Help Me Decide | Homeschool History Curriculum 2024-2025 Homeschool Year | What Would Your Choose?

[@jennajadeg7010]

We love Notgrass and Guest Hollow. My daughter likes the schedule of Notgrass more, and we are trying Guest Hollow this yr for our middle schooler. She did enjoy the Guest Hollows workbook, and videos! She misses those, but does enjoy Notgrass. We omit the day 5 - Bible and those are test/exam or catching up on reading.

[@homewithsarahjane]

That's exactly how I feel about both of these!! I like the schedule of Notgrass, but Guest Hollow seems really fun!!!

[@arocora1]

I would go for Guest Hollow. We’ve used their Geography course for middle school and high school together and it worked really well. I got the books through the library and thrift books so it didn’t cost too much. The fact that there are options for each lesson made it easy for my older to choose what to do and for me to guide my younger in what I felt she was capable of doing.

[@homewithsarahjane]

That's what caught my attention... the ability to use this with both my kids and the options for my oldest to choose from. Guest Hollow is starting to look like the winner 🙂.

[@nwhicks99]

We are finishing up GH World History in a few weeks. This was my first year using GH (coming from Sonlight) and I wish I would have found it sooner!! We love the books and my son has done great with the online textbook and workbook. I love all the map activities and extra videos. I found all of the books used on Amazon and Thriftbooks or in the GH FB group so it was not too expensive. We did sub a few books out for interest and I did use some of the substitutions mentioned in the booklist. My son has actually started to like comic book-style books and he learns so much from them. I have not used the other two programs so I can't compare, for us we have always liked literature-based history and living books over a textbook. Oh and I have an EcoTank and print EVERYthing, I've only added ink once in 2 years!

[@homewithsarahjane]

I just purchased an ecotank in October!!!! I'm really leaning towards GH... everyone has been saying they really enjoy it. Thanks for stopping by 🙂.

[@amandamendoza4181]

We are planning to try Guest Hallow this year, but so far it is a big cost between purchasing pdf and All the books. You also mention that you didn’t want to have to piece things together and so far that is all I have done with this one. (Sifting through all of it and trying to decide what we want to use) We have used Notgrass in the past and absolutely loved it. We will be going back to that after this coming school year!

[@homewithsarahjane]

I wanted something more open and go, something I didn't have to put much thought into. My daughters really wanted to try Guest Hollow...so here I am piecing things together 😆. I do have to say that Guest Hollow is looking really amazing. So far, I have been able to get most books used/on sale or at Bookoutlet. I think my oldest will use Notgrass for American history in the following year.

[@Bookhoarder5]

We have used Master Books for history before and are currently (a different book) and we really enjoy it. Personally I feel it is light, but to your point, it opens up for me the opportunity to add in readers and also videos and really use it s a jumping off point to follow the children’s interest if they ant to know more about a topic. If they aren’t particularly wanting more with another I can have them stick to what’s in the book and rest easy knowing we covered it and that was good enough. I also do it with both of my children together and expect more output from my older child. Now, as for the particular book you are talking about, we aren’t currently using it, but I do have it on my shelf so I could look through it and decide for next year if we would use it. Looking at it it would be really easy to shorten it to 34 weeks or shave off a day per week if you planned it right. I got it on a super sale. MB has clearance sales most Tuesdays throughout the year and they call the things they put on it “scratch and dent”, but all I ever see wrong with something is small scuffs I would put on a book just putting it on the shelf. I hope you enjoy your choice you end up going with and you all have a successful year!

[@homewithsarahjane]

Thank you sooooo much!!!

[@saraturner4724]

We tried the general science books from Master Books but quickly switched to another curriculum. It was hard to follow and the some of the questions were related to content that was not included in the texts. You can't go wrong with Guest Hollow!

[@homewithsarahjane]

Thank you!

[@PlannerHomeschoolingMom]

For Masterbooks, the student textbook itself basically only has the reading portion and a couple of questions, but the teacher guide has 3 or 4 pages with questions, additional information and suggested research options for further study. Being a mom who has a lot public school knowledge, this course is equivalent to what a public school would have kids doing. They are not reading novels or writing papers for every lesson they do. In a history class they might read 1 novel a quarter, and do about the same for papers in a year (so about 4 books and 3 to 4 papers).

[@PlannerHomeschoolingMom]

Oh and one more thing, I used the middle school version this year and we finished the course in February. I added in books of my own choosing and we did all the questions orally but none of the research projects since we are using IEW.

[@homewithsarahjane]

That is extremely helpful. Thank you!🙂

[@macnsydsmom]

I have used younger grades of Masterbooks and hated every minute of it. I have used GH, and we enjoyed it, but there are so many books to hunt down. We are Notgrass junkies. My oldest used all their high-school levels and loved them. My youngest is currently doing American the Beautiful, and we are learning so much. Since next year is an election year, we will be using their Uncle Sam and You curriculum.

[@homewithsarahjane]

That's pretty much my hesitation when it comes to Guest Hollow... all the books to hunt down. Thanks for stopping by! 🙂

[@carmenneeley9320]

So what was the final choice?! I am currently debating between Notgrass & Whirlwind History too! Just found your video while doing research. Lol.

[@homewithsarahjane]

I haven't released my curriculum picks yet... but I did choose Guest Hollow 😉. I feel like we can do as much or as little as we want. I still think Notgrass looks great, but if I wanted to add videos/extras I would have to figure all that out myself. Thanks for stopping.

[@10529Erin]

We are leaning towards guest hollow for next year. My friend and I meet together once a week. However, I do buy the master books readers to help my daughter. So many pictures.

[@katecraig2974]

I teach High School History if you want my list of resources I use in 10th grade, feel free to each out.

[@homewithsarahjane]

I would love ANY advice 😆