Homeschool 6th Grade {Curriculum Plan}

Sixth grade feels different. Bit by bit, my boy is changing, so I suppose it makes sense that our homeschool ought to change a bit along with him! Some of our curriculum and rhythms will remain the same, and some will shift.

I’m grateful for homeschool freedom to set out on a course, with the knowledge that we can change direction down the road. Sometimes curriculum choosing can feel so rigid. While I don’t want to be foolish in my choices, waste money, or lack consistency, I need the mental shift in my perspective that all is not lost if I choose a program that doesn’t turn out to be all that I hope it will be! With that said, here are the *carefully researched* (oh the hours of research!) choices that we’ll be diving into for 6th Grade!

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Family & Independent Reading

The core of our homeschool will forever be books… reading them together, apart, as audiobooks, as family read alouds, as picture books…. you get the idea.

As the toddler is getting older, I’m excited to read more picture books to her, and to have the older kids read to her as well. A homeschool mentor encouraged me to require my bigs to read to the little as it aids in internalization of punctuation, vocabulary, sentence structure, etc. Win-win!

I plan to strew lots of content related books for the older kids to just read at whim. We are covering modern history this year, which my 6th grader is PUMPED about, so we will lean into his love of the time period with lots of books. I hope to do the same with our science studies and timely biographies.

We’ll be reading several novels with co-op this year, and I’ll be asking the kids to structure their own book club based around Sarah Mackenzie’s 5 Questions to Ask About Any Book (more info here). Excited for this! I haven’t finalized the books for the year, but currently eyeing Riding Freedom; Little Christmas Carol (Dickens’ text beside Joe Sutphin’s illustrations which we ADORED when we read the Little Pilgrim’s Progress several years ago); Miracles on Maple Hill; Treasures of the Snow; Finding Langston; The Year of Miss Agnes; Echo; and, The Winged Watchman.

Language Arts

• Essentials in Writing– grammar and composition (not to be confused with IEW, Institute for Excellence in Writing which I decided was just too much for us this year- for me as the teacher and my student’s interest/stamina; he enjoys creative writing and is working on his own fantasy novel currently–which I owe to Night Zookeeper!)
• Spelling Wisdom along with strategies from Spelling Power for tricky words, and “right brain” strategies from Dianne Craft’s brain integration program.
• Touch Type Read Spell– I have high hopes that this will serve dual purpose of teaching typing along with spelling reinforcement. Their program is Orton-Gillingham based, and I figured with a 30 day money back guarantee it was worth a shot! I like that I’m able to generate my own modules around words that we are working on in other areas of our homeschool (geography/science terms, etc.), and it has optional dictation exercises (typing from auditory input only rather than seeing the word and typing it- hence spelling practice!). You can use the code LIBRARIAN for my 10% affiliate discount.
• Night Zookeeper– my kids requested that we continue this! My thoughts about the program here
• Read Aloud Revival Premium’s writer’s workshops
• The Good & the Beautiful Handwriting
• Narration of texts required from co-op (Story of the World and science textbooks)

Math

Right Start Math. We’re still using this, 7 years later. 🙂 I briefly considered switching to something more independent, but my son requested that we stick with it. I’m told the next level becomes independent. We shall see, but I put so much value on this curriculum that I’ll make time in our day for it!

Co-op Subjects

We are involved with an academic co-op and two nature co-ops which fill out our homeschool so beautifully. After homeschooling without our usual communities during pandemic, I never want to take these groups for granted! They are the sweetest joy of our homeschooling life. Learning with friends is a great gift, and it also helps me to share the load of teaching. Here’s what co-op takes off of my plate:

• Science. We’ll study astronomy in the fall and human anatomy & physiology in the winter/spring. Our co-op science teacher will be using Apologia’s curriculum with hands-on activities to be done in class.
• History. As I said above, we are studying modern history this year. We’ll be loosely using Story of the World in co-op while also leaning into the decades of the 20th century and early 21st.
• Art & Music. These subjects line up with our history cycle, so we will learn about the artists, movements, and composers of the modern era. Our music teacher will be using the newly released Music Appreciation curriculum from Beautiful Feet Books, which truly looks *beautiful*!
• Memory. We’ll be tackling longer passages of scripture, historical speeches, and poetry memory with the group to be recited for our end of year capstone.
• Geography. We use the Kathy Troxel geography songs to structure our geography studies, and we learn about each region/country as we go.
• Lit Circle. We’ll be participating in lit circle time once every 6-8 weeks; they’ll be assigned a novel and we will discuss together the writer’s style, literary elements, and plot.
• Nature study. Our nature groups spend a lot of unstructured time outdoors together, and usually do a small lesson or activity together. I’m considering Outdoor School: Tree, Wildflower, and Mushroom Spotting for our older group; and perhaps just seasonal read alouds from Read Aloud Revival/Brighter Day Press with our younger group.

So there’s my starry-eyed August post! We’re jumping in right after Labor Day, and I am feeling a little nervous this year. Back to School jitters! Be sure to subscribe for updates as the year progresses!