Homeschooling Must-Haves: 2024

2024 has been a year filled with discoveries and lots of excellent learning for our whole family! This year, we have added some new homeschooling must-haves to our list and kept some of our favorites from years past. 

We’re still loving journaling, poetry teatime, games, and great books. We have discovered new logic games we love and ways to make our favorite activities even better! Plus, we learned a new sport, and the whole family is involved in practicing and competing together.

Want to see what we’re loving this year? Keep reading to get the scoop on new sports, activities, books, and games we’re calling “must-haves” for 2024.

Reflections On Our School Year

There are so many amazing resources to discover during the school year! This year we found new activities to enjoy and great new books to read together. We fell in love with some excellent games and learned about many interesting topics in our homeschool with interest-led unit studies and discovery decks for curious kids.  

As we end our 2024 school year, I can’t wait to share some of our favorite homeschooling must-haves with you. I’m sure your family will love these engaging books, games, and unit studies too!

Homeschooling Must-Haves: 2024

My number one must-haves for a successful homeschooling year include a computer and a library card. With an internet connection and a library card, the world is at your fingertips! If you’re homeschooling on a very tight budget, you can make it work with these two amazing resources. 

Our favorite homeschooling must-haves for 2024 include some of our favorites from years past and a few new favorites too. Keep reading to get the scoop on our favorite books this year.

Books

We love reading books in a series because they allow us to get to know the characters and the world they inhabit on a deeper level. Plus, it’s more fun when the story keeps going! Some of our favorite book series this year include Explorer Academy by Trudi Trueit, Wilderlore by Amanda Foody, and City Spies by James Ponti. 

Our collection of Who HQ books continues to grow as well. We love reading about fascinating characters from history like Nikola Tesla and Walt Disney in the Who Was book series. Plus, they make excellent Who Was mini-unit studies!

The What Was book series invites kids to learn more about important events in history like the Titanic and Hurricane Katrina. Then, we can learn more about these historic events in What Was Mini Unit Studies.

Who Would Win? books are another fun Who HQ series focused on investigating animals and comparing their similarities and differences. Do you know who would win if an alligator fought a python? That’s the kind of fascinating question that gets answered in these books and our Who Would Win Mini Unit Studies. 

Finally, don’t miss the Where Is Mini Unit Studies. These books are focused on the Where Is book series from Who HQ. They answer questions like Where is Mount Everest? and Where is the Parthenon?

                            

 

Games

We love playing games together as a family! Games are an excellent way to practice so many skills and concepts. They’re the perfect way to engage reluctant learners and give them a chance to practice while having fun and learning through play. 

Some of our favorite games this year include logic and critical thinking games from The Happy Puzzle Company. Genius Square and Genius Star are games that kids can play independently or challenge others to complete the puzzles for a multiplayer version.

Other favorite games from 2024 include Pass the Pandas dice game and Guess in 10 from Skillmatics. There are lots of different Guess in 10 decks covering a wide variety of topics including animals, space, and countries of the world. They’re perfect for pairing with different subjects! 

We also love Professor Noggin’s decks. His trivia card games cover every subject and category, so it’s easy to find something that will interest your homeschooler. 

Some of our favorite decks include History of the US and Art History. These trivia cards feel just like a game with dice you can roll and cards on different levels that are perfect for kids of all ages. 

Mind Benders books are another fun 2024 must-have. These books have puzzles we can work to solve together or independently. They’re perfect for building critical thinking skills and practicing problem-solving at any age.

                

 

Poetry Teatime

We’ve been enjoying poetry teatime for years! Emily loved tea parties as a young child and it seemed like a natural way to incorporate tea parties into our homeschool plans. I mean, who doesn’t love sipping tea, nibbling snacks, and reading beautiful poems together?

Since I’m homeschooling an only child, we have adapted our poetry teatime to fit our needs. This year, we’re loving our tea for one personal teapot set. It’s adorable and contains everything you need for poetry teatime with just one kiddo. 

Substitute tea for your favorite drink and a stack of poetry or picture books to get started. Some of our favorite poetry books this year include Days to Celebrate: A Full Year of Poetry, People, Holidays, History, Fascinating Facts, and More by Lee Bennett Hopkins and Julie Andrews’ Treasury for All Seasons: Poems and Songs to Celebrate the Year. 

        

 

Journaling 

Recently, Emily has joined me in journaling. There are lots of health benefits to keeping a journal in addition to all the ways it can help kids squeeze in extra writing practice. Keeping a journal gives us a safe place to write about our feelings and express ourselves.

It’s a powerful space for kids to practice mindfulness and positive self-talk. Since filling a blank page can be overwhelming at first, one of our homeschooling must-haves for 2024 is MaryAnne Kochenderfer’s Question a Day Journal for Kids. The journal has 365 prompts to encourage kids to try writing about something new and different each day. 

Plus, all the questions are kid-friendly with a positive outlook so kids can feel good about writing and sharing their thoughts each day. Each day contains a quote from a contemporary person your kids can look up to like Jacqueline Woodson and Dwayne Johnson. Some of our favorite prompts include: If you won a million dollars, would you tell your friends or keep it a secret? Why? and If you could choose to live in another country, which one would you choose and why?

Discovery Decks

Our printable Discovery Decks for Curious Kids are another resource that has made a huge difference this year. We love these easy interest-led decks because they’re filled with learning opportunities. Plus, they’re so easy to use!

Each Discovery Deck comes with questions your kids are probably already asking about and educational video answers that make it easy to say yes to screen time. Get the answers to all their big questions about animals, landmarks, the human body, mythical creatures, and more by scanning the QR code on each card for a quick kid-friendly video answer. Don’t miss some of our favorite decks:

Archery

Archery is one of the newest additions to our homeschool and has quickly become a must-have for our whole family! Participating in archery sports and learning to compete has been beneficial for Emily on so many levels. It has been an excellent way to help her develop confidence, resilience, and determination. 

Plus, archery is lots of fun! We love practicing and competing together as a family. If you’re not sure where to start, check out Ashcam Oaks Archery. They can help you choose the right bow, learn the basics, and begin practicing archery. 

Archery is an inclusive sport that’s great for kids and adults. If you’re looking for a fun activity that will get your family outdoors, enjoy healthy physical activity, and build a deeper connection, archery is definitely something you’ll want to consider. 

Unit Studies

In 2024, we’re still using interest-led unit studies for much of our homeschool learning. We love the flexibility these unit studies give us and the connection they foster. 

Unit studies allow us to speed up or slow down at our own pace. We can learn as much as we want to about our favorite topics and skim the surface of subjects that aren’t as interesting to Emily. 

This year, we’re loving our Traveling the Parks Unit Study. This curriculum takes kids on an adventure through our nation’s 63 national parks. Kids can learn about the geography, wildlife, and ecosystems in each park as well as the history behind the park. 

Traveling the Parks is perfect for learning on location! This year, we have traveled to 15 parks and learned so much along the way combining this unit study and real-world experience. 

The unit study is designed to be flexible for kids of all ages, so you can use it again and again to learn more each year. Plus, it’s set up in a way that makes the parks accessible at home, so you don’t need to travel to all the parks to use this National Parks unit study. 

We love interest-led unit studies like this one so much that we are always creating new studies to cover all our favorite subjects. Check out some of our newest flexible interest-led unit studies including Spy Academy and Exploring History.

More Homeschooling Must-Haves

Over the years, we have added so many amazing books, games, and resources to our homeschool. To read about fun must-haves from the past and other awesome tech, games, and activities, check out these great lists:

What are some of your favorite homeschooling must-haves from 2024? I’d love to read about all the fun books, games, and activities you’ve discovered this year, so don’t forget to share your favorites in the comments.