(Last Updated on September 20, 2025)
In this series of posts, I’ve been sharing what curricula I’ve used to homeschool my three kids each year. To see what we’ve used for other ages and grades, check out the first post which has links to all the posts in the series.
Year 8 Snapshot
It’s 2021 and the world still seems topsy turvy right now (to put it nicely). But despite masks and politics and germs, the show must go on. Even though we don’t know what this year will bring (do we ever?), it’s still important to have routines, curricula, and goals for the upcoming school year. Though some plans will inevitably need to be revised (more about that in this post), we’ve got to start somewhere or we’ll never go anywhere.
It’s been getting easier to plan out curricula now that we’ve been homeschooling for a while. I can reuse some resources for my younger kids and continue on with the next levels of curricula I already know work for us. Generally speaking, I don’t feel like I’m reinventing the wheel each year. *happy homeschooling mom sigh of relief*
Here’s what we’ll be using for our 8th year of homeschooling:
Seventh Grade Curricula for Year 8
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- Bible & Character: AWANA, family and individual Bible study, Bible lessons included in our history curriculum
- Math: CTC Math (See my CTC mini-review here.)
- Reading: Silent reading (30+ min./day) plus family read-alouds and audiobooks
- Spelling: All About Spelling Level 7 (One of our all-time favorites! See my AAS review here!)
- Writing: Institute for Excellence in Writing (IEW) Structure & Style for Students (Year 1, Level B) (See my IEW review here.)
- Vocabulary: Barron’s Painless Vocabulary and Rummy Roots
- Science: BFSU Volume 3 (I love BFSU! Check out my review and this BFSU planning post for more details!)
- History/Geography & Literature: Notgrass History America the Beautiful (Part 1)
- Health, Safety, & Career: Preparing for Adolescence by Dr. Dobson plus interest-based independent studies
- Logic: Orbiting with Logic
Fourth Grade Curricula for Year 8
Every year we do as much learning together as possible (partly because it’s fun and a great way to learn, but mostly to save my sanity). So the Bible, science, and history/geography for my fourth grader will be the same as his brother’s list above. Besides those, he’ll be working on:
- Math: CTC Math
- Reading: Silent reading (30+ min./day) plus family read-alouds and audiobooks
- Spelling: All About Spelling Level 4
- Writing: IEW Student Writing Intensive Level A
- Grammar: Kahn Academy Grammar
- Logic: Math Analogies Book 2
Kindergarten Curricula for Year 8
My youngest is so excited to be starting Kindergarten! In addition to the work we do together, she’ll also be doing:
- Math: CTC Math plus Math-U-See Alpha and other fun math games and printables
- Reading: Bob Books, silent reading (10+ min./day), plus family read-alouds and audiobooks
- Phonics: Various phonics workbooks, Word Mastery, sight word games, and Starfall.com
- Handwriting: A mom-made handwriting book with printables and copywork pages (including some of these *FREE* handwriting pages found here)
- Logic: Lollipop Logic Book 2
Update: For a great summary of all the resources I used for my kindergarteners over the years, see How to Homeschool Kindergarten: Curriculum Ideas & Lessons Learned!
Other Fun Stuff
Given the pandemic-related events of the last year and a half, we’re holding our plans loosely. But, since I’m often guilty of holding my plans too tightly, maybe that’s not such a bad thing for me.
The new co-op we joined this past year was a wonderful experience for all of us. We’ll be going back this year and all three of my kids will be taking Gym and Art for their age groups. They also each chose a fun elective – the 7th grader will be trying a Robotics class, my 4th grader picked Improv Theater, and my (still sometimes shy) youngest is cautiously optimistic about trying a Young Scientists class.
We’re hoping our church will host in-person AWANA this year. My oldest will be continuing in Trek, my middle son in T&T, and my youngest will be starting in Sparks.
As for music, we’re still working our way through the Bastien Piano Basics series at home. But they’ve now caught up to my skill level, so my 4th grader will be taking piano lessons with an instructor at our co-op. We’re also continuing with our amazing local homeschool band. My 4th grader plays French horn and my 7th grader plays percussion. Since the percussion music is also beyond me (who invented all those little chicken scratch symbols anyway?!), my oldest will be taking percussion lessons at co-op, too.
From the looks of the ever-changing COVID landscape right now, this will be another year of “wait and see” for the extracurricular opportunities. For now, we’re planning on Youth Group, Worship Team, maybe a speech club for my oldest, and hopefully some Park District classes or sports for the others.
Click here to continue reading the next post in this series: Our Curriculum Choices – Year 9!
For more inspiration and encouragement on your home education journey, check out my book, Think About Homeschooling! Whether you’re just starting out or have homeschooled for years, it will give you the boost of courage and hope you need to press on! Buy it now or find out more here!
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