Finally getting round to sharing a review of some curriculum we’ve particularly appreciated.

We have been using Master books Language Lessons for a Living Education for English, and it’s been great for our family. It is an open-and-go style curriculum which requires little preparation from me, and many of the activities can be done independently, though there are some specifically teacher-led sections.

We have used levels 1-6, which are generally designed to fit the American grade system, and so broadly cover UK primary English and a little beyond. The first book is a post-phonics book, so we found it easy to jump onto after our youngest had worked through Jolly Phonics and read all the Usborne Phonics Readers (Pig on a Dig etc).

The curriculum has a story thread running throughout most of the levels, following a group of Sunday School friends, what they learn in their Bible classes and how they grow in faith etc. Our kids really love having characters like that to follow through the years and to identify with, and this is also part of what makes this a great curriculum for Christian families. Bible verses are often used for the memory work, and poems, picture study and creative exercises also sometimes have biblical themes, though there is variety too. We liked the gentle way it wove biblical ideas into the curriculum and just made it a normal part of the English lessons.

The curriculum includes elements that focus on narration, comprehension, grammar, spelling and creative writing, as well as picture study, some drawing, and bits and pieces like basic map skills, addressing envelopes, books of the Bible etc. We have found it to be a well rounded, complete primary English curriculum that has suited our family well. Obviously being American there have been a few spellings that needed altering, a few culture-specific examples that we had to decode for the kids etc, but we haven’t found this to be a major issue, and of course these are extra learning points in themselves.

Each book is a 36 week curriculum of 5 lessons a week. We have found each days lesson pretty manageable, though some days are definitely lighter than others, but you can always tweak what you do when as needed. Although they are expecting you do it 5 days a week over 36 weeks, and therefore complete it in one academic year, it also lends itself to being a rolling curriculum where you just pick up where you left off the next day/week you are ready to do it – this is useful if like us you don’t always do structured bookwork 5 days a week, and not necessarily 36 weeks in one academic year 🤣

So far we have only used levels 1-6. Master books do now seem to have produced levels 7-10, though I’m not sure if they’re available in the UK yet. We usually get the textbooks from http://re-vived.com, a UK Christian media stockist, but we have also got them from http://Amazon.co.uk in the past.

For most of the levels there is also a companion text required:

 Level 1 uses 3 different Master books picture books, though 2 can be bought as e-books, and the 3rd is just used at the end of the book and you could skip it if you wanted, though it is good.

Level 2 doesn’t have a companion resource.

Levels 3, 4 & 5 all use the same Bible story book, though we found we needed 2 copies when we had 3 children all needing it at once!

Level 6 is a step up, and uses The 10 Minute Bible Journey, which our eldest is really enjoying using.

All in all we would thoroughly recommend this curriculum as an easy to use all round English curriculum for Christian families.

Hope this helps someone.

Hazel

Home ed mum of 4 children for 8+ years, Bristol based