The homeschool curriculum choices blog posts are great, but what I really want to know is what families thought AFTER they used the curriculum they chose! I have shared many of these posts, you can see them all here. This is my second child to homeschool 7th grade, which is why the post is titled “Round 2!”
First up, 7th grade! Here’s a reminder of the original 7th Grade Curriculum Choices post.
Below I will give a small review of each subject, if you have more specific questions about anything, just leave me a comment and I will do my best to answer!
Science ~ LIFEPAC 7th Grade
My older son used Apologia science for all of middle school and I knew the layout just wouldn’t be a good fit for my middle son. I decided to give LIFEPAC a try and it is a good fit for him! The mini-book style works well, breaking down the huge book into smaller sections is less overwhelming. The breakup of the reading with questions is better for him too. We will be using LIFEPAC for science in 8th grade too.
Math ~ Teaching Textbooks Pre Algebra
Once again, Teaching Textbooks does the job for us! He completed Pre Algebra and will be continuing on with Teaching Textbooks Algebra 1 for 8th grade. Wondering if TT math is a good college prep math program?
History/Geography ~ LIFEPAC 7th Grade
This was a great fit for us! It isn’t his favorite subject, but he liked the layout of the LIFEPAC booklets. We mostly did the lessons together, on my bed or a couch, with help from Baxter.
We will be switching to a different publisher for next year – not because I didn’t like LIFEPAC but simply because I need to combine my kids to save time instead of having two completely different history programs. Next year we will use Notgrass From Adam to Us for 5th and 8th grade.
See more about LIFEPAC History/Geography here in our full review!
Reading ~ 7th grade reading list.
Books read :
- Refugee – FAVORITE!
- Chains
- The Hiding Place
- Run Away Home
- Beyond the Bright Sea
He dislikes reading alone {enjoys reading together} and he did not read as much as I would have liked. 8th grade is going to be a game changer for him, as it was for my older son. He simply MUST read more books.
Grammar ~ Fix It Grammar
We began the year with LIFEPAC Language Arts and ended up making a switch mid-year. We decided to try IEW’s Fix It Grammar and it is a great fit! We started with their first book and I taught my kids together {4th/7th}. Since we started later in the year, we just got as far as we could and will begin where we left off when we start back to school in August.
Writing ~ IEW
We started the year with IEW Ancient History Based Writing and paused in the middle to do SWI B {I combined my younger kids for this 4th/7th} and that was a great idea! We will finish up SWI B in the fall {we have 3 lessons left – which purposely saved because I wanted to spend time on them and not rush at the end of the year} and then complete Ancient History. IEW is a great fit for us and after we complete what we have I will probably buy another theme based unit for him to do.
Stay tuned, I will be sharing our year-end review for 4th grade and 11th grade. I will also be sharing our curriculum choices for 8th grade & 5th grade.