Our 2018/2019 Relaxed Homeschool Curriculum for 5th, 6th, and 7th Grade

Another week has rolled by, and I’m keeping my promise to share next year’s relaxed homeschool curriculum for 5th, 6th, and 7th grade, aka “the middles.”

Last week when I shared our curriculum choices for my littles, I explained the fact that our homeschool philosophy is pretty much, “The less textbooks, the better.” Nowhere does this hold true as much as it does with my middles because next year, in fact, they will be using no textbooks at all. None. Not even a workbook. 

(This post contains affiliate links.)

So…if you’re looking for a plethora of textbook recommendations, you won’t find them here. What you will find is an assortment of more holistic homeschooling materials and some other helpful homeschooling tools, as well.

Are you ready??

Our Textbook-Free Relaxed Homeschool Curriculum for 5th, 6th, and 7th Grade

Language Arts

For language arts, we simply will be continuing what we are doing this year by using various forms of notebooking. Rather than separating this subject into reading, writing, and grammar and boring the pants off of my children, all of these facets of English will be seamlessly interwoven through a rotation of copywork, journaling, and interest-led notebooking. (See my video below for a more detailed description of how we do this.)

People often ask how I cover grammar without a textbook. Simple! There are three techniques I utilize in order to do this:

• Instructing them to underline the verbs, circle the adjectives, box the nouns, etc. in their journal entries
• Mad Libs
• Integrating grammar activities into our unit studies

The only subcategory of language arts my children will do separately is spelling, for which they will be using Natural Speller.

 

Math

Life of Fred has, unfortunately, lost its luster with my children, so they will, instead, be using CTC Math.

Au revoir, Fred Gauss. Until we meet again!

 

All Other Subjects

Everything else will be covered with the three techniques that have become the signature of our homeschool:

• Living books/read-alouds
• Delight-directed learning
• Unit studies

We tend to skip around quite a bit with the resources we use for this area, simply because the change in routine every now and then really helps keep my children engaged. The three resources I’ve chosen for next year are:

• KONOS Volume 2 – No big surprise there, right?? 😉
• Beautiful Feet Books Intermediate Early American History – Again, if you’ve been here before, this probably doesn’t surprise you either. 🙂
• CASE OF ADVENTURE – Destination Scotland – This is by the author and publisher of Destination Switzerland, which we loved!

Since these three techniques are all cross-curricular, there is no need for a dozen textbooks for each child. I always say, life isn’t separated into subjects, so why should my children’s education be?

Now that’s staying true to our simple homeschooling philosophy!

 

Now it’s your turn. What are your curriculum choices for next year? Leave a comment!