6 reasons BookShark has been perfect for my family…

As homeschoolers, we are fortunate to have so many curriclum options available to us these days. On the other hand, it also makes it difficult to pick a perfect curriculum that fits every family‘s needs. After going through, what feels like gazzilion curriculum, I realized that even a perfect curriculum won’t fit every family or child. I will share with you about BookShark and why it fit our family this year.

BookShark is a complete out of the box Charlotte Mason inspired homeschool curriculum. Being an eclectic homeschooler, I have always been a bit hesitant of boxed curriculums because I prefer flexibility that meets unique learning styles of my girls. However, when I saw the countless homeschoolers using BookShark as their core last year and its focus on family reading, I knew I had to give it a try. Previous years, I struggled to find the perfect books that were engaging for my then 6 year old and interactive enough for my then 5 year old…so I knew needed all the help I could get.

1. BookShark is Charlotte Mason inspired curriculum and that means it is heavy on read aloud and readers. There have been countless days that my mouth was left dry but my heart very happy. It is perfect fit for my family because we enjoyed sitting on the couch or while having snacks or breakfast and reading amazing literature. Reading is very special to me and I made sure it was a big part of our family life and ofcouse our homeschool.
2. BookShark is an open and go curriclum. Basically, they provide a complete lesson plan with reading assignment, worksheets and activities. The lesson plan is easy to follow and compiled based on 36 weeks plan. Now if you like to plan your own activities, pick and choose topics and select your own books then you may not reap the most lucrative reasons to use this curriculum but it is still achievable. For us this was a life saver because I was very busy as a working homeschool mom so I needed an open and go curriculum. The binder included with BookShark is pretty large and a bit overwhelming at first, however it is neatly planned out. I preferred to use an online planner to keep log/record. I also coil bound the lesson plans for each subject so it is easier to flag and for every day use.
3. Yes, it comes with lesson plan but you know what’s amazing, BookShark allows you flexibility. For the science we used an “Waldorf Inspired” approach this year so I was able to pick and choose which topics to do and when and it did not affect our lessons. We took the questions from the worksheets and drew and narrated/copy work to make it more fun. The worksheets are very short and it is to ensure the comprehension and understanding is absorbed by the student. Although it is planned out for 36 weeks we were able to take more time on certain topics but still not feel overwhelmed. It took us more then 40 weeks to complete the curriculum. I would advise to follow the schedule and plan for history because it is chronological and one concept leads to the other. It is flexible enough to allow you to skip a day and pick it right back up with a handy little flag to use as a mark on the plans.
4. We all want our children to be exposed to great literature. Love of reading is the greatest gift we can provide to our children. It can be a daunting task to find literature that appeal to their age, knowledge and of substance. BookShark curates great selection of books and allows you to customize the selection based on your child. In our case my 7 year old is an advanced reader so her selection of books were in higher level then the traditional Level 2 books. We enjoyed all of our read aloud however there were few readers that seemed well above 4th grade level. There were few books, which had materials that I might not have selected but I am thankful to BookShark because my daughter understood the difficult concept and it enhanced her perspective on life.
5. Cost plays a critical role in our homeschool curriculum selection because hey most of us pay out of pocket. In my days of homeschooling I have seen little amounts here and there adding up to a large number. BookShark offers a comprehensive curriculum with lots of quality books and most of the spines are hard cover. I have always gone over budget when I had to accumulate all on my own and was time consuming and time has a value as well.
6. My knowledge on this is very limited but I did want to touch upon it because I see it mentioned in various places. BookShark is neutral on their approach as far secular versus religious. We used Level 2 and we did not find anything that contradicted it. The spine for history was A Child’s History of the World and we were very happy with it versus Story of the World. I cannot speak for other grades.

Disclaimer: BookShark provided us with the curriculum in return to show an unboxing video on my Youtube Channel. This post along with all the thoughts are mine.

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