Gather ‘Round is a unit-based family style homeschool curriculum. It follows Charlotte-Mason principles but is also eclectic in its approach. It is relatively new, having only released in 2019. Let’s look at the pros, cons and costs.

For families who have several children, it can be appealing to use a family style curriculum, where everyone is learning together, doing the same lesson at the same time, but with age appropriate activities. 

It consists of monthly units, each on a different topic. There are 20 lessons in each unit, meant to be used on 20 days in the month. If you follow a 4 day school week (with day 5 being a field trip day) then it would take you 5 weeks. There are suggested units (10) for each year, but you can do them in any order. 

You can use this as your core/complete curriculum or you can use individual units. 

You can follow a 4 year cycle, which means that your children will repeat units, but the activities will be of a higher grade level.

From their website:

ALL YOUR KIDS TOGETHER
No more bouncing around from one subject to the next, one grade to the next, teach every child from K-12 with one cohesive curriculum!
ALL YOUR SUBJECTS
With our unit study approach, we cover all your subjects but math through the lens of one fascinating topic! See how it all connects while still following your student’s interests!
OPEN AND GO
No heavy planning, no crazy supply lists, just grab your Teacher’s Guide and take your school anywhere!

PROS OF GATHER ‘ROUND

• Family style – one unit for all ages
• Open and go – no need for a lot of planning. This can be great for many parents who want to limit how much time they want to spend outside of teaching. 
• All subjects but math are incorporated into each unit. (Language Arts, Social Studies, Science, History, Fine Arts and Bible)
• Faith based – a strong Christian curriculum
• It is from the pre-reading stage through twelfth grade.
• The books are beautiful and visually appealing.
• Appeals to the different learning styles as there is a wide variety of activities. 
• More cost effective if you have multiple children

CONS OF GATHER ‘ROUND

• If you like to break down Language Arts and focus more heavily on grammar and spelling then this might not fully appeal to you.
• If you choose to purchase the digital downloads, you will need a color printer to truly make the most of the illustrations, pictures, etc. 
• There is some concern from parents of highschoolers, that the science covered might not be enough to meet graduation requirements. But this is because it is more of an integrated approach, rather than individual subjects. 
• Faith based (but there really aren’t many family style curricula that aren’t faith based)
• The cost can be prohibitive, even though you are using it for multiple children.

COST

There are different components to each unit – the teacher’s guide, readers, and sometimes cursive writing or recipe books. You can get them as printed versions or digital downloads. Digital is cheaper but then you have to print them.

An example unit cost is – Australia and Oceania:

• Digital All family bundle of readers and teacher’s guide: $54.95 or each bundle $19.95
• Digital Cursive:  $10.95
• Digital Recipe book: $10.95
• Total cost for digital unit: $67.85 or higher

Printed version will cost you $30 for the teacher’s guide and $25 for each other book, cursive is $14.95 and recipe book is $13.95. The total cost is $83.90 (if only buying for one level, like early elementary). 

Other units have extra components, but if you calculate the basic needs with the digital format and purchase the all family bundle, it will cost you $680 for the year for 10 units. As you add other resources in certain units, the cost will be higher. You will use the curriculum again as it cycles through, but you can anticipate $4000-5000+ for 4 years worth of curriculum. 

OTHER THOUGHTS

• Plenty of free samples for you to look through
• Downloadable complete catalog
• If you become a member (which is free), there are resources available online for every unit. This is such a great resource.
• I can see the benefit for older children (high school) to go on deep dives in these units. 
• I like how our children are encouraged to research, use critical thinking, and give opinions on the topics.
• You don’t have to purchase a lot of additional books to go with the units. Many you can borrow, or the resources are available online. 

If you are looking for a complete curriculum (minus math) for your entire family and you enjoy using unit studies, then Gather ‘Round could be great for you. It’s a wonderful way to combine younger kids and older kids into one family learning experience. You can do the units around based on your children’s interest and even do extra mini units along the way. 

Check out some other curriculum reviews:
The Good and the Beautiful
Moving Beyond the Page
Winter Promise

If you want to find out more, check out Gather ‘Round’s website.