6th Grade Homeschool Curriculum in Review

It is that time of the year where we look back over our school year and see what worked and didn’t work and where we want to make changes for next school year.  Below, I share with you how our choices for our 6th grade homeschool curriculum worked so you can make better informed decisions about the curriculum that might work for you. Here were our plans for 6th grade this year.

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*Click the orange links to learn more about the curriculum!

6th Grade Homeschool Math

RightStart Math Levels E and F

Big Fish finished Level E in March of this year and jumped right into Level F.  Rightstart continues to be a good fit for him even though (or maybe especially because) math is becoming more of a struggle for him as the complexity increases.  We learned this year that he fits some (but not all) of the profile for having a non-verbal learning disorder.  This means verbal or language skills are strong, but there is some weakness in visual skills, which are processed on the right side of the brain.  (Language is processed on the left side of the brain.)

Visual skills are very much tied to math and Righstart Math really focuses on strengthening these visual math skills.  So it makes this program a good fit for him.  We just find we need to move slower than we did a year ago and do some extra review at times before moving ahead.

(Note: we used this placement test when determining where to start him in this program when we switched to it at the end of 4th grade.)

6th Grade Homeschool Science

R.E.A.L. Science Odyssey-Physics and Biology

We also finished our R.E.A.L Science Odyssey Physics curriculum in March, which is designed for 3rd through 6th grades.  And we jumped into their middle school Biology Curriculum right away since their physics curriculum worked so well for us!

This is definitely a level up in how the information is presented and what is expected on worksheets and lab sheets.  But, it continues to have a lot of hands on activities, which is what my boys love.  Little Fish (rising 4th grader) has been able to join us in the biology lessons with some extra support so that is a big win!

I did start a set of Biology Vocabulary Concept of the Day cards to make sure the boys were really understanding and remembering what we were learning.  They are available for purchase here if you would like them to support a biology program of your choosing:

To learn more about the physics curriculum we finished in March read Teaching Physics to Your Children.

6th Grade Homeschool Spelling

All About Spelling  7

We finished our last level of All About Spelling half way through the year!  This curriculum has provided a great foundation for both boys. You can read more about it in a Homeschool Spelling Curriculum that Makes Sense.

Now, we keep a list in the corner of the white board of words he misspells during the week and review them at the end of the week.  I am happy to say there are rarely ever more than 2-4 words on the list.

6th Grade Reading

Big Fish reads a ton on his own from a variety of genres so we were pretty loose about ‘reading for school’ this year.  He had a variety of books that were assigned to him as part of his history curriculum.  (You can read more about that below.)

We also picked out a few to read when he wasn’t working on those, including The Sign of the Beaver, Code Talker, Sunrise Over Fallujah, and the first book of the Eragon series.  He often read these after school as his “homework”.  Sometimes, he wrote a book report afterward and sometimes I gave him the grid shown below and he could pick one assignment to do each day based upon what he read.

6th Grade Homeschool Writing

Write Shop Junior Levels E and F

Big Fish finished up the last two units of Levels E and all of Level F of Writeshop Junior this school year.  This has been a great curriculum for him as writing has become one of his strongest subjects after initially hating writing!  And he is much more organized in his writing than in life in general.  🙂  I credit all the graphic organizers included with the Writeshop Curriculum.

Each unit starts with grammar pages then leads us through practice with the target skill, guided writing and then brainstorming and organizing the writing project for the unit.  Graphic organizers are included.  Once the draft of the writing project is done, the unit guides us through editing and rewriting.

6th Grade Homeschool History

History Odyssey Ancients Level 2

Big Fish loves history and so I decided this was going to be the subject where we really worked on some middle school goals such as working independently, taking notes, learning to outline what he reads and doing research.  He did not love this curriculum as much as I thought he might due to having these higher expectations placed upon him.  However, he learned a lot and we are sticking with it for 7th grade as he does need to develop these skills.  This program pulls in a lot of literature and these books were also used for his reading.

6th Grade Geography

We had planned additional geography lessons for this year as this is an area of interest for Big Fish.  However, we decided to remove this subject and simplify his workload after a lot of push back from him at the beginning of the year.  We had planned on using Mapping the World by Heart from Homeschool Buyer’s Co-op.

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6th Grade Homeschool Latin

Latin for Children: Primer A and B

We finally finished Primer A of Latin this year and started Primer B!  This has continued to be a good curriculum for Big Fish, but as the translation and working with the grammar has become more complicated, he has gotten more frustrated with it.  We originally chose to study Latin to improve his grammar and vocabulary skills and to provide a good foundation for learning a foreign language.  I am not sure how long we will continue to learn Latin, but I definitely recommend this program if you are looking for one.  The activities are varied throughout each lesson to keep it interesting.

Art

Big Fish did not care for the original art program we had picked for this year.  And in an effort to simplify his school year (per his request!), we removed art from his weekly activities.  He continued to use the Art for Kids Hub videos to work on his drawing skills.

Have you used any of this curriculum or have others you have loved for 6th grade?  Comment below!

If you are interested in seeing our curriculum choices from last year and how they worked out, check out: