My Life as Mrs. Cooks: Homeschool Complete an All-Inclusive Curriculum

When looking for curricula many moms search for a curriculum is an all-in-one curriculum, meaning all subjects are included. Another word for that is all-inclusive. I am that mom however, I prefer it to be easily customized to fit each of my children's needs. I also look for it to be literature-based because we love to read. My youngest son, Elijah, and I were given the opportunity to review an all-inclusive curriculum from Homeschool Complete. We reviewed the first semester of their Fourth Grade Complete curriculum. This curriculum includes all of your basic subjects and more, in the form of Unit Studies. Do you have your coffee, notebook, and pen? Well, go get them so that I can fill you in on what we thought about the Homeschool Complete.

What is Homeschool Complete?

The Homeschool Complete is an all-inclusive, open-and-go curriculum for grades K- 4 that includes everything you will need to teach your children. It covers Bible, Math, Science, Language Arts, Social Studies, Fine Arts, and more. It is delivered in the form of Unit Studies. They also offer individual Unit Studies for grades K-6 that only take 1 to 3 weeks to complete.

What Did We Receive?

We received the first semester of the Fourth Grade Complete. It was delivered to us via email as a 2 part downloadable PDF. One PDF was the Teacher Manual and the other one was the Student Workbook. The Teacher's Manual is about 650+ pages it includes the step by step instructions and lesson plans. The Student Workbook is about 250+ pages and includes the worksheets for each of the lessons for your child.

About Fourth Grade Complete

The Fourth Grade Complete is a literature-based curriculum that covers many subjects. The first semester is divided into 8 units.
The Table of Contents will give you insight into what is included in the first semester.

The Teacher's Manual is like the lifeline to the curriculum it is very detailed and gives step-by-step instructions on how to use the curriculum.

There are a few pages titled Subject Area Content and Skills List. These pages give you a complete overview of each subject that will be covered and what will be covered in that subject. I considered it to be the scope and sequence.

Lesson Plan Format - this gives a brief overview of what to expect in each section of the curriculum.

Daily Opening Routine - gives you a recommendation on how to start the day.

Appendix - includes a ton of resources to use with each lesson including the Literature List for the full semester.

The books

- The literature used in this year is very rich. So far we are enjoying the book choices. Some of the books for this semester are...

The Year of Miss Agnes
Because of Winn-Dixie
Mr. Popper's Penguins
Pippi Longstockings
The Toothpaste Millionaire
World War I
and many many more!

How We Used It

Each unit has a cover page that includes the book titles need for the unit and additional books that will go along with the topic. I shopped from our bookshelves first, then our local library, then Hoopla ( a free library app for e-books and audiobooks), if I still had not found all the books I went to Amazon and ordered.
I then gathered the materials needed for a week worth of lessons. It is better to do this on a Saturday or Sunday before the start of the new week so that you are not scrabbling throughout the week looking for things.
Each of the PDF files was fairly large so I didn't print everything at once. I saved the documents to my phone and printed off the lessons needed for the week we were on. This was also something I did before the start of the week so that our school day would run smooth. My son and I each have a 3-ring-binder where we keep our papers.

Like I said further up this post, The Teacher's Manual has everything planned out for you. I did tweak it to fit my son's needs. One of the things we chose to omit was the pledges. We also did not do everything in the Daily Opening Routine because we added some of it to our family's morning basket time.

Other than those few changes it was pretty much open and go for me. I did a lot of the Language Arts section orally and on our whiteboard because my son does not like writing. So, because he enjoyed the curriculum I did not want to ruin his experience with a ton of writing. My older kids sat in on the stories during our reading time becuase they said the books sounded interested as I was reading to my youngest son.

Our Final Thoughts

This is a great curriculum for newly homeschooling moms or a homeschooling mom like myself that prefers an open-and-go approach. I think it is perfect for new homeschooling families because it is an all-inclusive curriculum, so it takes away the stress of looking for multiple subjects and possibly different curricula. That can be very overwhelming as a new homeschool mom. I felt like the daily lessons were way too long, but my son thought they went by fast, so I am not going to complain. I also wish they would have scheduled the lessons out by days. For example lesson 1 - Monday or Day 1, I know it seems simple, but it would have made my life easier. It would take the guesswork out of when each lesson should be done. I did feel like the math lessons were a bit off target for this grade level, they were very simple and basic. The plus side to that is that the worksheets are great for extra practice and review if you have a child like mine who has already learned these concepts.

I definitely would have preferred a physical copy because the printing was very excessive. However, if you have an office supply store near you, you may want to have it printed there and then spiral bound.

I am not normally a unit study type mom, but I loved how this curriculum was formatted into different unit studies. They were each very detailed and did an amazing job tying in all the subjects while still staying on topic. I was very impressed! The simplicity of everything was great! Even the art lessons were short, sweet, and to the point. We normally don't get to art in our typical school day, but the way they streamlined everything made it very doable.

Most of the subjects included are ones we normally cover together with two of my older children in what we call, group work. My son has enjoyed a break from group work and the increased one on one time we have spent together working through this curriculum and I have too. Overall, I think this a great curriculum and will definitely be adding it to my list of recommendations for all-inclusive homeschool curricula.

My son said, "I like how it includes books to read and worksheets to do. I think the math was too easy, I need more of a challenge. I like this curriculum because it gives me one on one time with my mama. I like that it doesn't take up a lot of our time each day. I would recommend this to other kids my age."

If you are curious about the other grade levels or maybe you want to take a look at the individual unit studies then click the banner below to see what other crew members and their families are saying about Homeschool Complete.