Homeschool 5th Grade Curriculum Choices

“A curriculum is, according to its Latin root, a course to run. As home-educating parents, our curriculum has less to do with the books we buy than the purpose we set out with. In reality, the curriculum isn’t the box we get delivered on our doorstep. The curriculum is what we’re doing– everything we’re doing– each day, whether it’s by the book or not.” Mystie Winckler, The Convivial Homeschool

Looking at my stack of curriculum choices, it can feel like “not enough”… and I think that’s in large part because it doesn’t encapsulate our homeschool. The longer I’ve been at this, the more strongly I feel that home educating involves all the waking hours of my children, not just the few that we’re sitting with our books. So much learning occurs outside of those “sit down and learn” windows of time.

In my home, because of our particular bent, many of those hours include read alouds (it’s my default setting- when I’m having a down day, I grab a book and snuggle my kids in “the big bed” and we connect our hearts and our minds and we’re all better for it). We also spend a lot of hours listening to podcasts and audiobooks, tinkering around with random things in the garage and yard, building things like forts and lego creations, and entertaining the baby (literally: they put on shows for her).

But there is a balance, and we do need our curriculum. We need routines to anchor our days, goals to work toward, challenges in academic form to shape our character. To that end, I’m sharing our curriculum picks today. Because I’ve been blogging for a long time now, I have longer posts about almost all of our curriculum choices. I’ll link those below if you’re interested in any particular one so that you can read all of my (verbose) thoughts on those.

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Math

We’ll be moving into the 6th level of Right Start Math this year. After all of these years, we still love RSM! It is teacher intensive, but as we get higher in the grade levels, I’ve been able to off-load so many subjects that it’s gotten easier and easier to manage. I’m so pleased with the mathematical foundation my children have thanks to this curriculum. I recently wrote a roundup of the teacher helps for RSM if you’re teaching it, too. If you’re not a RSM family and considering it, I have a detailed post with information about the research behind the methods they use here.

Spelling

All About Spelling. I can’t sing the praises of this curriculum enough! It’s so thorough and logical, and it works! No weekly spelling lists. Instead, strategies to analyze words, frequent review of spelling rules, ability to go at the child’s pace (the curriculum is organized into “steps” not “lessons”). Read my full review here.

Grammar, Composition, & Handwriting:

This block gives me the biggest worries for the future. “Am I doing enough?” haunts me the most in this area. My plan for this year includes:

Fix It! Grammar: this should be for reinforcement as our completion of the 4 levels of First Language Lessons provided an incredible foundation.

Copywork for internalizing grammar and punctuation from rich language, and for handwriting practice. (I think I may have him write in print on even days and cursive on odd days.) My plan for this is to have him select a favorite classic book and he’ll just copy a sentence a day. I had been leaning in this direction and had just the encouragement I needed when I listened to Sarah Mackenzie’s podcast answering homeschool questions from listeners. She encourages that reading widely from high quality books combined with copywork is a strong foundation through the end of elementary. If it’s good enough for Sarah, it’s good enough for me!

Narration for beginning composition and organizing thoughts. I believe in the power of narration, so we are staying the course! Karen Glass’s Know and Tell has a wealth of help on this subject. I have a list of suggested independent reading books and my son will narrate those to me.

Nature Study

I’m on the fence between the nature study subscription from For the Love of Homeschooling and Exploring Nature Around the Year journaling guide. These will be completed with our nature group that has been meeting for 4 years now! A highlight of our weeks!

History

With our co-op we will read Story of the World volume 3 and explore the topics more in depth as we go. We’ll add in biographies and assorted picture books as we follow rabbit trails.

Geography

I’m excited to explore the U.S. states with Beautiful Feet Books’ intermediate geography curriculum. I love that we’ll delve into landforms, biomes, and ecosystems, along with the history and highlights of each state, taught through books, videos, and experiments & activities!

Science

After MUCH research and deliberation, I finally settled on Chemistry for the Grammar Stage from Elemental Science. This is a year-long exploration of chemistry that we’ll tackle with our co-op.

Memory Work

Speaking of much deliberation, I spent days reading poetry and scripture (such lovely days!) with our school year in mind. I have a separate post, What We’ve Memorized in our Homeschool that lists this year’s goals.

Typing

After using Keyboarding without Tears for many years, I think we are ready for something new. My kids did well with KWT, and I was pleased with the results, but it’s grown tedious over time. I think we will give Typesey a go, as it looks promising and has a 12-mo money back guarantee (!). It is not free, but I think reasonably enough priced for a family account to justify the cost, with an ad-free, simple interface. As a backup, I am considering Touch-Type Read & Spell, as it integrates spelling and dictation; the price tag on that is pretty high, so I’ll wait and see first.

Beauty

Much of our “beauty” bucket is filled between nature study/journaling and our sabbath rhythm which includes learning a new hymn (and its history) as a family each month. I want to be more intentional about our poetry teatimes since my kids have actually been ASKING for this (yay!). During teatime I’ll read a chapter each week of A History of Pictures for Children and see how we connect with it. I’ve also purchased SQUILT’s Meet the Composers listening guide which covers 1600-present; it’s basic, but I need something simple that I’ll really follow through with!

I’m still working through our “first day” plans to kick this whole thing off! I’ll do our annual tradition of a First Day Student Interview (sentimental favorite!) for sure. Get a printable copy (free) here.

Here’s to 5th grade! Hope you have a GREAT school year! Please reach out if I can help in any way! Find me on my socials instagram /facebook or in the comments below. If you don’t already, subscribe to my newsletter for periodic updates of what we’re reading & learning as the school year gets going!