8th Grade ~ 7th Grade ~ 5th Grade ~ 3rd Grade
Another year and a full set of fresh books and pages. I just love the smell of the new school curriculum, don’t you? Here are the 2021-2022 Homeschool Curriculum choices we will be using.
With a new year, new plans, and all this new curriculum I thought I would put out there what our homeschool curriculum choices are this coming year!
In the coming school year, we will have a couple of middle schoolers and a couple of elementary kiddos! They continue with their own learning styles and personalities, which guides me in the curriculum choices I make each year.
In the spring and early summer are when I do some reevaluation with regard to how they did with the curriculum choices of last year. I make any necessary tweaks that will help each child achieve success on their level in the coming year.
Related post: The key to Your School Year – Anchor Your Heart in Truth
Academics are valued in our home, but not quite as much as character and, more recently, a solid focus on critical thinking skills.
One of our family values is hard work and “Doing it all to the Glory of God”. Sometimes this requires us to go slower in some areas. Evaluating the stage of learning so that it can be learned well is critical to me when choosing curriculum and grade levels for my children.
Annually, I do a quick heart check and remember WHY we choose to homeschool. To read more about our why, head to this post.
HOMESCHOOL CURRICULUM CHOICES
8th Grade –
My oldest daughter, who is 14 and has Down syndrome, will be in 8th grade this year and preparing for High School grade levels in the future. She needs modifications to most curriculums, but she has continued to learn and grow at a nice pace.
These are the independent subjects and curriculum that she will be using:
- Language Arts My girl will participate in the Essentials Program at our Classical Conversations (CC) co-op this year. Due to this, she will use a few curriculums that will help her learn some new skills.
- Essentials of the English Language – this program will review classic sentence structure, parts of speech, and lots of grammar through the review and memorization of charts. This process suits her by proving definitions and examples that she will build on throughout the year. She will review these 2-3 times a week.
- The Good & The Beautiful Language Arts, Level 5 – This level contains excellent books to read right within the lessons, poetry, grammar review, and spelling of challenging words. I will use it as a periodic supplement to the Essentials program. She will do 2-3 lessons per week.
- Writing – 7th Grade
This young man continues growing and achieving academically. However, his attention to detail and some classic pre-teen brain fogginess have caused him to lack some focus. This boy has an early September birthday and has been ahead one “grade”. This year we decided it was the perfect year to give him a “half year” to slow down.
He will discontinue the Challenge Program with Classical Conversations. Though he will use some of the same curricula, he will not participate in a cooperative group. This will alollw him to go at that slower pace and really retain the information.
These are his independent subjects and curriculum for this year:
- Language Arts – Reading good literature and Lost Tools of Writing curriculum to assist with continued writing skills.
- Math – Saxon Algebra 1/2 has been a fantastic fit for him. It challenges him to keep growing and learning. He will be using an online tutor that goes along with the Saxon Programs since we have figured out that it will be a better fit for new concepts. Though I love math, me and my son process it differently, which makes it hard for me to communicate new or difficult concepts to him. Know when to outsource, momma!!
- Latin – Henle Latin has been a good baseline of learning for him, so he will do a review and then build with new concepts.
- Civics – Land of Hope – An Invitation to the Great American Story is a new Civics curriculum he will do that gives an incredible account of our country’s beginnings. This has a reading textbook and student workbook that he will likely take a couple of years to work through.
- Logic – Introduction to Logic – The Fundamentals of Thinking Well – Continuing to build his critical thinking skills, he will begin the Intro book to this well-constructed curriculum. He will work on this just 2x per week.
5th Grade
This guy continues to be all about the motion. My 10-year-old is an auditory learner who learns best from hearing and moving around. His biggest challenge is not being completely disruptive to those who need to focus – momma included!
I will often do parts of his work orally – multiplication tables & spelling for instance, rather than making him sit and write the answers down. This helps him both learn and retain the information.
His subjects and curriculum for the coming year are:
- Language Arts – This little guy will begin the Essentials of the English Language Program at our Classical Conversations (CC) co-op this year for the first time also.
- Essentials of the English Language – This program will review classic sentence structure, parts of speech, and lots of grammar through the review and memorization of charts. He will read and repeat these definitions and rules to assist in his overall language skills. He will review the charts 3 times a week.
- The Good & The Beautiful Language Arts, Level 5 – This level contains excellent books to read right within the lessons, poetry, grammar review, and spelling of challenging words. I will use it as a periodic supplement to the Essentials program. He will complete 2-3 lessons per week.
- Writing – 3rd Grade – 8 Year Old Daughter
- Language Arts – The Good and the Beautiful, Levels 2 & 3 – This curriculum recently received a complete update. The early levels have a new flow that involves a brief lesson that I can do with my girl. Then she can do the Independent Work section on her own. She loves the colorful pages and I like how it continues to group all of the Language Arts pieces into one program – spelling, grammar, poetry, writing, art, and even some geography!!!
- Reading – She will read several “mom” selected books about animals. Also, “olden times” which is an appealing read for her right now.
- Handwriting The Good and the Beautiful, Level 5. My artsy and creative baby girl wanted to learn cursive with her older siblings this year. Although she was set to have done a lower level I decided to allow her to complete the cursive. She enjoys the art and drawing in this program so much that I’m sure she will do great. She will do this 2-3 times a week.
- Math – ABeka, Level 3 – She will continue to learn the fundamentals of math with this bright and self-paced curriculum.
- Typing – The Good & The Beautiful Typing – We continue to use this program for regular practice and skill building. She will do this 2 times a week.
- Spanish – Brighter Child, Grade 2. She continues to love learning Spanish so will work on the next book in this series 2x a week.
FAMILY STYLE SUBJECTS
The subjects that I choose to do as family-style are history, geography, and science. This year we will be studying Ancient History and using Mystery of History, Creation to the Resurrection.
To see how we learn together, you can head on over to this post about our Circle Time – How We Start our Day.
What are your choices for the coming year? Are you trying anything new?
Let me know your favorite curriculums in the comments!!
Best,
Homeschool Curriculum Choices
Check out some of our favorite resources to learn in these posts.
9th Grade ~ 8th Grade ~6th Grade ~ 4th Grade
8th Grade ~ 7th Grade ~ 5th Grade ~ 3rd Grade
7th Grade ~ 7th Grade ~ 4th Grade ~ 2nd Grade
6th Grade – 6th Grade – 3rd Grade – 1st Grade
5th Grade – 5th Grade – 2nd Grade – Kindergarten
