There’s something so refreshing about opening up a brand-new school year—the clean notebooks, sharpened pencils, and the hope tucked into fresh plans. Each year I love choosing our homeschool curriculum, prayerfully considering what will serve our family best in this season. Today I’m sharing our curriculum picks for the year in hopes it might inspire or encourage you as you make decisions for your own homeschool journey.
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History
This year for history, it is going to look a little different for us than past years. Last year we used Gather Round as we learned about Ancient Civilizations and then Vikings. While we did enjoy it, we really wanted to get away from so much writing, and do more reading and hands-on projects. I bought a separate language arts curriculum again this year, instead of just using Gather Round. As I gather resources, I will add them to this post. But for now, I want to share with you what we are doing for history, as both my 7th grader and I are very excited!
Our focus for history this year is good books and projects. I want it to be literature-based, with some narration notebooking, and fun hands-on projects. I collected some ideas via Pinterest to create my own unit study. I am not sures how long we will take to get through this one, but like past history units, we just really take our time and are more interest-led with the different rabbit holes we go down.
So first I will share a last minute book that I bought that we will be using for some lessons. We definitely will not be doing every page. I want to get away from a lot of worksheets for history this year. But there is some good information in here.
I learned a couple years ago that I cannot put a timeline on history. I can’t say we will be done with this unit in “X” amount of months or even that this will be done by the end of 1st semester. It all depends on how interested my son is. Vikings lasted us MONTHS because we just kept going down learning rabbit holes. So once this study is done, I am not entirely sure what we will be doing. We will probably learn about the renaissance , in a similar way we are learning about this time period. I am quite excited for that unit as well, because my son loves art and learning about art history!
Here is the description on Amazon: This 96-page book features reading selections and assessments that utilize a variety of questioning strategies, such as matching, true or false, critical thinking, and constructed response. Hands-on activities, research opportunities, and mapping exercises engage students in learning about medieval times. For struggling readers, the book includes a downloadable version of the reading selections at a fourth- to fifth-grade reading level.
Books (click on image for the link)
The plan is to read through these books together, with the exception of The Door In The Wall, which will be my son’s independent book. As different topics interest my son, we will look for YouTube videos that go along with it. (I always preview the videos first!) There are hundreds of videos about this time period.
What we will study for history:
Castles– the different styles, how they were built, and the defense systems in place. I am suprising my son with this LEGO Castle book– he is going to be SO excited! This will be one of his projects- to follow the instructions on how to make your own Lego castle build, or just get inspiration from it.
Food- To end the study, we are going to have a big medieval feast! We had read King Arthur with our Wild+Free book club, so I will probably just pull ideas from that party.
Weapons & Armor– We have some projects planned to make our own shields and swords.
With book and videos we will also learn about famous people during this time period, noble rankings, the crusades, life in the middle ages, the Black Death plague, Joan of Arc etc.
Language Arts
We have gone back to The Good And The Beautiful for language arts because we really enjoyed using this curriculum in past years. It incorporates art, which my very creative son enjoys. The level seven comes with the course book, the course companion, the geography and grammar cards, the daily checklist, and the level seven reader. Flipping through these books, we are SO excited to dive in! I am also really happy that geography will be part of language arts, because that is one less thing I have to schedule in!
Science
We are switching it up again this year for science! We have tried several different programs and approaches, but I wanted more of a focus on math and language arts and history this year than science. I went with the Level 7 Science Daily Practice Workbook that has 20 weeks of fun activities. Each week there is a QR code to scan to watch a coordinating video to the lesson. Then the student answers the questions in the workbook each day. There are also simple experiments to go along with the lessons that my son is looking forward to. I do hope we like this style of learning, because it is very affordable compared to other science curriculum and programs. I also had thrifted this Everything Kids Science Experiments Book awhile ago, so we will pull some ideas from here as well.
Bible
We have a few devotionals that we are still working our way through from this Summer, so I think we will finish those, and then I am unsure of what I want to do for our bible studies. Now that my middle child is preschool age and can sit for longer periods of time, I want to start teaching him more bible stories as well. I may just bring out our storybook bibles and start reading through those again! We really love the Hey-O! Stories of the Bible book, and I will read that to all three of my boys.
Math
Math is that one subject that we have just always struggled with. We tried online math programs and different workbooks, and it always starts off good, and then ends up not working for us. Years ago my son used The Good and The Beautiful Math, but we were really trying to make the online math programs work for us. I do not enjoy teaching math and my son does not enjoy learning math. I thought that would be a good subject to outsource! Especially because it takes SO much of our time every day, and I do have two littles that need my constant attention. But, we are giving TGATB another try in hopes that this will work for us. A private tutor is just so expensive, even on Outschool.com. But we may have to look into that more seriously if this curriculum does not work for us.
Nature Study
Nature study is still an important part of our home education. We are using the Slow Down Collection from A Year of Learning again. I love that I can have my 7th grader and my preschooler learning together. You get so many resources to choose from! I always highly recommend this curriculum. You can read a little more about this collection at this blog post under Science. And I share a lot about this collection on my Instagram. I even have a Slow Down highlight you can check out to see past lessons I have shared. The collection follows this book: Slow Down 50 Mindful Moments In Nature.
Electives
Typing
My son has had very little interest in learning how to type until now. Everything we do is mostly on paper, and he does write cursive quite well! But he mentioned that he wants to learn to type, and I definetely agree he needs this skill! So we have this book from The Good and The Beautiful that we bought years ago and never used.
Life Skills
We have been working our way through this Life Skills book this Summer, but still have sveral chapters to go through. We will be continuing to read this together, and then we may get the “teen” version of this book when we are done. He will be 13 this January, and I am hoping that the teen version is not just a repeat of the tween book. I assume it will be new life skills.
Boy Scouts
My son has been very active in our local Boy Scout troop, and we will be joining the troop in our new town when we move this October.
Physical Education
We do not have a set plan for what we want our son to be in. We will check out a few options when we move. My 7th grader has never enjoyed sports, but he is a skilled hiker, camper, and mountain biker. I do hope to get him into some kind of martial arts or PE class to get his body moving consistently.
Wild +Free (nature co-op)
We will be saying goodbye to the group I started here in Virginia, but will be going back to the group I started in Montana! We are really looking forward to seeing old friends and getting back to the most beautiful place. But it is going to be so incredibly hard to say goodbye to the friends we have made in our group here in VA. I also have some ideas on another club I may start after we get settled there! I always have too many ideas, and not enough time.
Mama’s Homeschool Planner
Every year I try out a new homeschool planner, because each year I hone in on what exactly I am looking for in a planner. Last year I had the Homeschool planner from Jennifer Pepito , and it’s really great and beautiful, but I also have a homemakers planner, so I didn’t need the extra things on the pages like “menu”. I wanted to keep my homeschool planner separate from my personal planner. I also really like the price! This planner is much more affordable than a lot of others out there. The Peaceful Press planner also doesn’t have any lines to write on, and I apparently cannot write in a straight line to save my life, so I kind of hated how messy my planner always looked! I got this one on Amazon for only $10! And I really like the layout. But if you only want one planner for everything, the one from the Peaceful Press really is wonderful.
As we step into this new homeschool year, my prayer is that you would feel both peace and joy in the calling God has placed on your heart. Remember, it doesn’t have to be perfect—it simply needs to be faithful. May your days be filled with grace, laughter, and moments that remind you why this journey is worth it. Here’s to a year of learning, growth, and drawing closer to the One who guides us every step of the way.
Blessings,
Nat
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