Disclosure: I received this product free through the Homeschool Review Crew. This post contains affiliate links.
We’re into the start of a new year and we’re starting with a review of the Ultimate PreK-12 Annual Membership from SchoolhouseTeachers.com. It is a one-family one-fee online home education resource run by The Old Schoolhouse and has more resources than you can shake a stick at.
To be honest, it can be a little overwhelming when you first open your membership and see the 450+ classes and resources available. To make things easier, you can browse by
- grade
- subject
- planning
- resources
More Choice Than Other Memberships
We’ve had a Schoolhouseteachers.com membership for a few years now, and I’m always surprised at how diverse the courses and resources are. I always like to have a look around sites on my own, first, before using any guidance or how-to videos, just to get a feel for things and see how intuitive the site is.
Options For Use
- You can use SchoolhouseTeachers.com for the whole family. You can use their ‘boxed’ curriculum where everything you need/want is laid out for you to dive in and get going.
- You can create your own bespoke homeschool schedule by mixing and matching the classes as you wish, using the information found in the Scope & Sequence to put a subject or grade together.
- You can use your membership for either your core subjects or use it for elective classes to round out your schedule.
Did I mention schedules? There are several lesson planners and builders to pick from, too!
Focused Learning Centers
This time the Focused Learning Centers caught my eye. You can drop in here and find topics such as:
- Career Center – find out which SchoolhouseTeachers.com classes will help you achieve your goal.
- ESL & Foreign Language Support – find the classes available from American Sign Language to Spanish.
- Focus on Special Needs – find support here.
- High School Help – learn about transcripts, taking SATs, and mentoring.
- Just For Parents – everything from getting organised to planning family night ideas to homesteading, being a homeschool dad, and marriage success.
- Homeschool Physical Education center – workouts, activities, and skills.
- And more
How We’ve Been Using SchoolhouseTeachers.com
This year I’d like my children to learn more ‘life skills’ that will help them in the ‘real world.’ I love that we’re in a much better position to do this as homeschoolers.
For the purposes of this review, we chose a couple of the shorter classes, as well as one that that will start with the new year.
Eyewitness History: Hunger and the Great Depression (Parent/Family) by The Old Schoolhouse
We started with this 22 page download (found in the Unit Studies area of the site) and read it as part of our daily read aloud. We then discussed further about how things were here on the island of Ireland during the Potato Famine, and compared to how my grandparents coped with starting a family during the Great Depression on the Canadian prairies.
My children then could better understand how I came to be so frugal because my grandparents lived on our street when I was growing up, and I learned from both them and my mother, who was brought up in a household that learned to be frugal out of necessity for survival.
New Year’s Around The World
In the lead up to Christmas we ended the children’s classes with New Year’s Around The World. They learned how New Year’s here in the UK differs with other countries around the world. Then it was all wrapped up in a word search and cross word to check their comprehension.
Preventing and Responding to Emergencies
This topic is one in particular that I wanted to cover with my children this year. Think of it as in introductory first aid course. It’s set up as a 9-week course with 2 classes a week.
The content outline is:
- Hypothermia and Frostbite
- Hyperthermia, Heat Exhaustion, and Burns
- First Aid Kits
- Drowning
- Poisoning and Electrical Shock
- Cuts and Scrapes
- Snake Bites, Insect Bites, and Spider Bites
- Broken Bones and Sprains
- Stranger Safety
We have 3 weeks’ worth of topics yet to cover in this class. It isn’t a substitute for a hands-on class such as through the Red Cross or St. John’s Ambulance, but with in-person training currently suspended, this is a good place to start. There is a lot of information to consume, but it’s done in a way that my 10-year-old is able to follow along and is keen to learn more (as is my 12-year-old).
I’ve printed off the lesson text and the children are taking their own notes as well.
The topics we’ve covered have been reinforced and brought up for discussion (much to my children’s chagrin) during a movie when a character fell into the icy waters of the Arctic (note the colour of his skin; see how he’s now under blankets next to a fire with his wet clothing removed). The reason behind why they need to take warm clothing with them, even when travelling by car a short distance away, is starting to sink in, too, I think.
There’s a supply list for first aid kits, and we went through it to see which supplies we had that were the same or not. When I was childminding a decade ago, there were very specific items required, and others that were not allowed. We ordered some supplies to update our main kit in the house (we also have kits in the car, my backpack, and on a bike). We’ll also use some of the supplies to practice with over the next couple of weeks.
Our Health 101
Our Health 101 is 32 weekly lessons (classes scheduled twice a week), with the content written by a nurse, who is also homeschooling her teens. It is broken down into 8 units:
- What is health?
- What is nutrition?
- Nutritional needs of a teen
- Healthy food choices
- Personal hygiene
- Dental health
- Heart health
- Muscle health
- Exercise and fitness
- Brain health
This class is going to be added into my children’s schedule when the above class has been completed. With two tweens in the house at the moment (one a teen in a month), I think the personal hygiene unit may be bumped up in the schedule.
The lessons for Health 101 are downloadable PDFs, that could be used together as a group or for high schoolers, they could be read through on their own and completed by typing the answers to the questions in the editable text boxes if you don’t want to print them out.
Course Completion
When a course is completed, there is a selection of certificates that can be printed out and filled in for students to keep in their portfolios.
Final Thoughts About SchoolhouseTeachers.com
As you can see, SchoolhouseTeachers.com has a lot of exploration and learning within it’s membership site. My children have already learned a lot in a couple of weeks before Christmas, and new classes are lined up for them this year.
In addition to lesson plans and resources, when you purchase the SchoolhouseTeachers.com annual membership you will receive access to the World Book encyclopedia online, videos, planners, a monthly newsletter, and more. One family one fee, and you certainly won’t be short of reading and learning materials with SchoolhouseTeachers.com!
It should be noted that many of the lessons and other information within the site have a Christian viewpoint, however, there is plenty in there that is neutral and/or can be adjusted to meet your needs if you are not Christian, and I do know people of different faiths that use this membership successfully.
If we didn’t have access to SchoolhouseTeachers.com, I know we would miss it; there is way more in there than can could ever be used!
Read 62 reviews about HomeschoolTeachers.com by the Homeschool Review Crew. If you’d like to know more or would like to follow SchoolhouseTeachers.com, you can connect with them through their website, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, and YouTube.
