated Guide
• Interesting History Topics
• Botany Books
• Zoology Books
• Printables
• Montessori Tube Academy - STEM Virtual Camp (Design Challenges)

Again, we use Waseca Biomes materials and curriculum. Our kids really enjoy working with these materials and they're some of the best homeschooling curriculum resources available.

The mats we use are excellent resources for elementary learners when exploring the universe, the continents, and physical processes such as the water cycle. They incorporate other subject areas so kids are getting the most out of their time spent working with these materials.

These materials come with a guide that includes the presentations and the curriculum book gives guidance about when to consider introducing these materials.

We're using several items from Mirus Toys in our Geography, Science, and History studies. You'll notice we use their materials for several subjects. They're beautiful, safe, and hand-crafted in the USA. Our kids really enjoy working with their puzzles.

The For Every Kid series is awesome and we found all of our copies used. Very affordable.

The George's Secret Key series was an exciting family read-aloud for us this past year. We used the mini-curriculum sections at times to prompt additional discussion.

If you want to see more of these resources in action, check out the First Great Lesson. We also have some excellent resources for Montessori continent studies in the Books for Africa Continent Studies and the recipe printables.

The 1619 Project is a new addition to our curriculum resources this year. Our kids have Born on the Water on their bookshelves and I'm excited to finally have the companion history resource to guide our learning.

The 1619 Project provides the accurate account of black history and American history that has been left out of most textbooks. By examining the full story, readers develop a better understanding of the society we live in today - a requisite for forging a path forward.

• Stamped From the Beginning: A Graphic History of Racist Ideas in America

This graphic history is an adaptation of Stamped From the Beginning and once you pick it up, you won't want to put it down.

If you're looking an American history and Black history resource that educates, entertains, and inspires, this book is a hit!

Dinosaurs: How They Lived and Evolved and Ancient Sea Reptiles: Plesiosaurs, Ichthyosaurs, Mosasaurs, and More are new additions to our elementary curriculum resources.

I wish we would've had Dinosaurs years ago, to be honest, but sometimes you have to follow the breadcrumbs to discover what you've been missing.

If you've been rolling with an older dinosaur book from a yard sale or used book bin, you may want to consider replacing it.

New technology and advancements in the field of paleontology, along with more accurate artistic depictions of dinosaur anatomy, have drastically changed our understanding of as well as the overall appearance of some of our favorite dinosaurs.

Ancient Sea Reptiles is brand new and it's a dream resource for anyone who's a fan of plesiosaurs, mosasaurs, or other prehistoric marine reptiles.

Pterosaurs by Mark Witton is the latest addition to our resources and I'm glad we were able to add it in time to start the school year.

This book came highly recommended to us and I'm looking forward to spending more time with it.

Dinosaur Behavior: An Illustrated Guide by Michael J. Benton with illustrations by Bob Nicholls is an awesome resource for early elementary and up.

The text itself is a nice size, the content is laid out in an attractive format, and the illustrations are gorgeous. Kids and adults can read about new insights into the mysterious world of dinosaurs.

Dinosaur Behavior is the perfect book for young researchers who are looking to learn more about the physiology, locomotion, feeding, and social behavior of their favorite dinosaurs. It also easily doubles as an art resource.

Art and Nature Resources

• How to Raise a Wild Child: The Art and Science of Falling in Love with Nature
• Coyote's Guide to Connecting with Nature
• There's No Such Thing as Bad Weather
• Play the Forest School Way
• Natural Curiosity 2nd Edition
• Art Teaching Blueprint
• Montessori Art
• How to Teach Nature Journaling
• Artist Studies by Mirus Toys
• Different Differenter (Anti-Bias Education)
• Building a Native Forest Garden with The Earth Project (FREE)
• Seasonal Printables

We've mentioned several of these selections in our preschool and kindergarten curriculum resources. How to Raise a Wild Child and Coyote's Guide are great resources for this age group.

Natural Curiosity was added this winter and we're excited to begin using it more. You can check out these and more in our shop collections.

The Artist Study Eggs from Mirus Toys are beautiful pieces of art and we use them in the spring to go along with our Montessori continent studies.

The Earth Project is a global project that aims to connect Montessori schools and families together in a collaborative effort to save the planet. You can sign up here.

Sports Education

• YMCA

As homeschoolers, the YMCA is a big part of our life. The Y offers a variety of sports and fitness opportunities as well as socialization with kids and adults from all walks of life.

Basketball is popular in our home. It builds confidence in kids as they practice and it encourages teamwork.

All you need are some comfortable sneakers and a basketball to get started.

The opportunities to include sports in other subject areas are endless.

Free NBA Basketball Players Three-Part Cards

Here are tools for exploring skin tones and learning to read. Grab your FREE three-part cards to go with your favorite players. These 3-part cards are designed to be used with a collection of NBA action figures or with your favorite books.

Match the action figures to the picture cards for object-to-picture matching.

To use these NBA player cards as 3-part cards, print 2 copies and cut the labels off one of the copies. The youngest of kids can match the picture cards. As kids are mastering letter recognition and letter sounds, they can practice matching the label as well.

Any letter sounds that vary from your typical language lessons present great learning opportunities for kids.

Learning to read has never been more fun than with materials your kids are interested in.

There's also plenty of family bonding while rooting for your favorite teams and players.

Best Homeschooling Curriculum for Music

• Montessori-Inspired Music History Bundle - printable
• Montessori-Inspired Music Theory Bundle - printable
• Faber's My First Piano Adventure - Writing Book A & Lesson Book A
• Faber's Piano Adventures Primer Level
• Suzuki Recorder School, Volume I
• Instruments Around the World - printable

Our kids currently enjoy learning about music on the piano, the recorder, and the glockenspiel.

The methods used in these resources support children playing music before actually learning how to read it. We prefer this approach as we feel it enhances their enjoyment.

Naturally, the Montessori bells are also lovely. While I grew up around the bells in Catholic school and mass, we have plenty of opportunities for exploring music with the instruments we have.

More of the Best Homeschooling Curriculum Resources

• It's a Boy!: Your Son's Development From Birth to Age 18
• The Wonder of Boys
• The Habit of Thought: From Socratic Seminars to Socratic Practice
• Simplicity Parenting: Using the Extraordinary Power of Less to Raise Calmer, Happier, and More Secure Kids

The first two books don't apply to our homeschool in regards to Montessori Elementary Curriculum Resources for right now. However, they will soon. As a result, I wanted to be sure to include them. They cover a broad age range.

Best Homeschooling Curriculum Summary

We hope you enjoyed seeing our picks for the best homeschooling curriculum resources for elementary. These are all resources that we've collected over time and we've found that using this approach of slowly collecting resources is the best way to determine what meets our kids' educational needs while supporting Montessori principles.

Which Montessori Elementary Curriculum Resources are you most excited about? What else would you include? Let me know.

Thanks for stopping by!

- Kristin

Homeschooling Courses for the Elementary Years

• Homeschool By Design: The Elementary Years
• How to Eat the Montessori Elephant (Save 16% off your first purchase from Montessorikiwi here)
• Analyzing Student Data
• Level Up!
• Introduction to Anti-Bias Education
• Upper Elementary Geometry