6th Grade: 2024-2025 Curriculum Picks
I can’t even believe we have middle schoolers! A few years ago when my husband and I were first contemplating homeschool I wouldn’t even allow myself to think this far ahead, but now we’re here! We both feel really good about continuing on with homeschooling and my girls, almost 11 now, absolutely love it too so here we go!
If you’ve been following us for a while what you’ll see differently this upcoming school year is that we are not doing history and science completely family-style since my 6th graders will have more independent work this year. We will continue to do our morning devotional time and some of our scripture studies and other fun projects together though.
I’ll be sharing more on our morning and scripture study routines down the road. For now I love to pull from The Red Headed Hostess and the girls have recently been joining me in studying and watching Unshaken (both of these resources are specific to our faith as a Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saint family).
Our usual homeschool routine is that after our devotional/scripture study the girls do their independent studies at their desks. This year their independent work will include LA, Math, & History/Science and practicing the piano. Once I am done working with my younger boys in our main school room and usually either right before or right after lunch I meet with the girls and finish up anything with them that they need help with. Then they spend the rest of their afternoons playing (or more recently I’ve been hearing -“hanging out”). That’s also when they like to explore other interests, read more, or participate in other extra curriculars.
Language Arts
Handwriting & Typing: TGTB Handwriting 6 & TGTB Level 3 Typing: The girls switch off and practice either handwriting or typing each morning for about 10 minutes. They’ve graduated from Typingclub.com and Typing.com so this year I just added Level 3 from TGTB as something to keep up with their typing fluency. Both of these are perfect for a little copy work and poetry/scripture too.
Spelling: 180 Days of Spelling 6: We started using level 5 last January so we still have some lessons in that book we will probably work on before we move into level 6, but I grabbed it so we can have it on hand. One thing I like about this workbook is that it not only practices spelling, but also grammar, vocabulary, and writing plus it only takes a few minutes a day.
Grammar: IEW Fix It 3: This is another really simple yet effective tool that doesn’t take very long each day for grammar and editing practice. Last year we used level 1 and it was way too easy for the girls. I probably should’ve skipped ahead earlier, but I thought a little extra practice wouldn’t hurt. So we skipped level 2 and browsing through level 3 I think it’ll be a good fit for them.
Literature:
The Grimm’s Fairytales - This is a class I am going to be co-teaching with a friend and even though it’s just a little chunk of our school year - it’s definitely the thing I am most excited about. Once a month we will be taking some of the more popular tales from the original Grimm’s versions and breaking down their symbolic meanings. I’ve already helped the girls through a few of these stories and it’s something I think will be special for us to do together.
History Readings - Our history curriculum suggests 10 optional historical fictions so some of these will also be apart of their literature studies. We probably won’t read all 10, but I know for sure we’ll read the first few - I’m excited to read The Bronze Bow with the girls because I’ve heard it’s really good.
Writing: Our history curriculum (see below) includes a lesson review workbook and creative writing prompts so they’ll be getting lots of writing practice. We may throw in a few more fun writing projects here or there throughout the year, but I wanted to keep it simple until we have a good rhythm going between their science/history curriculums.
Math
TGTB Simply Math 6: We have used TGTB for math for almost 5 years now so we’re just moving forward here. We are taking more of a year round approach with this course like we did with level 5 which you can read more about here: Simply Good and Beautiful Math 5 Review and Tips.
History & Geography
From Adam to Us from Notgrass: This curriculum comes with a lot and is considered a full biblically based language arts and history program (with the exception of grammar). One thing I really like about it is it’s written to the child so the lessons flow smoothly and can be done completely independently. This is one of the main reasons why I chose to go this route for the girl’s 6th grade year. There are definitely some lessons I feel like I want to be involved in, but I like that there is a lot they can do on their own and I’ll step in when I see necessary.
On this note, I’ll say - there are a few areas where I don’t love the choice of wording they use to present certain points in history. However, no curriculum, especially history, comes perfect or without some bias so I always just pre-read or glance through materials to make sure I know where I may want to open up a conversation with my kids and perhaps present something with a different perspective. Besides a few little areas though - the rest I really like and I especially love that there are a lot of real images and photographs to give good visuals throughout certain points in history.
With each lesson there is a short reading and a variety of assignments to choose from. The girls won’t be doing every single lesson assignment - there are just a lot of assignment suggestions so the child can mix them up. The assignments come out of the student workbook, lesson review workbook, map work, or timeline book. In addition to those there are 2 other supplemental readings either out of the the Our Creative World book which has stories, poems, documents, arts and architecture study or one of the suggested coordinating historical fiction books.
So far I really love what I am seeing in the Creative World book so I am sure we’ll be using that and, like I mentioned above, at least some of the historical fictions. Many of you know we have a family timeline book which we love and will still continue to use, but for simplicity I am just going to have the girls use the one that coordinates with their curriculum this year and my boys and I will mostly be in the other one. I am also planning on the girls sharing and utilizing all of the map work for their geography studies.
One last thing - this history curriculum has 150 lessons which is way more than we’d normally do for history in a typical school year. From Adam to Us is a 2 textbook curriculum so in the back of my mind I’m already planning on them taking 2 years to get through it, but we’ll see how it goes. I have some ideas on how to structure our school year, but I actually want the girls to take the lead on their study schedule. My plan is to present some options to them at the beginning of the school year and I am sure with some trial and error they’ll slip into a routine they feel good about.
Science
In The Beginning from Berean Science: I am super excited about this science curriculum and I think my girls will really enjoy it! Each unit takes a day in the creation and studies it over multiple lessons so it is also a biblical curriculum and everything I’ve read through sounds really great. This curriculum is designed to be done family-style, but I am planning on my girls doing it mostly independently. Each lesson has one simple science experiment to complete with it so I am going to have them teach those experiments to my younger boys and I think they’ll all love that.
Pre-organized science kits: The experiments all look really easy and can be done with things around the home, but since we have the funds and I am just going for simple I did buy these pre-organized science kits that coordinate with all the lessons. They’re all grab and go and will be all ready for the girls to do with each lesson.
Student Notebooks: I also prepped the free student notebooks (the oldest) to go alongside the curriculum. For those who use Canva, here is the customizable cover template I made for their notebooks.
You can purchase this curriculum as a single book our an entire Science through HiStory set. I grabbed the whole set just so we can have it on hand to reference.
Local Animal Science Class: Since the girls are still loving all things animals they will also be doing a 12 week animal science class where they’ll be able to work directly with animals the entire time.
Art, Music, & Other Electives:
We love to integrate art into all our studies and we mostly pull from Lily & Thistle Courses and Deep Space Sparkle. Both have some great projects for world history and science studies so we’ll for sure continue to bring these into the girl’s work. We do lots of bike rides and physical activities so I don’t worry too much about structured PE. For music the girls are in private piano lessons and we’ll also be doing a little family composer study during our devotional time (we’re hoping to use Beautiful Feet Book’s new materials, but they haven’t been released yet). They’ll also be taking their 3rd year of sewing.
That’s it! I am sure some of this will evolve, but I think we’re headed in the right direction! Let me know if you guys have any questions!