Our Experience Using The Good and the Beautiful Curriculum for Young Kids

We first started using The Good and the Beautiful curriculum more than two years ago. Our oldest daughter was starting kindergarten. She fell in love with it, and we have been using it ever since!

Because we live in New Zealand, my sister recommended we check out the Charlotte Mason inspired curriculum by The Good and The Beautiful. She explained it as an easy-to-access, open-and-go style homeschool option.

And, the Math and Language Arts curriculums for levels Kindergarten through Grade 8 is free as a PDF downloads. The appeal of not having to pay for postage from the USA caught my attention!

In this post, I’ll be sharing my honest homeschool curriculum review about how The Good and The Beautiful Curriculum has worked for two of our children. And what exactly we love about it!

I’ll also share where we have faced some challenges with the curriculum.

I am not sponsored by or affiliated with The Good and The Beautiful in any way. And my goal in sharing our experience using The Good and The Beautiful Curriculum is to help you have information to consider if you are looking at various curriculums.

What is The Good and The Beautiful?

The Good and The Beautiful is a homeschooling curriculum company that “emphasizes family, God, high character, nature, and wholesome literature.”

They offer math curriculums for kindergarten through 8th grade, and language arts curriculums for preschool through 11th grade. They also offer a variety of science units. Some for younger grades (kindergarten through 2nd grade), and many for elementary and middle school (grades 3-8).

Recently, they started releasing their history curriculum (History 1). Three additional components . are scheduled to released over the the next 2 years. These are intended for elementary and middle school ages.

They also offer a robust handwriting curriculum selection. And a variety of elective units, including typing, drawing, birdwatching, and creative writing.

With a strong value for Charlotte Mason-inspired morally upright literature, The Good and The Beautiful have also published a multitude of original books.

All The Good and The Beautiful curriculum are open-and-go style, requiring very little to no prep for the parent/teacher.

And although it is not heavily religious or theologically, I would consider it a faith-based homeschool curriculum. It includes many references to key elements of the Christian faith.

Why We Chose The Good and The Beautiful Curriculum:

Our personal reasons for choosing The Good and The Beautiful Curriculum stemmed from the need to find a budget-friendly option for homeschooling that was also easy to access outside of the USA.

Another draw to The Good and The Beautiful was because I knew I wanted a physical text for our curriculum. I didn’t want to rely on an online, screen-based source.

I also loved the idea of a literature-heavy curriculum that reinforces our values. These include our Christian faith, vibrant family relationships, strong moral character, and enjoying and stewarding God’s creation around us.

During my oldest daughter’s kindergarten year, I used The Good and The Beautiful for her math. I also used How to Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons for phonics.

Math was a joy to do with her that year. We both enjoyed the variety of activities, the simple, short lessons, and the visual elements to her workbook.

Reading, on the other hand, turned into a drag. My daughter’s initial excitement to learn how to read began to decline. And by about lesson 20, she was resistant to the repetition and rather dull and un-relatable stories and artwork.

At the end of the year, my husband suggested we try The Good and The Beautiful for Language Arts the next year. Since we had enjoyed the kindergarten math curriculum so much, he thought it might be a good fit.

We have found The Good and The Beautiful Language Arts to be much more enjoyable than working through How to Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons.

What We Love About The Good and The Beautiful Curriculum:

We love these aspects of The Good and The Beautiful Curriculum:

• Convenient Open-and-Go Structure: I literally never have to spend time prepping lessons the Good and the Beautiful subjects.
  
• Multiple Subjects Integrated Into One Curriculum: The Language Arts curriculums in particular draw from multiple subject areas. These reading and phonics, writing, literature, art appreciation, art theory, geography, grammar, spelling, and punctuation.
  
• Beautiful Images and Colors: The Good and The Beautiful curriculums are visually appealing. With plenty of colors, full page art work (usually historical paintings by well known artists), and charming illustrations.
  
• Creative Activities AND Regular, Recurring Practice Work: The Good and The Beautiful strikes a great balance between integrating fun activities with enough repetition for kids to feel confident approaching the curriculum with some independence.
  
• Natural Integration of Strong Morals and Family Values: I’ve been particularly impressed with the early reader books. It is not uncommon for the characters in the stories to face challenging moral decisions (and choose the honorable path). Family relationships are ALWAYS positively presented, and often families are larger than your average American family size.
  
• Reinforcement of a Christian Worldview: God as a loving creator is one of the “given” worldviews of The Good and the Beautiful Curriculum. Additionally, faith-filled ideas such as God being with us, Jesus being the only perfect human that has ever lived, and our strengths abilities being given to us by God for the purpose of serving, loving, and blessing others.

Challenges We’ve Faced Using The Good and The Beautiful Curriculum:

Although our experience has overall be very positive, there are a few things that have been challenges for me:

Challenge #1: Concerns About the Religious Aspects of the Curriculum

Initially, I was very hesitant to use The Good and The Beautiful because the founder of the company belongs to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Since I am not Mormon, I was wary of using a curriculum that may endorse the aspects of LDS theology.

However, as I heard about other people’s experiences with The Good and The Beautiful Curriculum, I was reassured that the Christian faith aspect of the curriculum would support the basics of my faith.

Bottom line: in working through 3 years worth of The Good and The Beautiful’s curriculum, I have not found anything faith related that I object to. It has all been generically Christian.

Challenge #2: The Financial Costs

While the math and language arts curriculum is free as a PDF download, it was still relatively costly to print it here in New Zealand. Using my personal printer sounded like a BIG task, so I had it printed and bound by local company.

The cost to print the kindergarten math curriculum in black and white ended up being about the same as what purchasing the colored workbooks from The Good and The Beautiful website would be.

Bottom line: if I’m not going to be a screen-reliant homeschooling parent, there is going to be some costs somewhere along the line. I’ve chosen to just accept that.

Now I purchase our curriculum from The Good and The Beautiful website and get creative with how to bring it from the USA to New Zealand (ie: I beg courier services off of family, friends, or friends of either of said categories!)

And just for perspective, the United States government spends more than $18,000 per student per year for public education costs.

I purchased all of next year’s math, language arts, science, and history curriculum from The Good and the Beautiful for two kids for $547.60.

While we will have a few additional costs (music lessons, field trips, dance lessons, stationary supplies, etc), we’re still coming in WELL under the government’s budget for educating kids.

Challenge #3: Slightly Slow and Repetitive Pacing

While my kids are smart, I don’t think they are extremely outside the range of normal academic skills. However, I do sometimes feel that the pace of both the math curriculum and the language arts curriculum is a little slow for them.

My oldest daughter sometimes sits down and does 4-5 lessons of math in one morning. Which leads me to believe the curriculum is not quite challenging to her.

However, I’m OK with that. I’d rather the pace of the curriculum be a little on the slow side. Because I’m comfortable adapting and skipping some things to pick up the pace as needed.

Once I have seen that my kids have mastered a particular skill, I give them permission to do half of the review work for that skill in future lessons.

Bottom line: I don’t think any curriculum is going to be an absolute PERFECT match for my kids. We’re happy enough with all the positive aspects of The Good and The Beautiful curriculum that “needing” to skim and go through some lessons a little faster is perfectly fine for us.

Challenge #4: Some Level of Screens and Apps is Required

I’ll be honest, I wouldn’t mind doing absolutely NO screens in our homeschooling. And I’ve toyed with the idea of completely getting rid of my smart phone. However, The Good and the Beautiful does supplement some of their learning activities with tasteful, low stimulation screen usage.

Some of the phonics activities utilize an app that The Good and the Beautiful has created. And there are occasionally audio elements or digital books to supplement the language arts curriculum.

And every second lesson in our science curriculum has a short video that teaches key aspects of the science lesson.

While I’m grateful for how LITTLE The Good and The Beautiful Utilizes digital technology, I also find it a little annoying that using their curriculum does keep our family loosely tied to a device.

Bottom line: Again, the pros of The Good and The Beautiful curriculum outweigh the cons at this stage. But I would be hesitant to continue with this curriculum if the balance tips more toward videos or app-dependent learning activities.

How The Good and The Beautiful Curriculum Fits Into Our Daily Homeschool Routine:

We typically start our school day reading around the breakfast table. Then we transition to our math, language arts, and handwriting workbooks.

Since we use The Good and The Beautiful Curriculum for our workbooks, this is the part of the day when we’re engaging with their materials. As we finish our math, language, and handwriting, we’ll often transition to our science lesson, which the kids love doing.

Then we finish the day with history and more literature reading aloud on the couch.

For a more in-depth look at our daily and weekly routine for this year, you can check out my post detailing how our day-to-day looks homeschooling with two kids and a baby and toddler around.

Although sometimes homeschooling in a small space has challenges, having a curriculum that we all enjoy using definitely helps!

Common Questions About The Good and The Beautiful Curriculum:

Is The Good and The Beautiful curriculum religious?

Yes, it is faith-based. It presents the world, people, creation, and ideas from a Christian worldview perspective.

Merriam Webster defines “religious” as: “relating to or manifesting faithful devotion to an acknowledged ultimate reality or deity.” That is definitely accurate for The Good and The Beautiful curriculum.

However, it is very general, neutral, and primarily just moral “morals focused” in its presentation of religious ideas.

Can it be used with multiple kids?

Some of the subjects (science and history) are easily useable for multiple kids at once. The language arts, handwriting, and math course books are workbooks designed for differing levels of skills and knowledge, and therefore meant to be one course book per child.

I view the course books as being consumable. The add-on items (for the math, the “math box,” and for the language arts, the “reading booster cards” and “reading booster books) I believe could be saved and used with multiple children.

However, some aspects of the reading booster cards are meant to be consumable, so we’ll have to get creative with utilizing them for a second or third child.

And certainly, multiple children can be in different course books at the same time.

Is it enough on its own?

I think every parent may have a slightly different opinion on this one, depending on what they define as “enough.”

For me, I feel like the math, handwriting, and language arts are enough for my kids’ education right now. But I feel like the science unit we’re doing isn’t quite as robust as I’d like. Particularly for my 2nd grader.

However, the targeted age range for this unit (Kindergarten through 2nd grade) did prepare me for the fact that it might be a bit on the “lightweight” side.

Personally, I feel like at least this unit of the “Science for Little Hands and Hearts” is perfect for my 5-year-old and 3-year-old. But I’m needing to supplement a bit with my 7-year-old.

I believe The Good and The Beautiful provide a plethora of different subject options. And I could easily see their curriculum options being the bulk if not all of our curriculum for the next few years.

What grade level does The Good and The Beautiful curriculum cover?

It covers a wide range of grade levels.

There are options for young learners, probably starting as young as ages 3-5. And a robust number of options for grade schoolers up through 8th grade.

They also have language arts, grammar, and biology options for high school. But there are not any other subject offerings at this time.

My Final Conclusion on The Good and The Beautiful Curriculum:

Ultimately, we are happy with our experience of The Good and The Beautiful curriculum.

I don’t think it is perfect, but I also don’t expect any curriculum to be perfect.

I plan to stick with it until something compels me to try something different. Whether that be when my kids eventually age out of it. Or if I see changes in the curriculum that I am not comfortable with.

I think it is a fantastic option for families who are intentionally trying to preserve their children’s childhood. And have a curriculum that actively reinforces strong morals, family values, and provides opportunities for faith-based discussions.

It also seems to be a great option for those of us wanting to teach our children in a multiple-learning-styles-friendly kind of way. Particularly if we aren’t the best at coming up with creative and “playful” activities on our own!

For the early years of homeschooling, I would highly recommend it as an enjoyable, open-and-go faith-based homeschooling curriculum. And I think that open-and-go aspect is very helpful when juggling multiple young learners.

Let me know in the comments below if you’ve used The Good and The Beautiful and what your experience has been with it!

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