Cornerstone Civics is a print-at-home American civics curriculum for homeschool families, tutors, and co-ops — spanning kindergarten through 12th grade, with every unit in true grade-level editions — genuine rewrites for each age, never one file in bigger type. For parents who want kids who understand America, not kids who filled out a worksheet about it.
Accurate · Non-partisan · Screen-free · Used by faith-based and secular families alike
This is the Cornerstone method, and it runs through every band of the ladder: each unit comes in genuine grade-level editions — real rewrites, never the same pages in bigger fonts. Our game packs take the opposite approach on purpose: one pack per band, built so every kid plays at the same table. Here's what the method looks like in grades 3–5, where most families start:
Same unit, same dinner-table conversation — each kid working at their own depth.
Older ones help younger ones through the same topic — the fastest way to make it stick.
Clear directions and answer keys mean your 5th grader works through this on their own — while you do phonics with the little one.
Plenty of kids read ahead of their age and write right at it. Every edition comes in the same purchase — hand out the challenge where they’re hungry, keep the comfort where they’re building. The plan bends to the kid, not the other way around.
Cornerstone was built the way things should be built: one grade band at a time, each done right before the next began. And now every band is here — a complete civics ladder from the first coloring page to the voting booth.
Our America, the Good Citizen Game Pack, puzzles and holidays — real civics for little hands, from read-aloud to read-and-write. Shop K–2 →
How Our Country Works, the Founders Game Pack, and the units that started it all — every one in three grade-true editions. Shop 3–5 →
The Bill of Rights, all seventeen later amendments mapped, landmark Supreme Court cases — the documents and the debates. Shop 6–8 →
American Government in practice, the Federalist translated, and The Campaign — win 270 with the real map. Four years from the voting booth, ready for it. Shop 9–12 →
Why start this young? On the nation’s report card, fewer than one in four 8th graders score proficient in civics. Your kid is going to be the exception.
One shelf, up close — every band on the ladder is built with this same care. Browse the rest in the store.
Below: the grades 3–5 shelf that started it all. The complete K–12 store — all four bands, every free starter, game pack, and full unit — lives at cornerstonecivics.gumroad.com.
48 pages · 3 grade editions · answer keys · ink-friendly in B&W · secure checkout via Gumroad
25 pages · 12 founder cards · 7 games & puzzles · answer key · secure checkout via Gumroad
Tiny units, real teaching — the easiest way to try Cornerstone beyond the free lesson.
Who makes the laws, who carries them out, who decides what they mean — a 3-page mini-unit in all three grade editions.
Washington, Franklin & Hamilton — story, facts, and a collectible founder card each. Cards #1–3 of the full deck.
One purchase covers your whole household — every kid, every edition, print as often as you need. Teaching a co-op or classroom? Email hello@cornerstonecivics.com for a group license.
Instant PDF downloads — no shipping, no login, no subscription. A unit comes with every grade edition in its band (three editions in K–2, 3–5, and 6–8; one deeper edition in 9–12). Game packs are one file: games, boards, decks, and answer keys. Print what you need, as many times as your family needs, forever.
Four bands: K–2, 3–5, 6–8, and 9–12. Because every unit includes all of its band’s editions, you never have to guess — start where your kid is comfortable and move up when they’re ready. Many families run two editions at one table — and it’s quietly the best setup going for kids who are ahead in one skill and on-level in another: the challenge and the comfort come in the same purchase.
Yes — that’s the whole design. We teach how the machine works, not what to think: the documents, the branches, the process. No religious content, no political slant, used by faith-based and secular families alike.
Yes — every page in every band is designed to print clean in B&W or color on ordinary letter paper, without eating your ink. In K–2, black & white is the point: the kids supply the color.
Every band starts free. Four free starter units — one per band, each complete with its lesson, activities, and answer key. Grab any of them; that’s how most families meet us.
Yes — the Kindergarten editions are built for it. Every lesson is a one-minute read-aloud addressed to the grown-up, and every activity runs on pointing, circling, tracing, coloring, and telling. Grade 1 reads to you; Grade 2 reads and writes on its own.
K is a sit-together band — one lesson pair per sitting, crayons on the table. By Grade 2, most pages run solo while you stay in earshot for the bolded words.
Twelve games in 22 pages: a 24-card helpers deck, a four-page board game through a hand-drawn town, color-your-own standing pawns, and the Cookie Election — a real family vote with secret ballots and a ballot box you build from a tissue box. The winner gets eaten; the losers shake hands. That’s the rule.
Right here — this is the band Cornerstone was born in, and its free starter, Who Makes the Rules?, is the fastest way to see the three-edition method with your own kids at the table.
Play it. The Founders Game Pack turns the mechanics into things kids ask to do again: a collectible founder card deck, a tape-together board game where a bill fights its way into law, civics bingo, puzzles, and a tournament bracket.
How Our Country Works: rules and laws, the Constitution, the three branches, and checks and balances — 16 pages per edition, with word banks, reviews, answer keys, and a certificate that gets framed more often than you’d think.
No — this is where primary sources arrive. Students close-read the actual amendment texts and real lines from real Supreme Court opinions, then argue both sides before the answer key weighs in.
All of them. The Amendments After Ten opens with every post–Bill-of-Rights amendment mapped in plain words — all seventeen — then deep-dives three per grade, different ones at each grade. A family working all three editions covers nine amendments deeply and owns the whole map.
Twelve landmarks mapped on one docket — Marbury to T.L.O. — with grade-specific deep dives: the fairness trio in 6th, your-rights-at-school in 7th (cases that happened to kids their age), and the power trio in 8th.
One — written at full depth, with “going deeper” tracks inside for honors-level stretch. By high school the ladder converges: everyone reads the real thing.
Win 270 with the real map and the real math: all 50 states plus D.C., 538 electoral votes, fictional candidates. Four games in one box — the 270 race, a no-dice auction draft, a 30-second persuasion game, and a five-minute press-your-luck duel.
That’s exactly when neutrality matters most — so the method is steelman-both-sides: students must state the losing argument well enough that someone holding it would agree, before they pick a side. We grade the reasoning, never the verdict.
Four free starter units — one per grade band, each a complete lesson with activities and answer keys. See exactly how Cornerstone teaches before you spend a dollar.
No spam, ever. Just genuinely good materials and the occasional new release.
