Curriculum Choices for 2020/2021 (pre-school, grade 5, and 8)

Well, it’s that time of year again! Come see our curriculum choices for the 2020/2021 homeschool year!

As we move into our 8th year of homeschooling we have a lot of different curriculums under our belt! But I am happy to report that for the most part we have found what works best for our family and choosing our curriculum this year was fairly easy for once. I bet you’d like to see what we’ll be using right?

Alright, let’s get right to it then. I’ll start with what each child will be using individually, and then move into what will be used together as a family.

Pre-school Curriculum

My 4 yr old is a February baby and so he won’t be going into Kindergarten this year. But we will be doing some pre-school work with him whenever he is keen to do it.

We will be using Reading Eggs (which also includes MathSeeds and Fast Phonics). He’s been using it already because we are doing a review of the program (watch for it coming soon on the blog). He has really been enjoying it and so we will continue to have him use it.

I’m also considering getting the Pre-K curriculum from GoodandBeautiful.com but haven’t made the purchase yet. I can’t decide if I want the physical copy or the PDF version. The hard copy would be nice, but with the exchange rate and shipping to Canada, it comes out to quite a bit for just Pre-K, hence why I may go with the PDF version instead.

5th Grade Curriculum

My daughter will be in 5th grade this year. She’s really found her groove curriculum-wise and so our choices for her this year were easy.

For Language Arts/Grammar she will be using GoodandBeautiful.com’s Level 4 (their levels don’t match grade numbers). We like that it comes with everything she needs and it’s pretty open-and-go. She can open to her lesson for the day and get to work without much help.

For Math, she will be using Math Lessons For A Living Education Grade 4 from Masterbooks. We’ve been using them for math for the past couple of year and we’ve been really happy with them.

This year, in grade 5, we will be adding a language course to her schoolwork. She has chosen to learn Spanish. We haven’t settled on a particular curriculum yet. (feel free to let me know if you have found something for Spanish that works for your family, I’d love to check it out!)

8th Grade Curriculum

My oldest is in 8th grade this year! I can hardly believe it, where has the time gone? My son is has also figured out what curriculum he prefers, and so it was easy to order his things as well. They’ve made things easy for me this year, which I’m grateful for.

For Language Arts/Grammar he will be using Level 7 from GoodandBeautiful.com (again, their levels don’t match grade numbers). He is easily able to work through the daily lessons independently, but I’m always around if he gets stuck.

For Math he will be using Principles of Mathematics Book 2 from Masterbooks. We used Book 1 last year and it worked well for us. He and I go over the lessons together and then he works through the worksheets.

For Language, he has chosen French. We have used a few different programs in the past couple of years, but none of them really clicked for him. This year we will be working through the FrenchSmart books with him instead. We are starting on some of the younger grades first to “catch up”, and I’m sure he will fly through them. I’m looking forward to these books, they seem much better than some of the other options we’ve tried.

Next, we have the subjects that we will be working on together as a family.

We will be using History Year 2 from GoodandBeautiful.com this year. We used Year 1 last year and enjoyed it. There are student explorer workbooks for different grades, a colorful storybook and a corresponding history game as well.

Because we live in Canada, we always add in some Canadian Studies as well. We use books from Donna Ward / Northwoods Press. This year we are using Geography: Province to Province. We purchased a package that included that book along with a Canadian Student Atlas and a book called WOW Canada.

For Science will will be using a variety of units from GoodandBeautiful.com. Right now I have the following units prepped: Space, Human Body, Meteorology, Intro to Energy, and Energy. We will work through them one at a time and see how far we get. I find these units to be well put together and fairly simple to prep and work through.

Art is woven into their Language Arts courses a bit, but I also decided to purchase a set of drawing books from GoodandBeautiful.com as well. I know my daughter will use these for sure, and hopefully my oldest will want to join in for some of them too, although it’s not his favorite subject.

For Music, we don’t have a set curriculum to follow, but will be using various online resources (most likely from SchoolhouseTeachers.com) and plan to continue learning with the Ukuleles we have.

And that is what we will be using for the upcoming school year.

Of course, there will be some field trips and other activities thrown in too from time to time. We always love visiting the local library and coming home with armloads of books! And we always encourage the kids to spend time outside when possible too.

So what will YOU be using this coming school year? Let me know in the comment section below.
Or maybe you are new to this homeschooling thing, perhaps because of the current pandemic situation, feel free to share your hopes for the school year.

Want to read more of my homeschool related reviews? Find them here: Homeschool Reviews