What You Need to Know About the Gather Round Homeschool Curriculum
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We used the Gather Round homeschool curriculum back in December of 2019 and in this post, I’m going to share with you my review of the curriculum and whether or not I recommend it for other homeschooling families.
It is a very new curriculum on the market and certainly unique as well. In fact, the creator of the curriculum claims that there is nothing else like it out there.
What is gather round?
Gather Round is a unit-based homeschool curriculum created by a homeschooling mom of 5, Rebecca Spooner.
The curriculum is in its infancy having only been released in 2019.
The concept of the whole curriculum is to simplify things for homeschooling families. Rebecca created the curriculum out of frustration at her current circumstances. She was spending hours a day homeschooling her 5 children and it just didn’t seem as efficient as it could be.
Rebecca wanted to create something that achieved what was needed academically without having to spend extra time going from one workbook to the next.
Hence, Gather Round was born.
How it works
As I said above, Gather Round is a unit-based curriculum. That means that units are produced that cover all subjects bar mathematics.
The currently available units are:
- North American Birds
- Asia
- Africa
- Earth Science
- Europe
- Oceans
- Space
- Christmas
However, what makes this curriculum different from other unit studies is that it covers every level from Pre K right through high school.
When you purchase a unit you’ll get a PDF that contains every single level as well as the teacher’s guide.
There are also other purchasing options which include having them printed and shipped to you or buying the PDF levels individually.
What doesn’t it cover?
I mentioned above that math is not included in the curriculum but as per the Gather Round Facebook page, there are plans to create a math curriculum as well.
Gather Round Curriculum Review
I have personally only used the Christmas Unit from Gather Round and so that is what this review is based upon.
You can see the videos that I’ve shared on this unit below:
What Does it Contain?
Gather Round units are all a little unique but they all seem to have a general format. There is a teacher’s guide which is where all the read-aloud is found.
It is broken down to fit into a 4-day school week and each lesson will have a section of reading aloud to your children.
After that is finished, each child then takes their own workbook and does their worksheets for the day. They’re all working on the same topic but their worksheets will differ based on their grade level.
While many of the worksheets are set up as individual work, there are also group activities as well. I really did enjoy that part of it as it encourages the whole concept of encouraging strong family relationships and learning to work with different aged peers.
There is also a planning section as well as a suggested booklist, both of which are found in the teacher’s guide.
Is Gather Round Worth Your Money?
This is a question that is difficult to answer because every family is so unique.
The dynamics of your children and each unique learning style. Add to that your own preferences and the way you like to teach and it really does make things more complicated.
My personal experience was a positive one but we’re not using this as our year-round curriculum. I prefer to have the option of using different materials for different subjects, especially as we’re new to the homeschooling scene and still finding our feet.
You can read about what we’re using for the 2020 school year right here.
I also am only currently schooling one child and so the draw of having all children working on the same topic isn’t something that is relevant to us right now.
What We Loved
Simplicity. The units made schooling simple and easy. They were clearly mapped out without feeling restrictive.
For instance, if you wanted to just do Gather Round once per week instead of as a core curriculum, you totally could (and that might be something we look to do in the future).
I also loved the illustrations. The unit was rich and colorful without seeming over the top.
The workbooks were fairly straightforward and in my experience, seemed level appropriate.
I loved that there were optional activities and always choices. This helped to simplify things for me and also cater lessons specifically for my child.
What We Didn’t Love
I’m not usually overly critical of spelling errors as I understand we’re all human, but the Christmas unit did seem to have an overabundance of them.
I know that they worked hard to get it out before Christmas but I do feel as though editing really does need to be more vigorous overall.
My other criticism would be the lack of labelling of the activities in the appendix. Having more clear instruction in that area would have helped a lot.
Do I Recommend It?
Overall, we did enjoy using the Christmas unit from Gather Round and I would recommend that to other homeschooling families.
However, I’m not sure that I would recommend switching over to using the entire curriculum for everything.
My main reason is because it is so new. While they are beautiful and the concept is great, the units are being pushed out very quickly and as I mentioned above, the errors were fairly numerous.
I would wait a couple of years to see how things settle and then reassess whether or not it is a good fit for your family.
Another great idea is to check out the unit samples that they have on their website and that way you can see for yourself if it is something that you would be happy to use with your children.
I hope that this review was helpful and honest enough. I do love the concept of this curriculum and am excited to see where it goes. We’ll for sure be using the Christmas unit again once that time of year arrives.
