Homeschool Crew Review: Homeschool Complete

I first heard about Homeschool Complete a few years ago when I saw some reviews on their Kindergarten Complete program.  At the time I thought it looked great but did not need a Kindergarten curriculum.  I had no idea until they appeared on our vendor list this year that not only do they offer complete curriculum for grades K-4, they also have other products. I had a really hard time deciding what my first and second choices would be for a review product and finally decided to choose Second Grade Complete  to use with my 7 year old daughter.  We received a downloadable version of Semester One of Second Grade Complete to use and review.

The Homeschool Complete curriculum is written by Debra Arbuthnot, a homeschool mom with a Bachelor's Degree in Elementary Education and 27 years teaching experience in public and private schools. In addition to complete curriculum for K-4, they also offer Unit Studies for K-6, Reading Curriculum, Bundles, and Resources.


Second Grade Complete is a year long all inclusive curriculum that uses a unit study approach to teaching.  It is a literature based curriculum that covers: language arts, math, science, social studies, Bible, fine arts, physical fitness, and character development.  A variety of activities are included in each unit to appeal to different learning styles.  Each of the units is based on a 5 day school week with activities being planned for 4 days and one open day for activities of your choice.  There are 36 units covered in Second Grade complete, 18 units per semester including:

Semester One

Johnny Appleseed
Maps
Migration
Colonies
Bats
Jackie Robinson
Geometry
Economics
Tall Tales
Northeast States
Endangered Species
Daniel Boone
Health
Rivers
Herbivores
Northeast States
Water Cycle
Thomas Jefferson

Semester Two
Parks
Marsupials
Northeast States
Rocks
Mountains
Susan B Anthony
Reptiles
Landmarks
Rain Forests
Pioneers
Carnivores
Africa
Eyes
Magnets
Cowboys
Butterflies
Missionaries
Harriet Tubman


Second Grade Complete has two parts: Teacher's Manual and Student Workbook.  The Teacher's Manual for Semester One of Second Grade Complete is a 604 page PDF download. The beginning of the guide has introductory material talking about things such as what is covered, teaching procedure, and organization and planning.  Next you will find step by step guided lessons plans for each days lesson including books and supplies you will need.  The student worksheets are also included in the Teacher Manual and answers to the worksheets are found in the step by step teaching instructions.  An appendix at the back of the guide includes a lot of helpful resources including: Bible Verse List,  Game Boards, Literature List, Materials List, Pledges, Recipes, Songs and Poems, Spelling Squares, Tangrams, United Stated Map, and World Map.  The Student Workbook is a 251 page download that includes just the workbook pages.

Homeschool Complete is literature based and there is a variety of books that are suggested to go along with each unit.  You do not need all of the books to complete the unit.  Weekly supplies needed include basic school supplies (paper, scissors, glue, pens and pencils, etc..)  basic office supplies (stapler, hole punch, tape, etc..) craft supplies (watercolor paint, yarn, etc..) plus blocks, dice, and game supplies.  There are additional activities for each week and the supplies for those vary for each unit and activity.


Emmie (2nd Grade) is my youngest of 7 children.  Often when you are homeschooling in a large family you combine as many subjects as possible and the younger children tag along with the older children.  This works well to a certain point but sometimes younger children need activities and lessons that are geared for their age.  That is why I was interested in reviewing Second Grade Complete.  I wanted to spend some one on one time with Emmie working on activities just for her.  If I were just homeschooling 2nd grade and had the entire school day to dedicate just to her, I would have used this curriculum differently.  But having 5 other children I needed to work with as well, we had to pick and choose the activities we wold work on.  We have focused mainly on language arts, science, social studies, and math.

I love literature based curriculum and was excited to see that Homeschool Complete is literature based.  We do a lot of reading and reading aloud in our house and have a lot of books.  We live in a very small town and our library is tiny so we did not have access to all of the suggested books.  But some of the picture books we did not have we were able to access on YouTube and I have bought a few of the recommended books.  Most of the worksheets do not require you to read any certain book.  There are some discussion questions in the Teacher's Manual for the books but if you do not have access to those books you can skip those.

I also love that the curriculum is set up around thematic units.  I think short unit studies can make learning so much more meaningful for young children.  When we did the unit on Johnny Appleseed we read about apples and Johnny Appleseed, made apple prints out of sponges, did a science activity on apples, wrote a cinquain poem, made a graph using tally marks, made a picture graph, and even planted apple seeds two different ways.

During the map unit we loved reading the Flat Stanley The Amazing Mexican Secret, (she even  made Flat Stanley out of clay), completing the worksheets on maps, learning about rulers and scale, practicing measuring, learning about continents and oceans, and playing games based on a grid.

In the unit on migration some of our favorite activities have been learning about why people and animals migrate, working on clocks, and possessive pronouns.  Emmie had to write a sentence using a possessive pronoun on a day we were babysitting and her sentence was ,"Emmie's baby  woke up too early."

Second Grade Complete is flexible and has plenty of hands on activities.  You can pick and choose what activities you want to complete and leave the others out.  You can skip a day and pick it back up the next.  The scheduling is all up to you.  I have seen worksheets in other curriculum that is just busy work for the children but that is not true in this curriculum.  The worksheets are meaningful and teach important skills.  My favorite have been the reading comprehension pages. It is the first time we have used these type of worksheets and though Emmie is not forming her answers in complete sentences, she is paying attention to the reading and able to answer the questions.

I do think that I would prefer the hard copy version of the curriculum rather then the digital.  The Teacher's Manual is very large so I chose not to print it. I am reading it from the computer screen but I would rather have it in a binder in front of me.  The worksheets do have to be printed out for your child to work in.  I think it would be worth the little bit of extra money to have it all printed out and shipped to you.


We love Second Grade Complete!  It is complete curriculum that is fun, affordable, Bible based, and uses lots of great books.

Members of The Crew reviewed other levels of Homeschool Complete and also some of the Unit Studies. To see what my Crew Mates had to say, stop by the Crew Blog!