I’m gearing up for another year of homeschool with my oldest kiddo and today I’m excited to share our 7th grade homeschool curriculum choices with you.
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We’ve got some curriculum changes coming our way, but we’ve also got some familiar favorites to look forward to this year. Let’s take a look.
Our 2017-2018 7th Grade
Homeschool Curriculum Choices
History
If you follow along on Instagram, you’re probably already aware of how much we love using The Mystery of History in our homeschool. We used Volume III for sixth grade, which means it’s time to dive into The Mystery of History Volume IV. This volume takes us out of Renaissance and reformation and brings us into Wars of Independence through modern times.
As for geography, we’ll continue to use WonderMaps along with The Mystery of History as needed and incorporate projects from The Ultimate Geography and Timeline Guide each month. I’m also adding Seven Amazing Continents into the mix for my big kid. This will give him an opportunity to work on research skills while learning more about continents and countries around the world.
Math
While we’ve had no issues using Math-U-See for the last two years, my big kid is making the move to Life of Fred this year. Long story short, he used the first book as a supplement years ago and loved it, but I failed to see it as enough. I chose something else and didn’t see its worth.
This year, however, I gave Fred another chance when my little one finished her planned math curriculum earlier than expected. Since she finished it in November, I grabbed our copy of Life of Fred Apples off the shelf and we’ve been hooked ever since.
The Boy loved seeing his little sister experience Fred and recognized all that she’s learning through Fred. That’s why he is going back to Life of Fred.
Specifically, he’ll work through Fractions and Decimals and Percents this year. If time allows, he’ll go back and do the Kidneys, Liver, and Mineshaft volumes to help bridge any gaps created by the curriculum change.
Language Arts
We’ll tackle language arts this year with some help from Apologia. My 7th grader is using their Readers in Residence and Writers in Residence curricula. He actually started using both of these programs a couple of weeks ago and loves them both. So far, they’ve been a great addition to our 7th grade homeschool curriculum plans.
Although these two programs don’t have to be used together, the combination is a great fit for him. He loves reading and Readers in Residence is helping him learn to dig deeper into what he’s reading. He also loves writing and does it in his free time. It’s no wonder that he sees Writers in Residence as more than an assignment. He recognizes that it’s helping him hone his craft.
Lastly, he’ll continue working with Foreign Languages for Kids by Kids to help with Spanish. It’s a good fit because it doesn’t add a ton to his to-do list each day — usually about 10 minutes — and it’s a gentle, immersion-based approach to learning Spanish. That’s especially nice since he’s got plenty going on already!
Science
Since we homeschool year round, there’s often some overlap in curriculum. When my kiddo finished the Zoology line from Sassafras Science Adventures in February, we pulled out Apologia’s Exploring Creation with Chemistry and Physics again.
Believe it or not, I shelved this curriculum after he struggled with the first few chapters a couple of years ago, but as it turns out, all he needed was some time. When he finished Sassafras, he asked to try Chemistry and Physics again and it’s been a good move thus far.
That said, he’ll most likely finish it before the end of the year. When that happens, instead of buying something new, we plan to check out the Earth Science track from All-in-One Homeschool. We’re considering more from this site in the coming years and trying one subject through them will give him a change to feel it out before jumping in too far.
He’ll also join me and his little sister for nature study each week. We’ll continue working through our Magic School Bus Nature Kit and then move on to 100+ Creative Nature Walks and some seasonal NaturExplorers studies from Our Journey Westward.
The Arts
We can’t leave the arts out of our 7th grade homeschool curriculum plans, can we? Don’t worry, we’ve got good stuff planned for this area also! For music, The Boy will continue to work on playing ukulele and he’ll join little sister for SQUILT time each week.
As for art, he’ll primarily be working through Sparketh to build technical skills. That said, I’m certain there will be some mixed media fun happening along the way. We’ve still got projects from all of Masterpiece Society’s seasonal workshops left over from last year.
His last art focus this year will come in the form of Animation-ish. This software is a great fit because it’s showing him how to take his illustrations from paper to computer. If you’ve got a kid who has shown interest in animation, this is a fun and affordable place to start!
That’s it for our 7th grade homeschool curriculum plans. Have you used any of these programs before? If so, I’d love to hear any thoughts or tips from you in the comments below!