Anyone who is familiar with my main homeschool philosophy knows that, to our family, simplicity is key. Anytime I come across a curriculum that is simple, literature-based, and cross-curricular, you can bet I’m going to be excited about it!
(Disclosure- I received this product for free and was compensated for my time in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are entirely my own.)
That’s why I was ecstatic to come across Pathways Reading and Language Arts by Kendall Hunt RPD for my 7th grader. (This product is available for grades 1 through 8.)
Being a busy mom of many inevitably means that any homeschool curriculum I use has to be efficient, it has to be engaging, and it has to be biblically accurate. I simply don’t have time to be spending 6 hours per day on each child when I’ve got 10 children. It’s impossible!
This curriculum fits those requirements perfectly…and then some!
An Overview of Pathways Reading and Language Arts
Although this curriculum is categorized as “Reading and Language Arts,” the use of trade books and living books as the backbone of the lesson plans makes it the perfect candidate for using as a thematic unit. Besides giving comprehensive instruction on the aforementioned subjects, each “Session” contains extension activities covering additional subjects such as: Science, Social Studies, Art, Music, Foreign Language, and Bible.
Included in the Daily Lesson Guides are detailed plans providing activity ideas for the following areas:
- vocabulary
- spelling
- grammar
- writing
- pre-reading
- poetry
- comprehension
- speaking
- listening
- Bible
- art
- social studies
- foreign language
- science
- music
The lesson plans are perfect to use as is, or they can be easily tweaked in order to meet the needs of individual families.
In the back of the lesson plan books are blacklines, or worksheets, that include grammar practice, cursive copywork, graphic organizers, writing activities, and so much more!
Kendall Hunt RPD literally thought of everything when it came to this curriculum!
What I Love About Pathways
There are honestly so many great things about this curriculum that I could be up all night writing this, but I’ll spare you that and try to keep it to my absolute favorites.
For starters, I already mentioned that our family is very into literature-based homeschooling, and the books we read with our units: Gifts of an Eagle and Gallaudet: Friend of the Deaf were amazing- and true- stories.
My daughter read Gifts of an Eagle first, and, at first, she started out reading it on her own. After doing several of the worksheets and activities with her, however, I became intrigued by the story myself and wanted in, so we ended up doing it as a read-aloud. (I might admit that I had to hold in tears for the last chapter…)
Since we enjoyed this method so much, we jumped right into Gallaudet: Friend of the Deaf as a read-aloud, as well, and something really awesome happened- my 4th and 5th graders decided to sit in during story time, too. Score!
I also loved that the lesson plans aren’t set in stone. We picked out which activities she found the most interesting and those she needed the most work on…
Thank heavens for the Writer’s Handbook!
I also found that this curriculum was a great jumping off point for my daughter to begin exploring new topics she hadn’t thought much about before. After reading Gifts of an Eagle, she became really interested in learning everything she could about birds of prey, especially golden eagles. She recently began to watch the eagle cam on YouTube, and we also found some great videos starring none other than Lady and Ed Durden, the main characters. After watching them “in person,” she (okay… and I) started to feel like we actually knew them, and the story became much more personal for us.
The same thing happened with Gallaudet: Friend of the Deaf. Ever since reading it, my daughter and her two siblings have been finger spelling everything they can think of. I see an ASL class in their future.
Conclusion:
If you’re looking for a Christian* curriculum that is flexible, comprehensive, cross-curricular, and engrossing, I highly recommend Pathways Reading and Language Arts. I am so blessed to have this in my homeschool library!
(Pathways is a Seventh-Day Adventist curriculum, however, the material is more generally Christian, and, coming from a Baptist/Bible Fellowship background, I found absolutely nothing that I disagreed with, biblically.)
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