Tag: classical education

homeschooling

Free Odyssey Unit Study for Homeschool High Schoolers

Jessica Lovett

Christopher Nolan’s Odyssey has been in theaters since mid-July, and it is – by every account, including the Motion Picture Association’s – not a kids’ movie. Rated R for strong violence and some sexuality, Matt Damon’s three-hour Cyclops-and-sirens epic was built for teenagers and grown-ups, not a family movie night with the little ones piled on the couch.

Here’s the good news, though (stick with me): that R rating actually hands homeschool families the perfect excuse to do this the right way. Read the real Odyssey first – the one written by a blind poet a few thousand years before Nolan got his hands on it – and worry about the screen version later, once it hits rental and can be handled with the right tools… See the end of this post.

I happen to have a full, free unit study on The Odyssey sitting inside Journeying Through the Classics, my 700+ page Charlotte Mason high school literature curriculum.

I started writing it way before the movie was even announced…

So let’s talk about how to actually use it – book first, art project second, movie decision whenever you’re ready.

Why Everyone’s Suddenly Searching “Odyssey Homeschool”

Nolan’s version stars Matt Damon as Odysseus, with Tom Holland, Anne Hathaway, Zendaya, Robert Pattinson, and Charlize Theron rounding out an absurdly stacked cast. It’s a $250 million, three-hour epic shot entirely on IMAX 70mm film – the first time Homer’s poem has gotten that kind of big-screen treatment – and it opened July 17 to a genuinely enormous amount of buzz.

It also opened with an R rating, which the MPA attributed to strong violence and some sexuality. Fair enough – the actual poem has a Cyclops getting a stake driven through his eye, a decade of increasingly bad decisions, and a fairly memorable slaughter of suitors at the end. Homer wasn’t exactly writing a picture book.

For homeschoolers, this is the rare moment when Hollywood and the reading list actually line up. Your teenager doesn’t need convincing that The Odyssey matters this year – the trailers already did that part. If you’ve been wondering whether the Odyssey movie is appropriate for teens, the short answer is “with a parent, and probably not solo” – which is exactly why the book comes first. Your job is just to get the real story into their hands before the movie becomes the only version they know.

Step into a Barnes & Noble right now and you’ll see it for yourself – a giant display of Odyssey tote bags, candles, and shiny new editions of the book, all clustered by the front doors like Homer just topped the bestseller list again. (See the post here.)

And it’s not just the bookstores. Saks Fifth Avenue has a display.

So does Nature’s Basket – a grocery store. (Saks, Nature’s Basket).

When a 2,800-year-old poem is trending hard enough to show up next to the produce, that’s not a marketing fluke. That’s genuine cultural momentum, and it’s worth riding straight into your homeschool year.

And if you want proof this has gone fully unhinged in the best way: theaters are selling a Trojan horse popcorn bucket for $70. (See the absurdity here.) I have no notes. I just needed you to know it exists.

(Frodo had Sam and a fairly reasonable itinerary. Odysseus had ten years, a curse from Poseidon, and a apparently genetic inability to just sail home when things got weird. Comparatively, the Fellowship had it slightly easier. Well, I take that back, they were fighting against the very essense of evil.. but, I digress…)

What’s Actually Inside the Free Odyssey Unit Study

Journeying Through the Classics uses a living books approach – which, if you’re new around here, means real literature and real narration instead of worksheets asking your kid to circle the correct theme from a multiple-choice list. The Odyssey unit is fully self-contained, so you can drop it into your year whenever it makes sense (right now, for instance, being an excellent time).

Inside the unit, you’ll find:

  • Discussion questions and narration prompts that actually develop critical thinking, not just plot recall
  • Writing instruction woven directly into the unit – MLA citation practice, analytical essay work, vocabulary and spelling pulled straight from the text
  • Direct links to read the entire epic online for free, so nobody has to buy a book to get started tonight
  • My personal recommendation for which print edition to buy if your family prefers a physical copy (a genuinely important call to make, given how wildly translations of Homer can vary – some are gorgeous, some are a slog, and I’ve done the sorting for you)

Both the free reading links and the edition recommendation are included the moment you download the curriculum – no separate hunting required.

This is one of thirty-four units across the full four-year program, and it stands entirely on its own, so you don’t need to have started the curriculum from year one to use it.

The Art Projects That Bring Homer to Life

Every unit in Journeying Through the Classics has an integrated art project, and The Odyssey unit is one of my favorites. It’s built right into the notebook pages your student is already keeping, so art isn’t a separate subject bolted on top of literature – it’s part of how they process what they’ve read.

Art is optional by design, though. Some students narrate best through discussion, some through writing, and some genuinely light up with a paintbrush or chalk pastels in hand. The Odyssey unit gives all three a real chance to shine, which matters more than it might sound like when you’re the one trying to keep a reluctant writer engaged through a ten-year sea voyage.

If you want to see what the actual notebook pages look like before you commit to anything, I filmed a quick video tour of the art pages on Instagram – worth a look if you’re a visual person who needs to see it before you believe it.

Read First, Watch Later: A Family Plan for the R-Rated Film

Let’s talk about the movie question directly, because I know it’s the reason half of you are here.

Nolan’s Odyssey earned its R rating honestly – strong violence and some sexuality, per the MPA, which tracks with a poem that includes monster combat, an extremely epic final showdown, and a decade of Odysseus making choices that would not survive a modern parenting book. He wouldn’t survive chapter ONE of a modern parenting book, lol. That’s not a knock on the film. It’s just not built for the whole family in one sitting, and it’s not out for rental yet.

Which is genuinely useful timing. Here’s the plan I’d suggest:

  1. Start the unit study now, while the book is culturally relevant and your teenager has actual motivation to read it (motivation being the homeschool resource none of us can print more of).
  2. Finish the reading and the unit work at whatever pace fits your family – it’s self-contained, so there’s no rush against anyone else’s schedule.
  3. Wait for the rental window, and when it opens, watch the film as a family using tools that let you filter out what you don’t want in your living room.

That third step is where ClearPlay and VidAngel come in.

Both let you filter language, violence, and sexual content out of a movie while you stream or rent it – you choose what gets filtered, the cuts are often nearly invisible, and neither one requires you to be a tech genius to set up. I’ve written a full walkthrough of how we use both tools (and a few others) to protect our family online, including exactly how we run them through our own setup at home.

My husband and I are intending to rent it and ClearPlay or VidAngel it for ourselves so I don’t have direct info on whether or not it is effective enough in taking out violence and whatnot or if it is still too strongly inferred, even when censored, if that makes sense.

This isn’t about being afraid of a good story. It’s about reading the real thing first, on your own terms, and then deciding – deliberately, not by default – what the screen version looks like in your house.

Get the Full Curriculum Free

Homeschool reviewer Cathy Duffy – who runs the most trusted independent curriculum review site in the homeschool world – had this to say about Journeying Through the Classics:

“Journeying Through the Classics would be phenomenal if it were a program for purchase, but it’s free! This program really scores high in every area: great content, ease of use, academic excellence, flexibility, and affordability.” — Cathy Duffy, CathyDuffyReviews.com

The full curriculum includes:

  • 700+ pages covering four full years of Charlotte Mason-style literature study, organized into flexible, self-contained units. Print only what you want and need at the time.
  • Integrated art project instruction in every unit (including The Odyssey unit discussed above)
  • Direct links to free online versions of every single book and essay covered
  • Complete writing instruction – MLA citation, analytical essays, vocabulary, and grammar in context
  • Discussion questions and narration prompts built for real critical thinking
  • Flexible pacing – use units in any order, skip what doesn’t resonate with your student
  • No expensive textbooks required, ever

Download the free curriculum here and the Odyssey unit – reading links, edition recommendation, art project, and all – is waiting in your inbox.

Is your teenager the kind of reader who needs a movie to get excited about a book, or the kind who resents the movie for existing at all? Either way, I’d start with the book.

Disclaimer: I share what works for our family – book picks, movie ratings, filtering tools like ClearPlay and VidAngel – but every kid, every household, and every threshold for “too much” is different. You know your own children better than I ever could from behind a keyboard. Please use your own judgment (and maybe a quick preview) before deciding what’s right for your family to read or watch. Homeschool with Joy is not responsible for any parental decisions made regarding content, viewing, or reading material for your children. I’m just here with my personal opinions and a really good unit study.

homeschooling

Free Homeschool Placement Tests to Try This Summer

Jessica Lovett

I ordered a third-grade box one year and thought I’d cracked the code. My learners were two and a half years apart – one heading into fourth grade, one into second – and meeting in the middle felt like a clever way to keep them in the same curriculum without doubling my workload. Genius, right?

Not exactly. The hands-on stuff was not a hit more often than not – I was far more excited about the marble run than either kid was, which tells you something about who that curriculum was actually designed for. The reading program didn’t hold anyone’s interest, and I ended up supplementing it so heavily I might as well have built my own. Math, surprisingly, fit both kids well. Science had the opposite problem – nowhere near enough there, so we ended up buying extra kits just to cover the gaps. Fun, yes, but extra expenses that I wasn’t planning on doing.

One box. One grade level. Four completely different outcomes, subject by subject, kid by kid.

That’s not necessarily a planning failure – that’s just what happens when you shop for the grade level you want and not the kid in front of you. I made that mistake once and want to help you to avoid it!

Grade level is a public school word.

It assumes every subject in a child’s brain lines up in one neat row, all marching at the same pace toward the same finish line.

Real kids don’t work that way – not the advanced ones, not the behind ones, not the “totally average, thanks” ones.

So before you buy anything for this fall, it’s worth spending a free afternoon finding out where your kid actually is, subject by subject. Here’s how, and here’s why the mismatch is normal, not a red flag.

Why “What Grade Are They In?” Is the Wrong First Question

Ask any homeschool mom what grade her kid is in and watch her pause. Not because she doesn’t know – because the honest answer is “depends which subject you mean.”

Reading, sixth grade. Math, fourth. History, whatever grade lets my son keep obsessing over books and documentaries about Roman and Greek history (we don’t call that a subject, but it counts).

This isn’t a homeschool quirk. It’s how brains actually develop. Susan Wise Bauer names it directly in Rethinking School: How to Take Charge of Your Child’s Education, which I highly recommend every homeschool parent read!

“It is normal for a fifth-grade aged student to be writing at a third-grade level, reading at a fifth-grade level, and doing math at a seventh-grade level. A child who succeeds at two subjects and cries over the third may still be showing immaturity—and the answer may be to drop back to a lower level in only the third subject.” -Susan Wise Bauer

That distinction matters, because most of us were raised inside a school model that only recognizes one kind of smart.

Aren’t we literally fighting against that very concept, as homeschoolers? Why do we keep holding onto this one thing?

Bauer describes a whole spectrum of how kids relate to traditional schooling – some land in it easily, feeling right at home from day one. Others slide further down that spectrum: bored by material that doesn’t fit them, then confused by parts that feel like a foreign language, then white-knuckling their way through just to get by, until eventually they land somewhere much worse – genuinely convinced they’re not smart, when the truth is they were never given a model built for how their brain actually works.

Bauer’s point is blunt and, in my opinion, correct: often “the problem is school, not your child.” A kid who doesn’t fit that one-size academic mold rarely feels mismatched – he just feels stupid. That’s not a risk I’m willing to take with my own kids over a spelling book.

That’s not a gap to panic over. It’s just what a developing brain looks like from the inside.

We want our kids to be World-Changers and be their Unique Selves. Why not let them reflect that in their schoolwork without fear?

The Free Placement Tests Worth Your Time

You don’t need to buy anything to find out where your kid stands before you get their curriculum for the semester.

A surprising number of curriculum companies give away their placement tests for free, no purchase required, because they’d rather sell you the right level than the wrong one.

For math, start with Math Mammoth’s end-of-year tests, covering grades 1 through 8 – they’re built to be taken after finishing a grade level, and they break results down by topic so you can see exactly where the gaps are (fractions, usually – it’s always fractions).

Singapore Math offers free placement tests for grades 1-5. Saxon has placement tests spanning early grades through Algebra 1 and 2.

The Good and the Beautiful has its own free placement tool for families using or considering their program. Note, I’ve noticed that their grade levels are a little bit harder than others so if you get 3rd grade, for instance, I’d say the child was ready for 4th in most other curriculum.

For reading and language arts, Sonlight offers a quick reading assessment plus phonics placement tools.

AOP’s LIFEPAC and Horizons lines have free printable placement tests covering Bible, history, science, and language arts from grades 1 through 12 – useful even if you never buy their curriculum, because a placement test is really just a well-organized diagnostic in disguise.

The Good and the Beautiful also has separate language arts, reading, and spelling placement tests. It’s helpful to break those down and know the grade level in each.

None of these require a purchase to access. Print them, sit at the kitchen table with the good coffee, and let your kid work through them without any pressure attached.

This isn’t a pass-or-fail moment. It’s just information.

This information will help you plan the best school year possible!

You Don’t Have to Match the Numbers

Here’s the part I really want you to hear: your kid does not need to test into the same number in every subject. Nobody is checking your homeschool report cards for grade consistency.

If your third grader tests into fifth-grade math and first-grade spelling, that’s not a crisis – that’s just an accurate map.

Skip ahead in the subject where they’re ready. Pull back in the one where they’re not. Nobody outside your house needs to know the numbers don’t match, and honestly, nobody outside your house is thinking about your curriculum at all (I promise – I’ve checked. Extensively).

This is where a lot of secular grade-level thinking quietly sneaks into homeschool decision-making, even in families who left public school specifically to get away from it. The instinct to keep every subject in a tidy, matching row is a public-school habit, not a law of child development. You have the freedom to actually use that flexibility – so use it.

How to Use the Results Without Spiraling

You will get results back and immediately want to do something dramatic with them – buy six new things, panic about a “gap,” or Google “is my child behind” at 11pm (please don’t; the internet is not calm about this topic).

Instead: write the numbers down, one per subject, and set the tests aside for a day. Come back to them once, calmly, and ask only one question per subject: does this number tell me to move faster, move slower, or stay put? That’s it. That’s the whole decision tree.

If I can borrow a line from Psych here – Shawn Spencer spends an entire show pretending to have information he doesn’t actually have, faking his way through cases with confidence and a raised eyebrow. Don’t do that with your kid’s education.

You don’t need to fake certainty about what grade they’re “supposed” to be in. The test just told you. Trust the data over the vibes, and let Gus handle the pretending.

Building Your Fall List Once You Know Where You’re Starting

Once you have real numbers – not guesses, not vibes, not “well he’s eight so I guess third grade” – building your curriculum list gets dramatically easier. You’re not shopping by age anymore, and you’re definitely not trying to meet two kids in the middle of a grade level that fits neither of them.

You’re shopping by actual readiness, subject by subject, which means fewer returns, fewer unused marble runs, and a lot less scrambling for extra science kits in October.

Shopping by readiness instead of by age makes everyone happier! You are happier, you kid is happier, there is less struggle all around.

A few practical supplies help here too – a simple three-ring binder per subject, some sturdy dividers, and a set of colored pencils for marking up placement test results all go a long way toward keeping this organized without turning into a project. I keep a running list of the supplies that actually earn their keep in our homeschool over on the Homeschool with Joy Store!

You don’t have to have this all figured out by August 1st. You have a whole summer, a stack of free tests, and permission to let the numbers be a little bit more creative than the Ducks in a Row numbers.

And, besides that, even if public school kids are in a Specific Grade? Does it generally fit them? Nope!

Homeschooling should fit the kid, not the grade level you were hoping to land on. That’s not disorganization. That’s just an accurate picture of a real, developing kid.