Here are our 7th grade curriculum choices. William will be in the 7th grade this year, though he works behind that grade level, so these might be more accurately titled 6th grade curriculum choices. I already have him one grade level behind his age, so I don’t want to move him back further. That is one of the huge benefits to homeschooling! William has several learning issues so I have tried a lot of different curricula and approaches with him. We’ve found some things that work well. We’re still looking in some areas.
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Math
Christian Light Math 6 – This is one of the things that we have found that works. I have written about William and math before in The Post Where I Admit I was Wrong.
Language Arts
English – Grammar & Composition
Rod & Staff 6 – I am a long time user of Rod & Staff. You can read my review on The Curriculum Choice. I don’t know if this is going to work for William or not. We’ve tried starting it several times before, but struggled. Last year he went through a short unit on parts of speech and he’s been asking questions about what part of speech words are, so he may finally be ready for a more formal study of grammar. We’ll see.
Spelling
All About Spelling 7 – I really cannot rave enough about All About Spelling for William. I can’t say for sure because I was trying a lot of things at once, but it was while we were going through All About Spelling Level 1 that William finally started to understand blending sounds to make words. All About Spelling taught him how to read! I love how simple it is to use. It’s just pick up and go.
Reading & Literature
Kindle books with immersion reading – When you’re reading on a Kindle, it seems less like reading and more like a game. With the immersion reading, William is better able to focus.
Reader’s Theater – This is a new class on SchoolhouseTeachers.com that I am going to use with William this year. It has very simple scripts to read aloud for 2 or more readers. He really needs to work on reading aloud and expression, so this is a super simple way for us to work together on it.
Reading Detective – I purchased this resource a couple of years ago to work on reading comprehension, but he just did not get it. I am going to pull it out again to see if he’s more ready for it now.
Handwriting
Copywork
Bible
God’s Great Covenant: Old Testament 2 – Honestly, this didn’t work that well with William last year. But I’m going to try another year with it to give him more practice with basic reading comprehension. The stories are things he should be familiar with, but we discovered last year that his Bible knowledge has large gaps.
Hymn study – He’ll be studying the same hymns as Lizzie, using them for copywork, and learning to play them on the piano.
Catechism – Memorizing was very difficult for William early on, but he has really made huge strides lately. We’re going to start him working on the Westminster Shorter Catechism.
History
Story of the World Volumne 2 – Listen to the audio book and read along
Middle Ages History is a another new course on SchoolhouseTeachers.com. It’s Truthquest History by Michelle Miller, so I’m going to look for additional reading selections for William from this course, especially ones that are available for Kindle.
Geography
Drawing Around the World: USA – William really did well with Drawing Around the World: Europe from Brookdale House last year. I’m sure he’ll enjoy drawing the states just as much, if not more!
Science
Geology – William is very interested in National Parks and one of the geology courses at SchoolhouseTeachers.com is about the different geologic features found in National Parks. He has watched a couple of the video lessons, but I plan on having him work through this complete course for his science class this year.
Electives
William received a camera for his birthday in March. He really loves to take lots of pictures. I’d like to give him a little more training on how to frame a picture and what makes for interesting shots. Right now, he’s a little bit random. This course may be too advanced for him, I need to take a closer look and see if I can condense some of the principles for him.
By Kristen H.