In our homeschool, we have been using The Good and The Beautiful curriculum for about 3 years now. We do not use it exclusively, but we do use it for many different subjects within our homeschool. Some of it is a really good fit for our family, but not all of it! In this Good and The Beautiful homeschool curriculum review, I will give you my unbiased, honest review about everything we have used, and are still using.
What is The Good and The Beautiful Curriculum all about?
The Good and The Beautiful is a homeschool curriculum created by Jenny Phillips. It is a faith-based curriculum, and it’s all about building a strong education through wholesome literature. It connects everything back to God as the Creator, and showcases a lot of beautiful art throughout each course book.
This is the description of the curriculum that The Good and The Beautiful provides on their website:
- Emphasizes family, God, high character, nature, and wholesome literature
- Requires no daily prep time—just open the book and follow the instructions, learning and exploring along with your child
- Family Style – History, Science, & Electives
- Combines multiple subjects, which connects learning and eliminates the need for six to seven different courses
- Thorough phonics reading program creates excellent readers
- Thorough and advanced courses leave no gaps
- Offers a free book list for all ages
Our background
We started our homeschool journey when my daughter was in 2nd grade. She had attended a small private school for a couple of years, and then attended public school for her grade 2 year. It was during that year that we made the decision to homeschool, and we pulled her out about halfway through.
At the time, my son was only 3 years old and not yet in school. He is now a 1st grader, and has been homeschooled the entire time.
I did not grow up being homeschooled, so when we started, I had zero experience! I was looking for a homeschool curriculum that required very little prep work from me, and would basically show me how to teach my children.
>>>Read also: How Morning Journals Can Transform Your Homeschool
Why The Good and The Beautiful?
When researching what type of curriculum to use, I was drawn to The Good and The Beautiful curriculum for these reasons:
- free downloads
- open and go style of each course (meaning no lesson plan required from me)
- beautiful art in each course book
- strong focus on phonics and good literature
- faith-based
What We Have Used
Here is a list of everything we have used from The Good and The Beautiful, within the last 3 years. You can find all of their available courses here.
Language Arts Courses
- Language Arts Level 3 Course set (with readers)
- Language Arts Level K Primer
Handwriting
- Doodles and Pre-Writing For Littles (Part 1)
- Doodles and Pre-Writing For Littles (Part 2)
- Handwriting Workbook – Levels 2, 3 & 5
Math
- Math 1 Course Set (Older version)
- Math 2 Course Set
- Math 3 Course Set
Science
- Space Science
- Marine Biology
- Botany
- Birds
- Safety
If you’re not sure how to even go about choosing a curriculum for your homeschool, this post will help! >>>How To Choose The Best Homeschool Curriculum: 10 Tips
Ok, let’s get to my honest review about all of the curricula we have used and are still currently using!
The Good and The Beautiful Language Arts Curriculum
First, I want to mention that ALL of the language arts programs (including the personal readers and all other included elements) from The Good and The Beautiful are available as a free digital download directly from their website! This is so amazing, because it gives you the opportunity to save money by printing them out yourself.
Language Arts Level K Primer
- This is what I am currently using with my son who is 6 years old, in grade 1. I considered using Level 1 for him, but I want to make sure he has a solid foundation of phonics, letter recognition, and letter sounds. So far, this curriculum is doing exactly what I want it to do. This is really good for younger children who are still learning to write their letters, and need to master letter blends, CVC words, and basic sight words. These are short lessons – he’s usually done in about 20 minutes. There is also a fun letter tiles app that goes along with this level, where he has to spell words that I dictate to him. In my opinion, this a fantastic language arts curriculum for giving a strong foundation for reading and writing.
- For a review of the ENTIRE Language Arts Level K, Tyla over at Homeschool Freebies & Giveaways has a complete review of every single part of this course set!
Language Arts Level 3 Course Set
- I used this with my daughter when she was in 3rd grade. I had really high hopes for this course set because language arts has always been her weakest subject, and I thought this new curriculum would be perfect for her. However, we found this to be way too advanced for her grade level. The lessons were long, and we often had to divide each lesson into two separate days. The content of each lesson was very advanced, and unfortunately, it often ended in tears. We actually did not complete this course, because it was putting too much of a strain on our homeschool.
- Now, it’s important to know that we were in our first year of formal homeschooling when we used this, and she really hadn’t received much of a language arts foundation from her previous schooling. Had that not been the case, it’s possible she could have been ready for the workload of this level. We ended up using a different curriculum for the remainder of that year, but now that she has progressed in this area, I’m looking at other levels of language arts curriculum via The Good and The Beautiful for her.
- There is now a revised version of the Language Arts Level 3, and according to reviews, it is much less intimidating. Plus, the lessons are shorter.
- I will say, all of the language arts books from The Good and The Beautiful, are actually beautiful! There is so much artwork, and it really has a strong emphasis on art appreciation.
The Good and The Beautiful Handwriting
Doodles and Pre-Writing For Littles (Part 1 AND Part 2)
- These little books are so awesome for any child in the kindergarten year! The Good and The Beautiful has some beautiful pre-k curriculum, and these are no exception. My son had so much fun with these! They focus on pencil grip, fine motor skills, tracing, letter/shape recognition, and more. Depending on the day, he would only do one page, but sometimes he would do more than that. I let him do what he wanted with these, because they are fun and I wanted them to stay fun! Part 2 is only slightly more advanced than Part 1, and both are ideal little workbooks for young kids.
Handwriting Workbooks – Levels 2,3 & 5
- My daughter is currently in grade 5, and is working her way through the Handwriting Level 5 Workbook. She absolutely loves it, and often asks to do extra pages! Each of these levels teach proper cursive writing skills, along with grammar rules, poetry, Bible verses, and more. There is even an art component woven into these as well. If you want your child to learn cursive writing and neat penmanship, these workbooks will be a wonderful fit to your homeschool.
The Good and The Beautiful Math
All of The Good and The Beautiful Math curriculums are spiral curriculums. This means that they present a concept, and as they continue to present new concepts, they circle back around to each previous concept for further practice. Both of my children have done well with this method. Also, just like Language Arts, you can get free downloads of Math K-7 from their website! The only element you won’t get if you opt for the free downloads are the math boxes – however, there are quite a few youtube videos showing how you can make your own. You also have the option of purchasing the math box separately when opting for the downloaded curriculum, but depending on where you live, shipping and duty make that quite expensive.
Math 1 Course Set
- I am currently using this for my son, and it is working really well for him. I am using the older version, (there is a newer revised version available at the time of me writing this), but from my understanding, they aren’t too different. What I love about all of the Math Course Sets for the lower levels, is that they come a Math Box which contains various manipulatives for them to use with each lesson. This is great if you have a kinesthetic learner, because everything is very hands on and visual. So far as a 1st grader, my son has mastered the concepts of addition, subtraction, place value, skip counting by 2’s and 10’s, shapes, parallel lines, and more. We are really loving this math program and I would definitely recommend it!
Math 2 & Math 3 Course Sets
- I used both of these for my daughter, and for the most part, they were a wonderful fit. Like Math 1, they both come with a Math Box full of manipulatives, and she really enjoyed those! I did find that the grade levels didn’t really match up with where she was at after having been in public school, so in grade 3 she did Math 2, and in grade 4 she did Math 3. However, they were extremely effective in teaching her what she needed to know. After she finished Math 3, we did decide to try a different math curriculum for her grade 5 year, simply because she was finding it to be a little bit too wordy for her. She actually really likes math, and just wants to do math! So, we switched to something else. But, because of how comprehensive The Good and The Beautiful math programs are, she was fully prepared for the grade 5 math level of her new curriculum.
The Good and The Beautiful Science
All of The Good and The Beautiful science units are presented as individual unit studies. This is great because you can pick and choose which topics you want to cover, and not feel like you’re paying for stuff you don’t want. They do offer the Marine Biology unit as a free digital download, but that’s the only one you can get for free. The rest, you need to purchase either as physical products, or digital downloads. Also, one thing I really appreciate about The Good and The Beautiful, is that all of their curriculum (but specifically science), points everything back to God. So as the children are learning about the scientific world around them, they are also being taught about the Creator of it all.
Space Science
- This was the very first science unit we did from The Good and The Beautiful, and we all loved it! My daughter is really interested in outer space, and this unit was full of fun activities, all while really deep diving into space facts. I highly recommend this unit if you have a child who loves outer space. It has extension activities for older children, and also does a wonderful job of engaging the young ages. This unit comes with readers you can purchase separately, which we did, and they really did compliment the course.
Marine Biology
- We actually haven’t done this one yet, but I decided to download it since it’s free! The kids are really looking forward to it! It comes with readers as well, which I went ahead and purchased. There’s a lot of beautiful pictures in this unit, so I think it will be very captivating for them. I will keep you posted on this one!
Botany
- I was really excited about this particular unit study because of my own interest in plants. However, we got through a few lessons and found that we were having a hard time getting into it. The lessons seemed a little bit dry, and it wasn’t quite what I thought it would be. In all fairness, it could have been because it was our last unit study of the year (last year), and we were already getting into summer mode! I will be picking this one up again to retry, because I do think it has potential. It also comes with readers which we went ahead and read, and they were beautiful. My son loves flowers, and one book was all about flowers – so he loved that.
Birds
- I went through this full unit study with my daughter, and we both had mixed feelings on it. Some elements were quite interesting, and she really enjoyed going bird watching with binoculars! All of the bird watching and observation activities this unit suggests are fun for all ages, and actually taught us both a lot about the birds that live around us. However, I found there were also a lot of what I call ”technical science facts” included in this unit, which, would probably suit older kids quite well. But at the time, my daughter was 8, and honestly, she wasn’t absorbing any of it. Even I found myself feeling bored by some of it. So this one is likely more suited to someone who enjoys getting into the scientific terms for everything, and really deep diving into facts. For us, I felt that parts of it were great, but other parts just didn’t click.
Safety
- This is an absolutely fantastic unit study! I really can’t say enough good things about this one. We went through the entire course once, and we are actually working our way through it again now that my kids are a little bit older. This course touches on safety topics such as fire, water & electricity, natural disasters, God gave me a body (I’ll expand on this one in a minute), internet & peer pressure, gun safety, home alone, and more. Each section has role playing activities so that as a family, we can practice what we would do in certain situations. The God gave me a body section is all about teaching children that nobody has the right to touch them inappropriately, and what to do in the event something like that happens. In this section, Jenny Phillips recognizes that this is a sensitive topic, and encourages the parents to use their discretion when approaching it with their children. But it is presented in a very non threatening way, and both of my children actually really enjoyed this section. I think it makes them feel a great sense of control realizing that their body deserves respect. It really is a wonderful unit, and I highly recommend it for every family!
Pros & Cons about their physical products vs digital downloads
All of the courses offered by The Good and The Beautiful come as either a physical product or a digital download. Yes, some of the downloads are free, but some you have to purchase.
If you decide to purchase the physical products for any of the courses they offer, I just want to comment on how high quality they are. The paper is thick, and the pages are full color with beautiful imagery. Everything is bound really well, and built to last. The math boxes are actually wooden boxes, not flimsy at all, and everything is really well made.
However there are definitely pros and cons to purchasing the physical products vs their digital downloads.
Physical Products
Pros:
- everything is already printed and bound for you
- the beauty and quality of the physical products
- receiving all the manipulatives needed (for example – the math box), and not having to gather them yourself
Cons:
- more expensive (especially living in Canada because we have to pay duty)
- waiting for it to arrive vs being able to print and start right away
- not as reusable – once a course set has been used by the child, you can’t really use it again down the road because things have already been cut, marked on, etc.
Digital Downloads
Pros:
- less expensive (cheaper price, no shipping or duty), and some things are even free
- instant access to begin printing and using right away
- reusable (you can print as many times as you like for multiple kids or for future use)
Cons:
- printing and binding is a bit tedious and can use a lot of printer ink and paper
- certain manipulatives have to be homemade
- not always as beautiful as the physical products (less professional binding, thinner paper, etc)
Summary
A few of the main reasons I am drawn to The Good and The Beautiful curriculum are the open and go style, the high moral character it promotes, and the faith-based elements. I am also very happy with the strong foundation it provides with language arts and math. Not everything we have used has been the right fit for our homeschooling journey, but much of it has been.
Younger grades and older grades can work together from the science units, but nothing else. Everything else is grade specific, so if you’re looking for a curriculum where you are covering each subject from one main parent/teacher guide, this may not be the curriculum for you. However, if that’s not important to you, and you are ok with having your children working on their own grade specific courses, then this is definitely one to to consider. The Good and The Beautiful takes every subject and truly does make it “good and beautiful”, just as the name describes.
The freedom of homeschooling
As with everything in homeschooling, you get to decide what to use based on what works well for your family. One of the wonderful things about this curriculum, is the fact that you can access quite a bit of it through their free downloads. This means, if you find it’s not the right fit, you feel less obligated to continue than you do with a purchased curriculum.
So, if you’re curious about The Good and The Beautiful curriculum, I would encourage you to give it a try! Overall, we love it, and will continue to use some of it in our homeschool!
Blessings!
~Maryann
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