Whether you are new to homeschooling or you’ve been around a few years – you know that choosing curriculum is hard! The “crazy” homeschoolers of the late 1900’s were faced with almost no resources to help them. We have the opposite problem – there are almost too many things to choose from (but thankfully we aren’t considered “crazy”! Most of the time anyway…).

Every year in late spring I find myself longing for a fresh start. You know the feeling – you are over 3/4 of the way through the school year and the end is in sight. Your once-rigid routines are getting slack. The beauty and brightness of spring weather make you want to go outside, plant a garden, freshen up the house, and in general – get a fresh start.

So every spring I start researching our next year’s curriculum, before we have even finished the current year. Don’t get me wrong – I’m so thankful for the summer break from the routines of school and we take advantage of it! But those curriculum choices float in and out of my thoughts for a few months as I narrow in on the vision for the next year.

There is a dizzying array of curriculum to choose from, and you’ll do well to search, read reviews, and become familiar with homeschool methods and curriculum providers before you settle on anything. But for this post I’m going to share with you what I’m using in 2020-2021 for 4th and 6th grades.

Teaching Multiple Grades

Why both grades in one post? It’s simple. Except for math and spelling, my 4th & 6th graders do everything together. All subjects, all assignments. Why? Because we’d never make it through the day otherwise! If you only have 2 kids, you could consider splitting things up, but for what purpose? Having your kids work on the same things brings a sense of family unity and purpose to your learning, plus saves you the time and energy of planning, preparing, and executing so many lessons every day.

If these two kids were farther apart in age, would I still keep them on the same curriculum? Yes. For the same reasons noted above. But as they get farther apart in age you might vary their responses a little. Older kids can write an essay or science report while younger ones can draw a picture or create a collage to show understanding.

We are conditioned by the public school model to believe that each grade level has a set – almost sacred – agenda for learning and they can’t be mingled. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Learning isn’t a linear progression that everyone must plod along at the same pace. It’s a circular path that we come in and out of to join others in this beautiful connection of discovering truth and virtue. Older kids can mentor and guide younger kids. The younger ones can ask questions and challenge the older ones to own their learning. While I could go on about the benefits of learning with all ages together and in your own family sequence – I’ll save that for later and get to the details that brought you here in the first place!

Math

Since I began homeschooling six years ago, I have always used Right Start Math. The teacher guide is straightforward and there is plenty of review built in during daily warm-ups. There is no busy work or “drill” type worksheets, the practice exercises are detailed enough to know if your child has mastered a concept but short enough to avoid being overwhelmed with work for the sake of doing work. The curriculum includes a large set of manipulatives that are heavily used in the younger grades, but they are still necessary in the older elementary grades as well. There is a book of game instructions, mostly using the various decks of cards that come with the manipulatives.

Every lesson references a game to play that reinforces the concepts (and takes the place of the longer drill worksheets that you would find in other curricula). The website has placement tests and I recommend taking them – do not just buy the level that you think corresponds with your child’s grade level. Math should be learned to mastery before moving on! If that means spending two years on a 3rd grade book, so be it. You will regret not lingering and mastering it a few years down the road.

This year we will be in Right Start Math Level E. We are already halfway through Level G for the 6th grader, and will probably get at least halfway through Level H. I want to note that Level G and H are Geometry courses. The games are still referenced as a way to review arithmetic. But a refreshing discovery was to find that these books are written to the student – there is no teacher guide. There is a student book with all instructions and a separate answer key. So by this level your child can open up their math lesson and work through it on their own, while you take a step back and provide help when needed.

My only caution with this program is that I have found a few lessons on topics I never learned to be confusing. If you as the parent are very uncomfortable with math, be sure to take a good look at the sample teacher guides to see if their style will work for you.

Language Arts

Language arts includes a lot of things that may change over the years. Younger kids will be focusing on phonics (learning to read), penmanship, and spelling, and older kids will add in grammar and composition/writing, and maybe even reading comprehension. You could dive into poetry and foreign languages as well.

Spelling

For language arts we are past the point of phonics lessons, and though most years we did spelling lessons (which we separated by grade level), this year we relegated spelling to the summer! We are using All About Spelling, roughly sticking to grade level. They are quick and easy lessons (10-20 minutes depending on the kid) but it was nice to knock them out over the summer and free up that time for something else during the school year.

Penmanship

Penmanship describes the basic act of handwriting. Depending on your child’s ability you may not need to worry about this. I have used a variety of workbooks over the years, but our current one is IEW’s Cursive Knowledge book. And guess what – this became a summer lesson too! It’s quick and easy, but doesn’t have to add to the courseload during the school year. Plus we are getting good practice in on cursive handwriting so that it isn’t a barrier to completing work in other subjects.

Composition

Does anyone else have kids that struggle with writing a coherent paragraph? Please tell me it isn’t just me? When we started school last year I desperately wanted to teach my kids to write well. Thank goodness, I found the answer!

We worked through about half of IEW’s Year 1 Structure and Style. Technically we should have finished it – but there’s an example of doing what works for your family and not being a slave to the manual. We went from struggling to put a few sentences together to writing short stories with several paragraphs by the end of the year. I’ll write a detailed post on this program, but for our purposes here, it’s been a great find. We will continue through Year 1 and start the next level if time permits. Sifting through the options on their website can be a bit confusing if you are new to the materials, so request their free catalog to get a better picture of what they offer.

Grammar

I’ve tried a number of approaches to grammar over the years, but I have found IEW’s Fix-it-Grammar series to be the approach I was looking for. Students spend the year copying a short story, labeling and “fixing” one sentence of the story each day. Bonus: vocabulary words are built in. This year we are working in the Robin Hood book. And remember – both the 4th grader and 6th grader do this together (but each have their own workbook).

Literature

You could also call this “reading comprehension”. Last year we started a program called “Readers in Residence” by Debra Bell. We only got 1/6th of the way through! This was the subject that got left by the wayside when we just didn’t have the time or focus left for the day. That said, I love the program and we will continue working through it this year. Debra takes the kids through three books of her choosing, asking detailed questions and teaching a variety of literary techniques along the way. In between her books, children choose their own three books to study in the same way. Her curriculum is decidedly Christian.

However – I discovered that this program is no longer in print. You can still buy copies from Christian Book Distributors, while they last. If this doesn’t interest you, look for other ways to read good books and discuss them.

Latin

Yes, we are those crazy people who are learning a dead language. Why? It’s rewarding. It stretches our minds. It helps us understand the structure of our own language better. In general, it forces us to analyze, examine, and think. And what kid doesn’t want to have a secret language to communicate in?

I have settled on Lively Latin as our curriculum. I love it. The level of review built in to the lessons helps us keep everything we have learned locked into our brains! Plus she adds history of Ancient Rome that includes some relevant art studies, so you really end up with a well-rounded understanding of this dead language that was once used for so much of Western thought.

Do you need to study Latin? This is one of those personal opinion things. If you are intrigued, give it a try. If not – you might consider a different language. Kids at this age have a natural ability to learn languages and you may want to take advantage of that! But if you are just getting started and it overwhelms you to add a language – don’t do it. In the words of the Ancient Romans – multum non multa. Much, not many. Do a few things deeply, not everything shallowly.

Science

Our curriculum choice for science this year is Apologia’s Anatomy & Physiology (Christian-based). Throughout elementary school we have been focusing on one branch of science each year (botany, chemistry, etc.) but we have never done a year-long study on the human body. So here we are! I used Apologia’s Botany last year and was pleased with the detail of learning, while not being overwhelming. There were plenty of experiments to choose from – sometimes we do them, sometimes we don’t. The Anatomy text does look a little more detailed than Botany – so I’m hoping that with the kids being a year older that will mesh well.

Social Studies

There are several branches of social studies you can focus on. Many families make history the focus of all their studies. Some center around geography. Little ones usually learn about community helpers and holidays. It can be easy to feel like you need to do everything but, just like everything else, take it slow and trust that over time you’ll get in the important things!

History

After much, much deliberation (and second-guessing, yes even veteran homeschoolers struggle with this!), I settled on Mystery of History I (Christian-based) for our history study. We finished up modern American history last year, and we’re ready to go back and study it all again beginning with the Ancients. We’ll go through all four years of Mystery of History (over the next four years of course!). I love using literature (living books) to reinforce what we are learning and the short, to-the-point lessons in MOH allow time for that (plus recommendations). We’ll also be creating a wall-sized timeline that will be added to over the years. More details on that in another post!

Geography

Geography is a passion for me! Especially in our modern world I believe it’s so important to understand people, cultures, maps, and how all things things came to be and relate to each other. This year we are focusing on the places we will study in Mystery of History, with a day or two each week to draw maps and create our own atlases. I purchased Wondermaps from Bright Ideas Press after so many years of trying to find free maps online that showed what I wanted. (You can also find it at Mystery of History). Wondermaps allows you to print maps with (or without) just about any kinds of labels you want from any location or time period you want.

The Rest of It…

There you have it – the basic four subject areas and what we are doing about them. But what about the fluffy stuff – like Shakespeare and art studies? That’s in the plan too! We are starting a morning time ritual that will include the beautiful things that we always want to do but never get to. I’ll get into all the details on these “extras” on another post!

And let me point out – we don’t do all of these every day! There are some subjects we only study once or twice a week. So while it may look like a lot – it really isn’t.

So does anything here strike your fancy? Are you familiar with any of these curriculum choices or is there something you want to know more about? Let me know!