Homeschool catalogs are great for planning next year’s homeschool curriculum, finding great new living books to read, and for window shopping. For curriculum junkies, getting a new catalog offers a thrill of shopping and planning adrenaline. For the newbie, a catalog offers a life bouy in a sea of curriculum choices. Here are more reasons to get catalogs even if your curriculum choices are already made.
- Ideas, ideas, and more ideas— for themes of study, for crafts, for experiments.
- Book lists— You don’t have to buy from the catalog. Take the catalog to your library and borrow the books. Buy used from online sources or your neighborhood used book store. If your children are voracious readers, you’re always on the lookout for an excellent title.
- New curricula — obviously, you may find that perfect resource that you’ve wondered even existed. It just might be hidden in the pages of a catalog.
- Motivation and evaluation of your current homeschool — are you staying on track or lagging behind? Are your expecations realistic or too high? Are you pressing your kids too hard or just right? Looking at other curricula suitable for your child’s level my help you decide.
- Pricing your own used books for sale or bargaining for used— with a catalog, you’ll know the going price for that title.
Of course, once you buy from a retailer, you automatically get their catalog in the mail. And if you go to homeschool conventions, you probably come home with quite a haul of glossy pages. But you might be missing out on some of the best catalogs if you don’t request to receive one! Here are my favorite catalog choices. I’ve linked right to the catalog request page of each homeschool retailer or told you how to get the catalog.
Some of the Greatest Catalogs
These are my top choices for homeschool catalogs. I am a lover of living books, and these catalogs deliver!
Rainbow Resource Catalog Request
This is a HS Bible of sorts. It’s huge—think the old Sears catalog—and jam packed with most anything you could want from books to craft materials and science supplies. Even better, Rainbow Resource has some of the cheapest prices available! And they also offer helpful reviews of many of the products. I have turned to this resource time and time again.
Sonlight Catalog Request
This catalog creates a fever pitched frenzy of mailbox checkings each year at its release. Join in the fun and order your copy from Sonlight today.
Veritas Press Catalog Request
Veritas Press is a standby for the Classical style of home education. They provide complete graded packages or individual titles.
Beautiful Feet Books
I love this catalog! Beautiful Feet has themed programs with living books! Topics include History of the Horse, Anne of Green Gables, History of Classical Music, American History, History of Science, Geography through Literature, Character through Literature, and many more.
BookShark
This is the best literature-based secular program out there. They will send anyone a full-color print catalog.
Heart of Dakota
Heart of Dakota has curriculum for K through eighth grades. A living books approach, Heart of Dakota offers basic and full packages that include science, art, music, and language arts as well as history.
My Father’s World Christian Curriculum
My Father’s World is a blend of unit studies, classical and Charlotte Mason styles of homeschooling. Packages are available for preschool through high school levels.
More Great Catalogs
Timberdoodle Catalog Request
A fun name for a fun catalog. This catalog will leave you trying to squeeze a few more pennies from your HS budget so you can buy these fun extras! Timberdoodle offers free shipping on orders over $150.
Memoria Press Catalog Request
Another great Classical homeschool supplier, Memoria Press offers some wonderful Latin, logic, rhetoric, and other Great Books selections.
Moving Beyond the Page
From their website, “Moving Beyond the Page is a complete homeschool curriculum designed to challenge and stimulate creative, hands-on, and gifted homeschoolers.”
Home Science Tools Catalog
Home Science Tools is especially good for science selections—dissection kits, nature study, and experiments.
Christian Book Distributors Homeschool Catalog Request
CBD offers over a dozen different specialty catalogs—look for the Homeschooling one! Their prices are very competitive.
CriticalThinking.com Parent Catalog
The Critical Thinking Company publishes books and software to develop critical thinking in core subject areas.
Prufrock Press
The Prufrock Press gifted education catalog is packed with activity books, teaching resources, identification instruments, journals, and magazines for teaching and educating gifted children.
Steve Spangler Science
Steve Spangler makes science fun! This catalog is full of science experiment materials.
Apologia Science Curriculum
From the website, “Apologia provides fun and challenging K-12 creation-based science curriculum specifically designed for the home school. Written by a former university professor and homeschool parent, our courses provide college-preparatory science in a way that is both clear and challenging. Our texts are readable, easy to understand, and full of engaging experiments that can be performed at home.”
Online PDF Catalogs
Some homeschool businesses don’t mail printed catalogs, but they have digital ones you can download instantly. These two happen to be some of my favorites in this category, and I don’t want you to miss them just because they don’t mail out a catalog. For both of these, look in the top navigation menu for a link to the latest catalog.
- Winter Promise Catalog • Winter Promise offers complete curricula packages based on a history or science foundation. Themes incluse Children Around the World, Hideaways in History, American History, Animals, Insects, Sea & Sky, and more! Packages are available for elementary through high school.
- Teacher Created Resources TCR has over 1500 products for teachers, all created by teachers.
- Zeezok offers a PDF catalog via their FAQ page. I know Zeezok best for their music appreciation series, but they offer literature guides, history resources, economics, and more.
- Home School in the Woods has timeline figures, history unit studies, and a la carte papercrafts. Get a PDF catalog here.
Love this post! 🙂
Just wanted to mention that Heart of Dakota now offers high school level (World Geography) and another level (World History) is due out this summer. Their plan is to write two more guides over the next two years, that will be American history based. It’s nice to have more options for high school.
Thanks, Jimmie! Wish I could’ve seen this post when I first started homeschooling……it’s a great help to many!
Did you mention IEW? Their catalog always has codes for FREE audio downloads. And usually some good articles too!
Hi Jimmie,
I homeschool overseas (E. Asia) and am hoping to gather useful printed homeschool resource catalogs when I return to the States for a brief time this fall. In your experience, does requesting a print catalog from these companies put you on their list for future mailings? As we will be staying with friends, I don’t want to request catalogs for myself by mail and end up inundating our church office or our friends’ homes with mailings for the rest of all time.
Thanks for these links and for reminding me of this planning strategy!