The Good and The Beautiful is a faith based homeschool curriculum. It was launched in 2015 by Jenny Phillips, who could not find a curriculum she loved. With her degree in English and her love of literature, she created her dream curriculum.

Since then, when she first offered it free, it has become a popular homeschool curriculum for many who wanted something faith based. 

As on their website they share their 3-fold mission:

1. ​​To teach advanced academics while connecting children to the good and the beautiful in life and in learning
2. To make homeschooling less overwhelming and time consuming for the student and the instructor
3. To offer affordable resources of the highest quality, making homeschooling economical and accessible

The curriculum is now available in various stages. Language arts goes all the way through high school. Other subjects do not. Most go through to grade 8. 

Let’s look at some pros and cons.

Pros of The Good and the Beautiful

• Strong phonics base
• The curriculum is affordable (actually, you can download the first 5 levels for free)
• Literature based
• It can be family style, so you can combine subjects/electives with different ages 
• Requires no daily prep time. You can open the book and follow the instructions.
• Moral, emphasizes family and good character
• Has readers for each language arts level

Cons of The Good and the Beautiful

• Lessons can be long
• Traditional curriculum (which some don’t like)
• Spelling lists 
• Focus on their literature and dislike for literature you might just read for fun (I personally pull from literature of many different types as I can use them to teach in different ways)
• (for some) controversy on whether the curriculum is “Christian” or not

MY THOUGHTS

Being an eclectic homeschooler – more unschooling than anything else – I have used aspects of this curriculum. I tried the readers with my girls and they were not interested. It is lovely how art is combined and it can be cross-curricular at times within the language arts curriculum, but I have not chosen to use the complete curriculum, even for one subject.

I can see why people do like it and, if you are looking for something with minimal prep, then this is a great option. 

The artwork is beautiful, but I don’t personally feel the need for all that. I tried some of the math with my girls but they were often distracted by the artwork. They just truly seem to like the black numbers on the white page without distraction. 

The fact that a lot of it can be obtained free by download (you are left with printing pages, etc, so it can end up being more expensive that way) or that it is relatively inexpensive to purchase, makes it a good choice.

DO I RECOMMEND THIS CURRICULUM?

Do I recommend this curriculum? Yes. I do. But, I also say, do the parts of it that work for you. I personally feel that using different curriculum for your children, depending on their learning style and personality, is the way to go. But that is me. Homeschooling is supposed to be about freedom and that freedom should extend to our homeschool curriculum choices as well. If you want something that covers everything, is moral and is literature based, this is a solid choice.