How we teach
Print-First Christian Homeschool Curriculum for K–5
Print-first means the lesson happens on paper, between a parent and a child, and every screen in the system is optional. This page states the commitment precisely — what is paper, what is usefully digital, what it costs you in toner — because 'low-screen' claims are cheap and the details are where they are tested.
Updated 13 October 2026 · Sources read 5 September 2026
What print-first means here, precisely
Every lesson in Faith Schooling is taught from paper: the child's textbook and workbook pages, the parent's scripted guide, a pencil. There is no required video instruction at any grade, no app a lesson depends on, and no screen a child must sit in front of to learn. That is the whole claim, and it is checkable — the teaching guides are open in full, so you can confirm that nothing in them says 'now play the video.'
Print-first is not print-only, and we would rather define the boundary than let you discover it. What is digital, deliberately: HARVEST placement runs in the browser; the learning games offer practice between lessons; teaching guides and previews are readable online before you print anything. Screens serve the system. They never are the system.
Why we choose paper — the actual reasons
First, attention. A page has no autoplay, no notifications and no next video; whatever a worksheet's faults, it does not recommend another worksheet when the child finishes. A family that has fought the tablet for a child's attention knows this is not a small point.
Second, the hand. Children in this curriculum write constantly — phonics application, copywork, cursive, math work — and writing by hand is itself part of how the material is practiced. Third, the parent can see the work: a stack of pages shows exactly what was done, what was skipped and where the eraser worked hardest, with no dashboard mediating between you and your child's actual marks. Fourth, several children: pages print per child, at the level each child is on, without buying devices or accounts.
We hold these as design reasons, stated plainly — not as a claim that research has settled screens versus paper for every purpose. Our Screens & Attention library walks the evidence honestly, article by article, including where it is contested.
What arrives on paper
The print library is the bulk of the catalog: six full-year reading textbooks (8,952 student pages) with 3,530 pages of teaching guides; 210 weekly lesson sets; 300 decodable readers and fluency passages; 96 phonics workbooks arranged by pattern; ten cursive workbooks; the Building Number Sense K–5 math texts with K–2 workbooks and guides; and thousands of practice worksheets beneath it all. Everything is delivered as PDF and printed at home, which is what makes a second child cost paper rather than another purchase.
The optional screens, in full: HARVEST placement, the three learning games, the browser teaching guides and preview readers, the Copywork Creator and Bible Verse Card Maker, and My Workbooks for building printable workbooks. Each one produces or supports paper work, or replaces nothing if ignored.
The honest costs of print-first
You need a printer, and you will feed it. Paper and toner are a real household cost that a shipped-books publisher has already built into its price, and we would rather you budget for it than be surprised. Printing time is also real: families who thrive with this model usually batch a week or a month at a time.
The trade you get back: one membership covers every K–5 child in the household at $39 a month, reprints for the next child are free while you are a member, a lost page costs one sheet of paper, and you print only what your child actually needs — a child who masters a skill in three sessions never prints the other four sets.
What print-first does not mean
It is not a claim that screens are sin, and not a curriculum-by-video judgment on families who choose one — video instruction is a legitimate lifeline for many homes, and our comparison pages point honestly at publishers who do it well. It is not screen-free: the placement tool and the games are screens, by design, in their supporting places.
And it is not a virtue in itself. Paper is the medium; the teaching inside it is what matters. Print-first simply keeps the lesson where a parent can see it, a pencil can work on it, and nothing can autoplay after it.
What a screen-free homeschool curriculum actually means Christian homeschool curriculum without cartoons
Common questions
- Is there any required video instruction?
- No. Every lesson at every grade is taught from printed pages by the parent, with a scripted guide. The teaching guides are open in full before you pay, so this claim can be checked rather than trusted.
- Is Faith Schooling completely screen-free?
- No, and we say so precisely: HARVEST placement, the learning games, the browser teaching guides and previews, and My Workbooks all run on a screen — each optional, each supporting the paper lesson rather than replacing it. The lesson itself is print.
- What does printing actually cost?
- A printer, paper and toner — a real household cost we do not hide, and one worth comparing honestly against shipped-book prices. In exchange, reprints for the next child are free while you are a member, and you print only the pages your child actually needs.
- We prefer a curriculum taught by video. Should we use this?
- Probably not for the subjects we cover — the parent is the teacher here, always. Our comparison pages describe publishers whose model includes video and distance options, because the right answer for your family might honestly be one of them.