Before wrapping up our 2019-2020 school year (our fifth year homeschooling!), I dove into curriculum planning for next school year. It’s one of my favorite things. So today I’ll share with you our 6th grade homeschool curriculum choices.
You can find our 3rd grade curriculum choices for 2019-2020 here.
You can find our 1st grade curriculum choices for 2019-2020 here.
Factors That Affected Our Curriculum Choices
All of my kids are different from each other and every year I learning something new about each of them, so the first thing I do is update what I know about their Learning Preferences. My rising 6th grader is an interactive learner, so I knew that I needed to continue to focus on finding ways to allow him to interact with his subjects in an organized, step-wise method. Especially word-rich subjects.
I also updated what I know about his Difficulties, Dislikes, and Delights. Science is a delight for him, so I took that into account.
I then considered the Three D’s from a family level. We’re in a season where I’ve time-blocked mornings for focusing on personal projects, so I decided that I would put a high priority on independent work for all of my kids this upcoming school year. I especially want to allow my sixth grader to take on more Personal Responsibility in his education.
And, lastly, my philosophy is that it’s better to get effective learning done quickly than to have it take a lot of time while trying to make it “fun.” Work smart, not unnecessarily hard.
6th Grade Homeschool Curriculum Choices
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Morning Work
In elementary school, I like to focus on calendaring activities. For this school year, I’ve created new calendar worksheets for my kids to use. This will likely be my sixth grader’s last year to do calendaring activities.
I’ve been dabbling in mindfulness for the last several months, reflecting on the best part of each day and taking stock of my emotions. I’ve found it to be a helpful practice, so I’m incorporating mindfulness into my kids’ days with their Morning Work with worksheets that I’ve created to track their emotions and note the best part of each day.
I like the idea of my kids starting off the day with fun(ish) brain exercises to get their mental juices flowing, so Scholastic Daily Word Ladders will be part of my oldest boy’s Morning Work binder.
Bible
My oldest started reading through the Gospel of John this past summer, reading an assigned portion and writing out a prayer. He’ll continue that into the new school year.
Since my boy delights in science and enjoyed Louie Giglio’s Indescribable (you can see my review of Indescribable here), I also plan to have my son read through How Great is Our God as a devotional.
He won’t do all three of these at the same time. I may have him alternate from month to month or week to week, just to keep things interesting for him.
Math
Math-U-See works well for my firstborn (you can see my review of Math-U-See here), so we’ll continue with the Zeta level, which covers decimals, percents, and other topics.
Reading
We will start off the school year with at least one Literature Unit from Confessions of a Homeschooler. But later on in the school year, I plan to shift him to a reading list with worksheets (that I create) focusing on characters, setting, vocabulary, etc.
Grammar
Since I’m focusing on independent learning for my students this coming up year, we’ll cover grammar using Evan-Moor’s Grammar & Punctuation for Grade 6. In some ways it will be much easier than IEW’s Fix It! Grammar, which he’s been using for the last couple of years. But I also believe that it will fill in some gaps in his grammar knowledge.
Spelling
For sixth grade spelling, we’re switching from Spelling Power to Evan-Moor’s Building Spelling Skills for Grade 6. But I do plan to continue using Spelling Power practices for words requiring more review, as well as supplementing with extra sentence writing.
My son will also continue with Explode the Code Online (I purchased a membership through the Homeschool Buyers Co-op). We’ve been using this resource periodically for extra reinforcement and spelling practice, and I plan to continue with it until he completes every level.
Writing
In order to correlate with our history studies, my sixth grader will be using IEW’s Medieval History-Based Writing Lessons.
History
Speaking of history, we’re going with Story of the World Volume 2 – Middle Ages. We went through volume 1 (Ancient Times) a few years ago. It actually took us two years to get through that time period, but this time around I want to make it easy-breezy by simply listening to the audiobook during lunch and maybe doing one little project a week. I may also incorporate Project Passport: The Middle Ages and Homeschool in the Woods Lap-Pak: The Knights. We plan to study the Middle Ages as a group, but we’ll see how that goes.
For our United States studies, my son will do Homeschool in the Woods’ U.S. Elections Lap-Pak and then Knowledge Box Central’s U.S. Government Lapbook.
Science
My son is excited to do Apologia’s Chemistry & Physics course. He chose this one himself and requested the Notebooking Journal, too. I’m going to try to let him do science largely independently. In order to make things easier for both of us, I also purchased the lab kit from Rainbow Resources.
Geography
We’ll be tackling geography as a separate subject this year with Evan-Moor’s Daily Geography Practice, Grade 6. It takes hardly any time and covers the subject well.
Spanish
My son does about ten minutes of Spanish each day, alternating between Rosetta Stone and Spanish vocabulary on Quizlet.
Health
This is the year that we go into some <ahem> health topics with my oldest. My husband will be working through this with my son, but I have chosen a couple of books for them to work through.
Piano
My husband (former middle school choir director) plans to get all of the boys started on piano lessons (and maybe voice lessons?) with him this coming up year. I’m not gonna lie – that sounds stressful to me. Better him than me. 😜
He chose this series of books for their piano lessons. Hoping for the best. 🤞
