This year the one subject we didn’t have a solid curriculum for was health and wellness. Now, we’re homeschoolers, so our LIFE is really a health and wellness class. Still, I knew there were topics and activities I’d like to cover in a fun way and would rather have a curriculum to at least give us a starting point.
Our family has recently been reviewing WAY Comes Home, a hands-on health and wellness curriculum developed for homeschoolers that accounts for different ages (K-5) and learning styles. WAY stands for Wellness, Academics, and You. The curriculum covers nutrition, physical activity, personal care, and much more.
LIMITED TIME DISCOUNT CODE: Read to the bottom of the post for an exclusive discount code for PH readers!
Homeschool Scholastics crafted the program with the direction and guidance of homeschooling parents to make it a truly family-focused curriculum (rather than school-focused) which I appreciate. You can really see those homeschool touches throughout the program that make it so helpful and easy to use. When the package arrived at our house the kids were overjoyed with all the fun goodies they’d be able to use during our “health class,” so we just dove right in!
How Way Comes Home is Organized
Way Comes Home includes a Parent’s Guide, student journals, a DVD with lesson videos and exercises, a MyPlate color nutrition booklet, and hands-on lesson materials. You get one big box of lesson materials when you order Way Comes Home that, along with things you probably already have on hand, give you all you need for the entire course.
Way Comes Home includes 5 modules or themes, each corresponding to one whole lesson that you will complete with your kids.
Getting Started
Where Do I Begin?
Let’s Get Active
The Nutrition WAY
Health – It’s Personal
A module can last anywhere from one day to several days or a even a couple of weeks, depending on your goals and schedule.
The curriculum is further organized into three academic levels. So each module has 3 levels of material available depending on the child’s grade.
Health Safari: Kindergarten and 1st Grade
Me Mysteries: 2nd and 3d Grade
Innerspace Adventures: 4th and 5th Grade
In addition, there are extension activities in each level that allow you to include other ages of children. For example, if you’re working in Health Safari in the Let’s Get Active module, there will be additional activities that your Me Mysteries or Innerspace Adventure level kids can do as well.
Decorating their WAY Comes Home Student Journals
The Animal, Transportation, or Activity sorting and acting game.
Making masks, decorated journals, and pretending to be animals for a game.
MyPlate lesson and personal care chart
Good and Bad Choices card game
Menu for the Physical Activity area of the DVD
How We Used Way Comes Home
My kids are 7, 5, 4, 2, and 1. We chose to start with the Health Safari to keep it simple and do the entire program together. My daughter (5) used the Student Journal that went with Health Safari and my other kids made their own. As suggested by the curriculum, they decorated their journals with images of children doing healthy things. Although making extra journals worked alright, I would buy enough journals for all the kids doing that level because they are really well done and the kids are more motivated to use them.
Before doing a lesson, I read through the introductory text for the module and academic level I am using to prepare. There is a Parent Prep section with background and overview info, a Lesson at a Glance section, and then detailed lesson instructions. This made it easy to quickly read through the lesson before beginning. It includes a list of materials needed, optional library books, and new vocabulary words.
We would start the lesson by watching the video if there was one for that day. Health Safari follows a jungle theme with fun animals and a character named Samantha, which won the day at our house since one of our kids has that name! We would chat about what we learned and the new vocabulary words, complete the activities, and work in our Student Journals.
Fun activities were things like making masks to match the module characters, doing a sorting game and acting out different animals, transportation, and actions, and using the exercises on the video to get a little physical activity. When we came across words we didn’t know well, we would cut and color that word from the provided cards and display them on the wall.
Some big bonuses for me were being able to include suggested activities for the older or younger kids, dig into related books on the subject over the course of the week, and end by praying the lesson’s scripture over our time together. There were also other displays we created that helped us remember our topics throughout the week. We had the best conversations come up during meals as we talked about the lessons!
Some Things to Consider
Pros:
Multi-level – Lessons include extension activities for the other age groups you might need to incorporate. LOVE this aspect! I can all three levels of Way Comes Home for my K – 2nd kids by just starting at the beginning and using the extension activities as I see fit.
Easy – All the materials you need are usually on-hand or come in the package. A quick read-through of the lesson beforehand and gathering a few materials is sufficient to get your lesson started. All the recommended reading are listed at the beginning of the Parent’s Guide as well as in each module. The levels are color-coded within the module so you can quickly tell which pages you want to use.
Flexible – The basic lessons are simple and fun but there are many additional resources and ideas you can pull from. A lesson could be one day in the week and super simple (lasting 20 weeks if you did all the levels back to back), or extend through each day for a week or two with art projects, activities, recommended reading, and more. It would make a wonderful focused unit study or summer course.
Variety – There are journals to draw and write in, charts to fill in, exercise videos to use, informational clips to watch, hands-on activities to try, and more. We really enjoy the variety of activities that make the lessons fun and memorable.
Cons:
The layout of the Parent’s Guide was a little confusing at first but once I went back and read the instructions (duh!) I was able to zip around quickly and get the info I needed each day.
The DVD comes with videos for each level, but not all the lessons in each level have a video. I would prefer having short videos of the same basic length and content depth for all the lessons.
I haven’t watched all the videos on the DVD yet, but did notice that one of the modules for Innerspace Adventures (4th-5th grade) includes a storyline with a girl playing a fortune teller. Our family is pretty conservative on these things and so we won’t be showing them that video and will probably pre-watch the rest of them t be sure. While Still, we plan on using the rest of the curriculum without that one part.
Bottom Line
I like this curriculum. The Parent’s Guide and Student Journals in particular are very well done, and the extra materials and fantastic extension activities make it a win for me. I can’t help but love how well it’s designed for homeschoolers! The DVD is also a nice touch and helps keep my kids asking for more. We plan on completing the three levels.
An Exclusive Discount Code for PH Readers
Through the end of October, use phm010 to get $5 off the WAY Comes Home – K-5 Kit with Student Journals, plus FREE shipping!
Connect With Homeschool Scholastics & WAY Comes Home
Visit their site and store
Twitter
Facebook
Pinterest
Download a sample lesson
Watch an introductory video (scroll to bottom)
Get more details about content with the FAQ section
This is a sponsored post. I was provided this product for my honest review. All opinions are my own. I love to share products that I appreciate with my readers. I’m sure you’ll you enjoy it as much as we did!
Author information
Tauna
I'm Tauna, owner of Proverbial Homemaker! This is me: Jesus follower, wife, mom, [domestically challenged] homemaker, homeschooler, and writer. Proverbial Homemaker exists to bring you encouragement and tools for the journey. Let us pursue God's call on our lives (no matter the learning curve) and rely on Him to equip us for the task!
| Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | Pinterest |
The post Hands-On K-5 Health and Wellness Curriculum (+ Discount Code!) appeared first on Proverbial Homemaker.