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I have lots of great memories of homeschooling middle school. My 2e daughter did irish stepdancing, really loved doing nature photography in middle school and we also did a lot of bird watching for the backyard bird count events!
In middle school we used a variety of resources, some faith based and some secular. One of my favorite thing about middle school was that I got to watch my daughter begin to discover that she wanted to be a leader through some volunteering at our co-op.
We leaned towards hands-on approaches and project based learning as much as possible.Here are our favorites for middle school homeschooling curriculum:
1. HOMESCHOOL MIDDLE SCHOOL ENGLISH CURRICULUM
We have two favorites for middle school English. --- Oak Meadow and 7 Sisters ---
Both are high quality and well put together. Let's start with Oak Meadow.
Have you heard of them yet?
---- Oak Meadow Middle School English
We started using Oak Meadow homeschool curricula when my daughter was in 4th grade. Oak Meadow also offers courses for middle school in math and science, which I also would recommend. They offer all subjects, which can be bought as a bundle, or individually.
Here's why -
Oak Meadow is a hands-on project oriented curriculum, that "strives to reach the child's head, hands, and heart." It is written by creative educators, who originally were Waldorf based.
My daughter loved it! It was stimulating, creative, and very flexible. I loved how the lessons were written to the child, in a gentle way, but also packed with solid, child oriented, honors level information. My gifted daughter loved it.
Each lesson offered a number of creative activities to choose from. My daughter loved their hands-on focus. All of the social studies curricula was paired with lit, that went right along with the topic of study.
It was set out in weekly lessons, which gave us a loose structure that we could follow, tweet, or use in anyway that we wanted. At the same time, it saved me so much time in my planning, as it was all put together for me.
Sixth Grade English focused on composition and grammar, with three lit selections. Click to see a sample lesson. Each year was full of creative approaches to lit and writing.
In 7th Grade, my daughter's essay writing skills blossomed. She loved the selection of the novels included in this course. Seventh Grade English
English 8 from Oak Meadow, focuses on reading 7 classic novels and writing about them. I loved the questions for both comprehension and critical thinking in this course. It includes work in grammar and usage as well. I have a review of the course here.
Oak Meadow tends to be quite pricy.
Want a more frugal option for middle school English, that still offers many of the benefits of Oak Meadow?
---- 7 Sisters Frugal Homeschool Middle School English
7 Sisters Homeschool is a popular site that is run by veteran homeschool moms who developed their own curriculum for high schoolers in their own co-op. So all of their resources and courses are tried and true.
The 7 Sisters approach is based on over 20 years of homeschooling and was developed by moms who were teaching their own teens while running an umbrella school at the same time.
These veteran homeschool authors know how to capture a student's interest and then lead them into a solid study of literature all while avoiding any busywork.
And that they offer English resources for more than 40 literature or fun reading books.
They are perfect for making your own middle school English course!
7 Sisters Literature Guides
Let's take a look at their frugal Literature Guides. They offer over 40 of them, for under $5.00 each, including:
- A Separate Peace
- A Raisin in the Sun
- The Scarlet Letter
- The Hobbit
- British Poetry Selections
- Joni
- Anne of Green Gables
- Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats
- The Invisible Man
- The Three Musketeers
- Animal Farm
and over 40 more!
Each guide gives your student questions to answer as they read their literature selection. This is a great way to introduce literary analysis to your middle schooler, without your having to explain what it is.
Just have your student answer the questions provided for each literature selection. AND many of the lit guides are for FUN and more free reading like books, not just classic literature.
7 Sisters Homeschool Writing Courses
How about a fun way to get your middle schooler writing?
Middle School Short Story Writing will inspire your young teen to learn to love writing!
It also will help your child learn what literary analysis is, while they are having fun putting together their own story.
My own middle schooler loved trying her hand at story writing, and learned so much from that, while having FUN!
This guide is designed to be used only 4 days a week for 5 weeks.
The lessons are short and set up for success.
The conversational tone makes the course easy to follow and understand, and helps to eliminate any anxiety about putting words onto the page.
Do you want help teaching your young teens how to write essays? 7 Sisters has a great course for that, too.
Middle School Guide to Essay Writing is a very frugal course that will teach your teen how to write essays
This is great preparation for later writing assignments in high school.
It gentle introduces essay writing to your young teen with an easy to follow, NO busywork approach.'
This guide will teach your studnet how to write a coherent essay, starting with:
- Basic essay format
- Persuasive essays
- Compare and contrast essays
...and more.
It also offers an easy way to grade your kid's essays. How about that!
It can be such a help in grading your middle schooler's essays.
2. HOMESCHOOL MIDDLE SCHOOL SOCIAL STUDIES CURRICULUM
Sixth Grade - Ancient Civilization
Oak Meadow's 6th grade history curricula was stellar, and our very favorite of all of their social studies courses.
We learned all about world history, one country at a time, with an emphasis on ancient history. It has respect for all cultures in its tone.
This was our ALL TIME FAVORITE history course, full of child-oriented lessons and excellent hands-on activities to go with them.
Then Oak Meadow Social Studies continues into 7th grade with:
Seventh Grade - World Civilization - From Age of Enlightenment to the Present
3. HOMESCHOOL MIDDLE SCHOOL SCIENCE CURRICULUM
For science, we made our own middle school courses simply. These are some of our favorite things for middle school science activities and learning:
Do your kids like rocks?
Here's an activity resource that we loved, all about rocks, minerals and fossils....
Click here for my review of this and other of their Middle School STEM Activity Books.
Carson-Dellosa Publishing, the publisher, offers 68 Middle School Science Activity Books to choose from, including:
- The Periodic Table
- Meteorology
- Chemistry
- Physical Science
- DNA
- Astronomy and 58 more….
Do your kids like science kits? Have you seen these kits yet?
Science Wiz kits were first started with a grant from the National Science Foundation, and they have continued to win awards ever since.
I feel that they are very well done.
Science Wiz is another alternative for you.
4. HOMESCHOOL CURRICULUM MIDDLE SCHOOL MATH
Saxon Math - We used and liked Saxon Math for 6th and 7th grade math. It is a very well established homeschool math curriculum by
John Saxon using a teaching method of incremental learning of math. It uses lots of review, and is well structured, great for kids who may struggle with math. It was easy to teach and the review helped my daughter a lot.
Then in 8th grade we used Switched on Schoolhouse Pre-Algebra, (CDRom) by Alpha Omega Publications, also a well established homeschool publisher. They also have this course as a subscription online, and it is called Monarch. This publisher is faith based, but the math is very easy to do in a secular way as well.
This course covered Pre-Algebra topics with a multi-media approach. The explanations were clear and helpful, and that is according to my daughter.
NOTE - It had the structured and depth that helped my daughter retain what she had learned. I also liked that it was a self-graded course, a great time saver.
5. OTHER WRITING FUN - NaNovWriMo
In November each year, we dropped our regular studies and joined in the fun at the National Novel Writing Month (NaNovWriMo). It is a time to join others who are working on creative writing that month. We used this book for middle school to help us get started.
We really did take off most of November for writing activities, joining in the fun at NaNovWriMo. Doing that helped my daughter become a middle schooler who LOVED to write!
Are you looking for one more just right resource for your middle schooler?
1,000's of other great middle school homeschool curriculum finds can be found at the Rainbow Resource Center.
This center offers a 3 inch thick printed catalog and website which list really tons of 1,000's of homeschool resources and curricula. They also offer phone and live chat help for finding what you want there.
Thanks for stopping by BJ's Homeschool,
Betsy is mom to her now college grad daughter, whom she homeschooled since she was in K. She blogs at BJ's Homeschool, about
