Our 2020-2021 Homeschool Curriculum Choices

7th Grade ~ 7th Grade ~ 4th Grade ~ 2nd Grade

What a year 2020 is turning out to be!! We have been on this homeschool journey for several years now, but I know many of you are just beginning. Here are the 2020-2021 Homeschool Curriculum choices we will be using. I hope you are inspired to begin a new season of educating your little humans.

With a new year, new plans, and all this new curriculum – and new normals – it was time to put out there 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.

Every spring I do some reevaluation of the curriculum choices of the past year. Then, I make necessary tweaks and changes for each of the kids. The goal is that they achieve success on their level in the coming year.

I also do a quick heart check and remember WHY I and my husband choose to homeschool our little legends, leaders, and light-bearers. To read more about our why, head to this post.

Academics are valued in our home, but not quite as much as character, morals, and manners.

HOMESCHOOL CURRICULUM CHOICES

7th Grade

My oldest daughter is now 13 and has Down syndrome. She will be in 7th grade this year and continually growing in her day-to-day learning. We modify most curriculums so that 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
- The Good & The Beautiful Language Arts, Levels 4+5 – This program 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.
- Handwriting – The Good & The Beautiful Handwriting, Level 4 – Since she needs the regular practice of her handwriting skills, she will continue this program and do a little more cursive writing this year.
Math – Teaching Textbooks, Level 3 – This will be a new curriculum for this girl. Math is the subject she must work hardest at, so Teaching Textbooks will help by teaching fun and simple facts. She is also learning to use her calculator this year for solving formulas that will support her independence. She will do math 4 times a week.

Typing – The Good & The Beautiful Typing – We continue to use this program for regular practice and skill-building. She will be able to type her writing assignments more this year as well. She will do this 2 times a week.
Character Training & Life Skills – Regular reading of her devotionals and bible. Participating in a small Girl’s Bible Journaling group with friends and doing a book club on Lies Girls Believe. She will also have assigned chores and responsibilities around the house.

7th Grade

My first born son will begin the Challenge A Program with Classical Conversations. This is a pretty robust curriculum that will require much more work. I expect to tailor this to his needs so he does not feel overwhelmed.

This also means he will participate less with us in our family subjects. I will have him listen to much of it without having to do additional work, however.

These are his independent subjects and curriculum for this year:

Language Arts: Lost Tools of Writing curriculum write several persuasive writing assignments based on the literature books read.
Math: Saxon Algebra 6/7 for the first time. He has done well with Teaching Textbooks, but he is going to switch to the same curriculum that his coop friends will be using. It will be more challenging, which is the perfect next step.
Latin: Henle Latin will be what he uses to learn noun declensions, verb conjugation, and do a good amount of translating. He will repeat this program 3 times if he stays in the Challenge Program. It is a great deal of foundational Latin for him to learn other languages.
Cartography: Discovering the World through Cartography is a beautiful book that contains both the history and geography of our world. He will use this to draw maps, learn locations of countries, capitals, landforms, and create a glossary of geographical terms.
Logic/Reasoning: Fallacy Detective – This is a super fun book that introduces students to different fallacy arguments used in many areas today. It uses creative stories and helps kids identify when different types of reasoning are being used.

Science: The CC Challenge Program walks through some natural science research for one semester and then has one semester of anatomy. He will follow this flow and do research, vocabulary, and drawing that go along with these topics.
Character Training & Life Skills – Regular reading of his devotionals and bible. He will continue reading the Tim Tebow devotional Know Who You Are. He is a sports driven kid with a passion for baseball so Tebow is a great role model.

4th Grade

This guy continues to be all about the motion. As an auditory learner, he 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: The Good & The Beautiful Language Arts, Level 4 – This level contains excellent books to read right within the lessons, poetry, grammar review, and spelling of challenging words. He will do most of the spelling orally with me each week.
Handwriting: The Good & The Beautiful Handwriting, Level 3-4. Consistent handwriting through this program will introduce cursive this year.
Math: ABeka, Level 4 – We started this math curriculum last year and it continues to be a good fit for this dude. It is bright, colorful, and changes concepts quickly.
Typing: The Good & The Beautiful Typing – We continue to use this program for regular practice and skill-building. He will do this 2 times a week.
Character + Life Skills: This little guy will continue reading through Created for Work. This book provides encouragement and inspiration for young boys to work hard. He will also read through Way of the Warrior Kid book one. This was written by a Navy Seal, Jocko Willink, and admonishes kids not to quit but work hard and has some great lessons.

2nd Grade

Language Arts – The Good and the Beautiful, Levels 2 – This curriculum has been a good next step for babygirl. She enjoys coloring and simple independent work areas.
Reading – She will read several “mom” selected books about animals, we love the Abeka book series.
Handwriting The Good and the Beautiful, Level 2. Handwriting is still a work in progress for her little hands, so she will continue to do this daily. This curriculum weaves in scripture, grammar rules, and good quotes to encourage little hearts. I feel it has the perfect letter order of learning and adds fun creative pictures to draw. All of this aids in the fine motor skills needed for beautiful handwriting.
Math – ABeka, Level 2 – She will continue to learn the fundamentals of math with this bright and self-paced curriculum. I sit with her daily to go over new concepts and help as needed with review.
Spanish – Brighter Child, Grade 1. She desperately wants to learn Spanish! This simple introductory curriculum will help introduce numbers, letters, and some simple words. She will work on this 2x a week.

Character + Life Skills: I will continue to spend time with this little lovey in the mornings and read the bible with her. She will also have her own responsibilities this year in the morning to help more around the house.

FAMILY STYLE SUBJECTS

These are our Homeschool Curriculum choices by grade for 2020-2021. The subjects that I choose to do as family-style are the bible, history, geography, and science. This year we will be studying United States History + Geography.

To see how we learn together, you can head on over to this post about our Circle Time – How We Start our Day.

No matter where you are in your journey, each year brings fresh opportunities for both you and your kids to learn.

Find your tribe.

Keep your WHY central.

Anchor your heart in Christ.

What are your choices for the coming year? Are you trying anything new? Newbie Homeschooler?

Drop me a comment!!

Best,