1 Program. 8 Units. All Ages.
The Branches curriculum focuses on discovery subjects—science, social studies, the arts, and more—to spark curiosity, cultivate wonder, and help children connect with the world. This affordable secular homeschool curriculum is packed with foundational knowledge, immersive content, and supplemental materials.
One affordable price. No add-ons. No memberships. Everything you need to teach is provided with your downloads so you can confidently start Branches and be supported in your journey. Because learning at home should feel good, it should be doable. And it should help your whole family grow—together.
Meet the Units
Each unit is four weeks long and divided into four subtopics. The main theme is the anchor of the month, and the subtopics allow a closer zoom-in on a specific aspect of the larger theme. For example, the Solar System is broken into The Planets, the Sun and Moon, Stars and Constellations, and Space Rocks. Each subtopic gets a week of attention and learning, supporting the broader theme.
The 8 Units in Branches
Read more about each unit here.
- Animal Adaptations
- Classic Tales
- Dinosaurs
- Geography
- Landforms
- Solar System
- States of Matter
- Weather
There is no predetermined sequence for these units. Choose the order that works best for your family, time of year, and season of learning. Within each unit, the weekly subtopics are placed in a specific order that must be maintained for proper knowledge and skill development.
Features to Help You Teach
Fully Planned
An open-and-go model includes a weekly overview, learning targets, and complete lesson plans.
Lightly Scripted
Prompts and teaching tips help you lead lessons with confidence and ease from day one.
Start-Up Guide
This 20+ page roadmap gives you all the background needed to understand the program—in print and audiobook.
Step-by-Step Lessons
Lesson plans and activity directions are thorough, from the guiding question at the beginning to the closing review at the end. The goal for the activity and the why behind the learning is called out on every page of Branches.
Branches lessons are thoughtfully planned, giving you the confidence to teach without guessing how a conversation or activity should look or feel.
No reinventing the wheel. No rushing to fill in gaps. No worrying about what or how to teach.
Full Color Printables
“Scan-to-See” images are digital PDFs included across the program to help make teaching seamless. When you access these downloads via a QR code embedded in the lesson plan, you’ll find a curated set of images directly linked to the learning.
Providing 100s of images throughout Branches (that can be viewed digitally or printed) means you don’t have to pause your lesson and try to pull pictures of carnivorous dinosaurs, nocturnal animals, or tectonic plates.
The work has been done for you.
Unit Vocabulary Cards
The backbone of Branches is the lean into vocabulary building. This major focus provides children with functional background knowledge transferable to more complex topics later in life.
Vocabulary acquisition impacts a child’s reading comprehension, general understanding of new concepts, and ability to reason.
Lessons, activities, and learning revolve around the week’s vocabulary words. Introducing children to complex terms from the early years to elementary age has incredible benefits throughout their education.
Vocabulary skills are massively important.
Engaging Printables
Each unit includes carefully designed printable packets. These are not busywork or generic worksheets. The printables included in Branches were expertly created to align with learning goals and expand knowledge.
Each unit’s “Family Printable” packet includes printables for the entire family, such as vocabulary cards, nonfiction paragraphs, and group worksheets.
The “Per Child Printable” packet contains printables each child needs for their learning in the unit. Because these printables were thoughtfully crafted for specific lessons, the number of printables per unit varies based on what is necessary to enrich learning.
Weekly Journal Prompts
Learning is applied weekly with creative, inventive, and tactile journal prompts. These prompts are thoughtfully designed to allow children to synthesize the week’s learning in their own words.
Each journal prompt has three leveled options. This was done intentionally and speaks to the overall format of Branches: While the prompt remains the same regardless of a child’s developmental level, the application of learning can and should look different.
The journal prompts form the backbone of each child’s “Knowledge Portfolio”—a collection of learning done throughout the Branches program, memory book, and keepsake of their school work.
Copywork
Each week of Branches includes a short copywork word or sentence. These prompts are tailored for many different ages and abilities.
Copywork gives children a chance to develop and refine handwriting skills, practice seeing and spelling vocabulary words, work on grammar and punctuation, and express words on paper. Incorporating this work into thematic learning is yet another way to connect these subject areas, practicing these skills in a context related to the day’s learning.
Nonfiction Paragraphs
Nonfiction paragraphs are included to support the week’s learning targets and explore a subtopic in kid-friendly terms. The weekly nonfiction paragraph is an important tool for many reasons: It provides a chance to practice the different grammar skills learned throughout the program and allows children the chance to read a nonfiction text for meaning.
The paragraphs are purposefully written to be rich with content and opportunities to learn more about grammar and parts of speech and promote different writing techniques. These texts accomplish powerful learning.
Multimedia Resources
Multimedia resources are a big part of Branches, but let’s be clear: This isn’t about handing kids a screen and letting the Internet take over. It’s about using every available resource to make learning deeper, richer, and more engaging.
QR codes are embedded throughout Branches, leading your family to thematic playlists, fine arts, music pieces, curated images, and short but high-quality videos.
The materials accessed through these QR codes are essential for creating a rich, multidimensional learning environment.
End of Unit Celebrations
Each unit ends with a list of ideas for an end of unit celebration. These are unit-specific ideas that match with each theme as a final “hurrah” for all the learning. And while this isn’t required, it is strongly encouraged.
Finishing something together as a family is a big deal. Take the win. Have the fun. Lean into the magic.
The ideas on the celebration page range from movies to field trips to simply having root beer floats. These small moments of joy as a family can have a big, lasting impact‑—so have a little fun at the end of a unit and celebrate.
Start-Up Guide
In addition to the actual curriculum, Branches includes a 20+page “Start-Up Guide” where you’ll receive support and guidance on how the program works—no need to wonder where to begin, how to teach, or why certain choices were made.
The Start-Up Guide can be read as a digital PDF or listened to as an audio file read by author Susie Allison.
Every feature of the program is explained in detail so you can hit the ground running.
A Curriculum that Feels Like Home
Meet Branches.
An affordable, secular homeschool curriculum built on a multi-age framework so the whole family can learn together.