It’s that time of year again, the start of a new school year! ✨
We follow the traditional public school schedule; around here that means we start after labour day weekend in September. I spent the weekend organizing all our materials and I am so excited to share our curriculum plans for this year!
For context, my oldest child is 8.5 right now at the start of our school year. He is in fourth grade, a little on the young side, but he was an early reader and has great number sense, so it just made sense for us to start academics early. If you’re unsure which level to choose for any given curriculum I recommend reading through scope and sequences, reviews, and personal testaments to find the best fit – that will not always be the matching grade level.
Meeting your child where they are at instead of fitting them into a standardized box is part of the beauty of homeschooling! Choose a curriculum that works for you, don’t force it.
In additional to the formal curriculum shared below, I’ll also be creating some of my own resources as we go along, and I’ll share them here when they’re ready so you can use them too!
Language Arts 📚
Grammar & Spelling
- Logic of English: Essentials will be our main resource. We graduated from Logic of English: Foundations (A-D) last year, you can read my review if you’re considering this curriculum!
Literature
- A mix of novel studies, read alouds, and hands-on reading games. Note: these books are all maybes! A few I picked up already, others I may buy or borrow along the way. I’m staying flexible. Some books pair nicely with chapters of Curiosity Chronicles (below). We’ll wrap up the novel studies by watching the movies, if available/appropriate. Here are my top picks:
- BFG – Roald Dahl
- A Boy Called Bat – Elana K. Arnold
- The Best Christmas Pageant Ever – Barbara Robinson
- Underground to Canada – Barbara Smucker (February – Black History month)
- The One and Only Ivan – Katherine Applegate
- Heartwood Hotel, book 1 – Kallie George
- Because of Winn Dixie – Kate DiCamillo
- Wild Robot – Peter Brown
- Bridge to Terabithia – Katherine Paterson (From my childhood!)
- The Toothpaste Genie – Sandy Frances Duncan (From my childhood!)
- I’m working on organizing a local homeschool book club for ages 8-11 which will give my kiddo an opportunity to discuss what he reads with peers.
Writing
- An eclectic blend of resources from myself and other TPT sellers.
- We’ll begin with daily journal prompts, then move into paragraph writing and creative writing. We are saving formal academic writing until next year.
- Even though NaNoWriMo isn’t running anymore, we plan to do our own version of a creative writing challenge.
- Many of our writing projects will tie into our focus on ancient history this year.
Social Studies 🗺️
In previous years I pieced my own social studies today via unit studies and projects. This year I decided to go a little more in-depth by building unit studies around a spine. I’ve always been fascinated with ancient history, especially Egyptian, so I knew it would be easy for me to teach and stay engaged with this particular curriculum.
I’m using a Trello baord to organize all the activities and supplements according to the appropriate chapter in CC.
Core Spine
- Curiosity Chronicles: Ancient History
Supplements
- Podcasts like Greeking Out
- Documentaries + Videos
- Historical fiction and nonfiction read-alouds to bring the past to life. I went a little crazy buying as many reference books, picture books, and novels as I could find.
- The Tale of Despereaux – Kate DiCamillo
- Ra the Mighty: Cat Detective – Amy Butler Greenfiel
- Ramayana: Divine Loophole – Sanjay Patel
- Aru Shah and the End of Time – Roshani Chokshi
Activities
- Notebooking
- Timeline building
- Mapwork
- Writing projects – I just created a Historical Figures Research Project that I can’t wait to introduce to my kiddo!
- Cooking ancient foods using resources like Tasting History
Science 🧪
We previously used Mystery Science. You can read my review on that curriculum here. I’m excited to be moving to a comprehensive, lab-based curriculum. This is my first time choosing a PDF print option instead of our usual workbooks; I’ll admit I’m a little nervous about staying on top of the printing, but figured separating the student and teacher pages would come in handy later.
Core Spine
- Real Science Odyssey: Chemistry 1
Supplements
- Magic School Bus episodes
- Bill Nye the Science Guy episodes
- Mel Science kits
- Periodic table flash cards
Activities
- Building molecules kit
- Keeping a lab notebook
- Science games I’m designing to match our chemistry units (more on those soon!).
Mathematics 🎲
We’ve used Math with Confidence for kindergarten, second grade, and third grade. You can read my review on this curriculum here. We’re back for fourth grade!
Core Spine
- Math with Confidence, Grade 4
Supplements
- Math games (suggestions for new math board or card games are always welcome!)
Activities
- Baking projects
- Real-world problem-solving activities, like the cake pop stand we’re planning to raise money for breast cancer next month.
I love weaving math into everyday life and will be sharing some of the resources I create along the way.
That’s our curriculum lineup for 2025–2026! 🎉 I’m looking forward to a year full of books, projects, experiments, and plenty of hands-on learning.
I’ll share updates and resources here as I make them, so stay tuned if you want ideas to bring into your own homeschool!