Trail Guide to Learning Review

We are about to begin our twelfth year of homeschooling. We are super excited and have been for the past three school years. The main reason why is because of our wonderful curriculum. Here is the review I sent them of their product.

I have been homeschooling since 1997. I have four children, 25, 19, 13 and 10. I started out homeschooling my two oldest children who were 5^th grade and Kindergarten at the time. Needless to say, I have used various curriculums over the years and found things I loved and didn’t love. And I found things that worked with one child didn’t work with the second child. We had times of public school and private school for the younger three children in the middle of our homeschooling years. But after a year and a quarter of public school and two years of private school we were back to homeschooling. The first year we used the math they were using in the private school and found we loved it so we still use it (Math U See). We will be beginning our fifth year back to homeschooling this fall. Three years ago I found Trail Guides to Learning and it changed our homeschool experience into something I always hoped it would be, amazing and fun for them and me.

Trail Guides to Learning fit our family just right. I needed something already put together with lesson plans that weren’t overwhelming and easy to follow. The fact that it was based on books instead of text books was an added plus to me. Text books can be so dry but novels come alive when you read them. I loved how you could buy everything all at once without having to go hunt things down. I also love the middle school supplement that is offered with each level. We used the middle school supplement because one of my children is one grade higher than each one said it covered. I loved the extra book for each unit. That became our book we used for dictation and that they read silently each day. We used the other three books for each of us to read aloud to the “class”. My younger child reads the easiest and my older child reads whichever of the other two he chooses while I read the one remaining. We got so many different looks at each period of time.

The middle school supplement had extra work that you could assign to challenge your students. It was easy to understand and the kids were able to complete it in a timely manner. I love how I can teach both of my children from one lesson but give the older one more without it disrupting our flow. In fact, I often give my younger child the same extra assignments if I feel she can handle it. Even though she is two grades below my son, my daughter has excelled and done most of the same extended work he has. Sometimes she is more willing to do the extended work than the older one is.

I have and will continue to recommend this program to any and all who are homeschooling or thinking about it. After seeing the different curriculums for the past 15 years I can honestly say it is the best program for our family and I wish it had been around when I taught my older two children. We have such fun discovering history together. I never had this much fun when I was in school but I am learning along with my children and having fun. We connect what we have learned with so many things we see and do in our everyday lives.

Thanks so much for creating this program and please keep working on the ones for the years to come. We look forward to going through high school with Trail Guides to Learning series!

That is our progress report for today. Thanks for stopping by.