I am trying to put together a "curriculum" for my 7th graders

I have two of them. My husband and I would like to put it together our selves and keep it low budget. Is there a good guideline to follow so we hit all the right stuff? Are there any good online resources for this grade level? What books are a must check out at the library? Sorry for so many questions we are just trying to get out feet firmly on the ground.

 

Well, what are you looking for? Christian or secular? Textbook, unit studies or literature based? What are your children's learning style? What are their strong subjects and which do they need help in?

I am a newbie myself and am almost done putting together a curriculum for my son. I chose secular so I can educate my son on religion in my own way. So I chose Singapore Math and Singapore Science from sgbox.com. It is cheap and has a VERY good reputation, but it depends on your child having a little bit of an aptitude for math and science.

For the other subjects I am still deciding between two or three possible curriculums, nothing set in stone there yet.

 

the first place to look might be here: http://www.worldbook.com/wb/Students?curriculum. It will give you an overview of what they should know IN GENERAL (as homeschoolers we know we can work at our own pace). You may want to start at like 5th grade and go through and see what they know.. if there is something missing then make not of it to cover it. Then keep going.. there may be some things that they already know on what the guide says is 10th grade.. so you know don't have to focus on that so much on those things.

Then go building.. I do lots of searching for grade level book lists (even those that aren't my own son's level), looking for books that I feel are important to read.. you know like "Where the Red Fern Grows" and "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" and the like.. usually ones I forgot I read. I also encourage he read what ever he enjoys.. and this is really the basis of our reading program. Right now he can read 2 or 3 Goosebumps books a day.. and that is just fine by me!

For science we read lots of books on science topics, and also watch tons.. yes tons of programs on tv. We love "How it's Made" and "Dirty Jobs", lots of programs on National Geographic and Animal Planet. We also have the middle school series of Prentice Hall Science Explorer.. we found them cheap on ebay.. and will use those in our future.. and will stick with Prentice Hall for upper sciences.. all found cheap on ebay and such.

For Social Studies we read books on historical topics, and also use "The Complete Book of" books.. we have and use United States History, Presidents and States, Maps and Geography and World History... these are published by American Education Publishing and can be found pretty cheap on ebay.. and at Sam's club. They work fine for us as a stand alone.. and often lead to more in depth investigating.

Grammar.. this site is FREE!! and awesome! http://www.englishgrammar101.com/

Math, right now we are focusing on living math. We are using Family Math and Family Math 2 and Mega Fun Math Games to make math into a fun game.. but as we go further and need more structure (we actually just ditched structured math this year) we will be doing our splurge on Teaching Textbooks.

Hope this helps some.

 

forgot.. here is an online science curriculum.. I LOVE this site! http://www.sciencenetlinks.com/matrix.cfm (and remember you don't have to stay in your grade range )

And a Social Studies curriculum: http://www.nationalgeographic.com/xpeditions/lessons/matrix.html (again remember grade levels are just a number and don't mean that much)

 

here is also a full curriculum.. and 99% of it is free, found online! It is classical, and good.. but if you don't like classical, I'm sure it could be tweeked a bit

http://www.oldfashionededucation.com/fullcurriculum.htm

 

Thats Great! Thank you Sooooooooooo Much!

 

Do you think the stuff from Ed Helper is any good?

 

I do like ed helper.. but it's not in our budget

 

I will have to look around on there. I have used some stuff off there for my 4th graders and K.

 

I love abc teach.. and am trying to squeeze a years membership there. Not sure how much would pertain to your 7th graders, but they do have lots that is free.

 

Hmmmmm I will take a look there and see what I can come up with I have a bunch of little ones to teach as well.

 

Our site has a lot of detail on what we did for 7th grade. 6th and 8th available as well - as mentioned, you should tailor to each child's interests and needs.

I can't post URL's but go to the site in my signature, and 7th grade link clearly visible front and center.

 

For scope & sequence, I like the book Home Learning Year by Year. It tells what is generally taught in each grade preK-12th. It's a handy little thing to have around to make sure you don't leave out something important. I checked it out from our library & really likes it, so I bought (it's not expensive). I like that it covers all grades in one book, so there's no searching for scope & sequence or buying new books each year (like with the Core Knowledge series), and it's great if you have a child that's at different levels in many subjects.

 

I just read something about that book last night I think I will check it out. Thank you.

 

Wow--some great links. I have everything I need for ds this year (7th grader) but tehres some awesome stuff here to supliment it with.

 

Click on my blog link in my signature. Yesterday I posted my 7th graders entire curriculum.

 

Thank you to all of you who have given me links and ideas.

 

I have that book and use it for a guideline on what to use for curriculum. It is a great resource. Most libraries have a copy of it.

 

I have a 7th grader myself...we're also planning to homeschool as inexpensively as possible this year, so we're putting together materials from here and there.

We have access to free online courses through the public school system and they offer many subjects - LA, math, social studies, science, driver's ed (yeh...not happening!), art/music, foreign languages. You can choose just one or do your entire school day online. We're in Florida, and it's called Florida Virtual School. Your state might have a similar program. It's completely secular, though, so not for you if you're looking for Christian educational materials. We figure that the "free" price tag mitigates the secular material, especially considering my kids have many other Christian influences.

We also use Making Math Meaningful, which all of my kids enjoy, and it's very reasonably priced.

For history, I highly recommend checking out the Sonlight web site and choosing which Core you'd like to study, then copy the list of readers for that core and get them at the library. Sonlight uses excellent historical fiction, and most titles can be found at your local library or borrowed through interlibrary loan.

eBay is great for finding good homeschool materials at a discount.

And the internet has so many great free resources available. PBS, Discovery, National Geographic...they all have excellent web sites full of free lesson plans, classroom resources, streaming video, etc.

I've also found a great science web site run by the BBC. I can't post the url because I'm new, but if you Google bbc scienceclips you should get to a page where you can navigate to all of their interactive science lessons and quizzes. My kids have really enjoyed going through that whole site this summer!

Hope that helps...and good luck!

 

Thanks so much I will Google BBC science clips. That's some thing I had not hear of yet.

On another note I just got the book Home Learning Year by Year and it is awesome! I borrowed it from the library but I am off to eBay to buy it for sure.