Raising Arrows
Autumn Homeschooling Ideas
Fall themed homeschooling curriculum, projects, crafts, and recipes to create lovely Autumn traditions with your children.
Fall is my favorite time of year!
As the leaves change color, I find myself desiring a change in our homeschool as well. I just can’t help myself! I want to do all the leaf crafts, take all the nature walks, and drink all the autumn-themed coffee I can!
We call it Autumn School, and it flows naturally from mid-September and October on into our Holiday Homeschooling in November and December. In fact, I pull out my Holiday Homeschool Planner to gather all of my ideas for each month, including our Autumn School plans.
GET YOUR HOLIDAY HOMESCHOOL PLANNERS HERE!
If you’re like me and love all things Autumn, why not share that love with your children and do something really special this year in your homeschool?!
How to Fit Autumn Homeschooling Into Your Schedule
This year, we chose to put Autumn Homeschool in the afternoon shortly after lunch. We are still doing Morning Time with all of the kids because that is when my older kids get their History, Government, and Fine Arts credits. They will both be graduating soon, so I didn’t want to replace Morning Time with Autumn School as I have often done in the past.
The older kids are excused from Autumn School in the afternoon because some days they work, and some days they need more time with their independent schoolwork.
Autumn School only takes about an hour for us, so I like to do it shortly after my lunch break when I am refreshed and recharged. As a bonus, if there is a treat we are making for Autumn School, it is usually done in time for snack time at our house!
Autumn Homeschool Curriculum
Below, I’m going to share with you the various curricula we have used over the years for our Autumn School. I’m sure there are others out there, but I don’t want to drown you with ideas, particularly when it comes to things I don’t have direct experience with.
That said, I would encourage you to follow the links toward the bottom of this post to other posts that have to do with Holiday Homeschooling and Fall family traditions. There, you will find even more ideas!
Treehouse Schoolhouse Nature Study – Autumn
THSH Autumn Nature Study was a new one for us this year, and I am in LOVE!
The plans are very easy to follow, the book selections are lovely, and the activities have been enjoyed by all of my kids.
NOTE: While there are some activities that are definitely geared toward young children, the author has very good ideas to help you make adjustments for older children!
In this study, there are 13 weeks of themed lessons on things like Apples, Birds of Prey, Pumpkins, and Tracks and Scat. The curriculum uses The Handbook of Nature Study, Food Anatomy, and Nature Anatomy as a spine texts (all of which are fantastic!). There are also lots of other book suggestions – most of which we got through our local library.
I am not doing the weeks in order because I am pairing this study with the next one I’m going to talk about…
Brighter Day Press – A Simple Autumn
A Simple Autumn is a lovely 4 week study with oodles of neat little crafts and recipes! This would be a great curriculum to use if you just want to dip your toe into Autumn School!
Each week is themed, starting with a general lesson on Fall, then Apples, and Pumpkins, and finishing up with Harvest. There are Bible verses and discussions that go along with the book of the day, plus a project, craft, or recipe. The lessons are easy to follow, and while the worksheets are more for younger kids, the projects were loved by all my kiddos!
Next up, the Autumn School curriculum we chose last year…
A Gentle + Classical Autumn
Would it be weird if I told you I chose A Gentle + Classical Autumn because of the cover? No? Good! Because what was inside matched the loveliness of the cover…
G+C Autumn is a 4 week study, but we took a little longer with it. The curriculum is geared toward K – 4th, but there are suggestions to make this curriculum span the ages, and frankly, my children all enjoyed it.
One of my favorite things about the material G+C produces is how unique they are in their approach. The projects are unique, the lessons are fresh and new, and the attention to detail is unreal! And the author’s heart for the Lord is palpable throughout all of the curriculum!
This leads to me back to the very first Autumn School curriculum we purchased, plus, how we began Autumn School in the first place…
Peaceful Press
I tend to think of Autumn Guide as the first curriculum I purchased that was specific to Fall.
Autumn Guide contains 4 weeks of lessons geared toward PreK-1. When we did it, we added in some other things for my older kids, and enjoyed the art lessons all together.
You could also use the Fall Bundle that will give you 12 weeks of themed lessons on Farms, the Sky, and Trees!
Peaceful Press produces super easy to follow lesson plans that make for great memories without a lot of work from mom. That’s probably what led me to it in the first place!
A Year of Playing Skillfully
While not technically an Autumn-specific homeschool curriculum, A Year of Playing Skillfully does follow the seasons, and their Fall activities are delightful!
We used AYOPS when we took our Jubilee Homeschool Year back in 2017-2018. You can also read my review of A Year of Playing Skillfully to learn more about how this curriculum touched my heart more than I ever imagined a curriculum could!
If you have little ones, I would highly recommend using the Autumn School suggestions in AYOPS! And I was easily able to extend the activities to my elementary aged students as well. That said, this is NOT a complete curriculum for older kids, and should be treated more as an “extra” if using for Autumn School for elementary aged students.
And now for the way we started Autumn Homeschool…
Unit Studies You Put Together Yourself
Here is proof positive that you can do all of this yourself with a little bit of internet searching, a little bit of ingenuity, and a little bit of planning!
Years ago, I started an Autumn Pinterest Board that included all of the ideas I would like to try. Every year, I would scour Pinterest and the internet for new ideas and add them to the board. And every year, I would go back through the board, looking for plans for that year’s Autumn School.
This board included things like my Halloween & Reformation Day Object Lessons, our Blessing Tree craft, yummy recipes to make and delightful books to read.
For more of these ideas, check out my post on Simple Fall Family Traditions and get my FREE Fall Family Traditions Bundle! This bundle has some of our favorite traditions that you could easily use to kick off your Autumn School!
So, whether you start big or small, I’d encourage you to just start! Your family will be making a lifetime of memories if you keep it simple, keep it sane, and keep it Christ-focused!