Homestead Education for Upper Grades

Are you following us over at Instagram? If so, you'll know that we had a chance to check out the new Homestead Science curriculum from Homemade Revelation before it dropped (I know, we were so lucky!!), and I cannot say enough good things about it. Here's what we had to say the first week...

🌿🍁Ok, but for real...I am LOVING this new curriculum from @homestead_education !!!

Peek through the photos and you'll see that it is multi-modal and incorporates all the subjects!! My son is using it this year, but mom is learning alongside him as well. There's always something new to learn in the #homesteadlife...

Now that we've really had a chance to utilize it, I want to break it down and let you see inside so that you can decide if this is a good fit for your family. Similar to many curricula, the course has daily reading and vocabulary, additional research projects, hands on projects both short and long term, and applied mathematics. Being an introductory course, there are some topics that are covered more in depth than others. The author says there will be future curriculums covering additional topics more in depth, but you could easily use only this course and reap a great deal of knowledge!

Middle / High School Learners

Created for upper grades learners, Introduction to Homestead Science contains 18 interactive units that teach agriculture science, life skills, applied mathematics, and character lessons.  Each of those units includes eight lessons, spanning two weeks, for a total of thirty-six weeks.  Each lesson has accompanying workbook activities and projects.  The curriculum also includes tests, quizzes, and six homestead projects (no acreage required).

Units include:

• Building & Land
• Tractors & Small Engines
• Poultry
• Companion & Predator Animals
• Dairy & Fiber Animals
• Meat Animals
• Compost & Soil
• Insects, Bees, & Bugs
• Gardens
• Orchards & Vineyards
• Grains & Forage Crops
• Food Preservation
• Home Cooking
• Off-Grid Life
• Hunting, Fishing, & Trapping
• Foraging & Herbs
• First-Aid
• Homestead Accounting

Homestead Science is available in both digital and print versions. Both versions come with an answer key for busy parents to utilize, too!

Homestead science focuses on real life skills that can be used in practical applications. This also includes some trial and error along with insightful questions on how to improve the projects.

Some projects include:

- Electric fence to keep slugs out of raised beds

- Hot compost

- Drip irrigation

- Calculating feed rations and costs

- Herbal salves

- Capturing sourdough

- Planning home cooked meals

- Water purification

- Wilderness navigation

- Homestead accounting

- Real life research projects

- Opportunity for advancement in quality of character

- and many more!

Peek inside the Homestead Science curriculum!

This is just one of the pages from the table of contents, showing how in depth this course really goes!  The textbook component uses a combination of visual aids and well-researched text for instruction, and the student pages provide a place to check that knowledge.

After each lesson, there is a vocabulary check to ensure students understand what is being discussed.  I prefer to have my students do the vocabulary section of the journal BEFORE reading the lesson so they will be primed to pay attention to certain words and will already have a basic understanding of the meaning.  Each lesson also has 'life skills' aspects, such as this piece on assessing and responding to emergencies.

Within the course are several hands-on projects...some in the kitchen, some in the garden, and some around the homestead.  This gives students a chance to apply what they are learning in a real-world scenario!  Don't have a large parcel of acreage?  No worries.  These projects don't require a lot of space, and there are suggestions for things to do if you are in an apartment or otherwise unable to utilize any land at all.  The cooking projects are both practical and tasty, and (if you're like me) you'll enjoy turning the kitchen over to your teens for a bit...

The student journal also has space for applying information in a real-world scenario, such as running and agricultural business.  Students are asked to do more research, create theoretical (or real, if you have the space and inclination) entrepreneurships, and figure out how to make them work.  These 'life applications' are something I love most about this course!

Elementary Learners

Little Learner's Homestead Science is an excellent curriculum for elementary aged students. It's an interactive homeschool curriculum that will introduce your child to small scale farming.  While it tends to be light on the reading, it has lots of activities, visuals, and gives a full understanding of all the parts of a homestead, including where food comes from, which allows them to take ownership in providing food for the family whether that’s understanding what they are choosing at the grocery store, helping you tend to the garden, or gathering eggs from your chickens.

Little Learners is available in both digital and print versions.  There is also an accompanying 2 foot x 3 foot wall poster to help your student visualize what is being learned.

For families who just want to dip their toe into the homesteading world, or like the idea of using farm materials to teach, The Homestead Alphabet associates farming facts with the alphabet using coloring pages and a variety of homestead activities. This is a great preschool through 2nd grade curriculum.  It can be used independently, without any other pieces, but it should be noted that if you are planning on using the Little Learner's Build Your Own Homestead, the Homestead Alphabet is already part of it so there is no need to get both.  

The Homestead Alphabet is available in both digital and print versions.

Finally, for families who just want some read-alouds or short readers, there is the the reader box set.

This boxset of Homestead Education Stories contains wholesome children’s books about homesteading and teaches positive character traits.  The set has nine homestead story books at a discount price and includes the audiobooks, too!

The stories are clean, represent traditional families, and are secular. If you opt for the full curriculum, Little Learner’s Homestead Science, you get copies of these stories in that.

• Wade’s Treehouse
• Quailetta’s Giant Egg
• County Fair
• Thomas the Tomato
• My Favorite Squash Plant
• Weekend at Grammy’s
• Famous Whole Wheat Flour
• Daddy’s Tractor
• Grandpa’s Fishing Knife

Freebies

If you just need a little piece here and there, snag one of the free printables available on the site.  These may seem like little things, but having this information on hand makes a busy homesteader's life a lot easier!  

• The Livestock Gestation Barn Guide helps you quickly estimate breeding and birthing dates.
• The Livestock Culling Decision Chart helps you choose which animals to keep and which to sell or process, based on a series of questions and priorities.
• The Homestead Equipment Record helps you to track your preventative maintenance on machinery.

Homeschool Helpers

Whether you're tackling the Little Learners or the full Homestead Science, these Homestead Student Planner Pages will help you keep track of lessons as well as teach older students record keeping and problem solving.  These planner pages and journals are your documentation that while you got the kids away from a desk and into more hands on learning, they were still meeting state requirements.  Included are suggestions for how to use the planner.

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Interested in learning more about Homesteading?  You're going to LOVE our Word of the Year for 2023!!  😉