5th Grade Homeschool Curriculum Choices

Our fifth grade homeschool curriculum choices were a mix of familiar programs and adding in a few (new to us) pieces. This 5th year will be a bit of a stretching year for Zachary as he will be pushed a little out of his comfort zone with a few subjects, working on a few things more independently (still meeting with me for lessons), and require more personal responsibility overall. While intentions are always wonderful and his focus can be amazing when it comes to things he wants to do, the goal this year is to keep him on task.

(Please pray for me.)

There are a few things that I am still working on for his curriculum this year, including handwriting based on Seeds Family Worship and a simple geography program based on National Geographic Kids Ultimate Globetrotting World Atlas. However, I may be a bit behind. It’s all in my head, just needs to make it to paper and reality! There are times when I wonder why I feel the need to re-invent the wheel, but I have something specific in mind for him, so it’s more fun this way, right?

5th Grade Homeschool Curriculum Choices

Here’s a look at the overall plan for our 5th grade year…

• Bible: Grapevine’s New Testament Overview (as a group)
• History: Mystery of History 1 and Story of the World 1 (combining using Biblioplan Ancients Family Guide)
• Math: Teaching Textbooks Math 6 
• Science: Christian Kids Explore Chemistry and also projects from EEME and Little Bits
• Language/Grammar: Growing with Grammar 5 and Daily Grams (if needed)
• Vocabulary: Marie’s Words (daily word cards)
• Writing: WriteShop Junior E (teacher’s guide, student book, & activity pack)
• Spelling: All About Spelling Levels 4 & 5 and All About Homophones
• Handwriting: Cursive copywork to go along with Seeds Family Worship (something I am working on for him)
• Geography: with Kaleb, based on National Geographic Kids Ultimate Globetrotting World Atlas
• Art: Home Art Studio 5 finishing up and special projects DVD
• Reading: see our 5th Grade Homeschool Reading List here

Zachary has been showing some great initiative as we have talked about what curriculum he’ll be using this year, and he has set some goals for himself for what he would like to accomplish by certain points in the year (yay!!). He is very excited to start Chemistry. For the last five years he has used Nancy Larson Science and while he loved that, he wanted to work on something by himself (and with just me) this year. We looked over several programs and decided on this one from Bright Ideas Press. He is also very much into learning how things work, so Little Bits and EEME projects are going to be a ‘bonus time’ at the end of each day for him for some STEM work.

Overall, we are SO excited for his year to start and see how he grows this year!

Co-op Learning

The fact that Zachary is technically in middle school is about to make me cry. Our co-op class has a growing group of this age group, so Zachary will be working on the following two classes with them twice a month. One will require a little more reading, but will also involve some fun science projects too:

• Mad Scientists Club – kids will be reading short stories from this book and also working on go-along experiments.
• Fairy Tales on Trial – learning about the judicial system and holding a mock trial together

Curriculum in Year’s Past

In case you are interested in seeing the curriculum that brought us to this point, here’s a peek at what we’ve used with McKenna the past few years:

• 4th grade curriculum
• 3rd grade curriculum
• 2nd grade curriculum
• 1st grade curriculum

If you are new to homeschooling and aren’t sure where to begin in choosing homeschool curriculum, please don’t let this post overwhelm you! Check out the entire Homeschool Basics series for answers to more frequently asked homeschool questions.

See What the Other Kids Are Up To…

Take a peek at our 9th grade, 7th grade, and 3rd grade curriculum choices for the year as well! Click on one of the images above to look over their curriculum piles.

What subjects are you excited to work on this year with your kids?