Homeschool Planning Series 2: Recommendations by Age

These are my recommendations for what to do at each age, school-wise.   I have B.S. in psychology, and I attended 2 years of graduate school in Developmental Psychology, although I didn't complete my doctorate.  I also taught 2nd grade as well as middle school math and science, and high school biology.

The reason I chose to use the curriculum that we use, Mater Amabilis, is because they follow the principles that I believe regarding schooling and child development. I have linked to their overview of the curriculum.  The focus of Charlotte Mason education is narration, which is telling back what one has learned.  This is oral in early years and is written as children get older.  We rarely use worksheets outside of math or phonics. I will make a separate post later regarding my choices on phonics, grammar, and math.

Under age 5: Read lots of good books, like children’s classics and nursery rhymes.  Talk about math as part of everyday life, and focus on understanding 1-to-1 correspondence in counting.  Spend time in nature, and talk about it.  Discuss the basics of any religious beliefs. If you decide to do any handwriting-type activities, use .

Kindergarten: Similar to under 5, but if your child is interested and can blend (/k/-/a/-/t/ is cat), then start on a phonics-based reading program.  If your child can understand 1-to-1 correspondence, then you can start on a formal math program introducing numerals, shapes, and some simple addition. You can also begin to introduce handwriting with pencils if your child is comfortable. My oldest followed the Mater Amabilis prep for geography and nature study. My younger children just listened in on their older sibling's history, science, and religion during kindergarten, and they did phonics and math with me.

First Grade:  This is typically when most children are ready for somewhat more formal schooling.  Formal math and phonics can generally begin in 1st grade.  Also, history, geography, and nature study can be covered through literature and exploration. History begins with studying the early history of the country you live in.  Children also begin to formally narrate reading.  Math in 1st grade will typically cover place value, focusing on tens and ones,  addition and subtraction of single-digit numbers, plus some basic introduction to clocks, fractions, coins, shapes and graphs.

Elementary School (2nd through 5th grade):  Phonics may be finished in 2nd grade, or the child may still need phonics in 2nd grade.  In 2nd grade, we started more formal science with a combination of reading and activities.  Mater Amabilis has two streams of history starting in 2nd grade.  Two days a week, they do world history, starting with Old Testament as history in 2nd grade.  Two days a week they do National History.  Mater Amabilis continues with U.S. history in 2nd grade, finishing in 3rd grade, and then covers British History in 4th and 5th grade.  For geography, Mater Amabilis reads books (either fiction or non-ficition) set on a different continent each year, 2nd grade covers Europe, 3rd grade covers Asia, 4th grade covers South America, and 5th grade covers Africa.  Earth studies combined with geography is covered in 2nd grade with maps and mapping and in 3rd grade with mountains, volcanoes, and extreme environments.   North American geography is also covered in 4th and 5th grade through various Holling C. Holling books.  Science in Mater Amabilis begins with plants, birds, and insects in 2nd grade, space, matter, and microscopic exploration in 3rd grade, the history of Greek science and simple machines in 4th grade, and study of the body and the development of medicine in the Roman era.  

Math in 2nd grade solidifies the addition facts and begins to introduce regrouping in addition and subtraction, as well as skip counting, so that multiplication can be introduced toward the end of the year. Place value is extended up to the hundreds place.   Clocks, fractions, money, shapes, and graphs are all covered in just a bit more depth.    Math in 3rd grade solidifies multiplication facts and introduces basic division.  The understanding of place value continues through the thousands, ten thousands, and hundred thousands place.  By 3rd grade, a typical child should be able to use a clock to tell time to the minute and correctly figure out totals and change.  Basic rounding is introduced in 3rd grade as well.  Fractions and graphs will continue to be covered in just a bit more depth.  The perimeter of shapes is introduced.  In 4th grade, the focus moves to multi-digit multiplication, long division, as well as working with fractions by comparing them and adding and subtracting them.  Rounding is expanded to different place values.  Decimal place value is introduced.  Converting measurements is another skill focused on in 4th grade.   Students begin to work on finding the area of shapes.   In 5th grade, operations with fractions, decimals, and the relationship between fractions and decimals are the focus.  Students begin to work on computing the volume of shapes.  Students also begin to work on graphing on the coordinate plane.

Middle School (6th through 8th grade): Students return to topics covered in elementary school, but with greater depth.  Mater Amabilis continues to have two history streams, but the history restarts, so they learn again about world history and national history.  In 8th grade, they move on to 20th century history, covering the World Wars through the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.  Geography is taught more globally in middle school, covering the history of exploration as well as a tour of the world's great sites.  A more formal study of geology begins in 6th grade and continues through the remainder of middle school.  Science in middle school begins with botany, astronomy, and the history of biology in 6th grade, classical mechanics, fluid mechanics, the history of chemistry and the periodic table, and the relationship between matter and energy in 7th grade, weather, waves, and electricity, relativity and quantum mechanics, and engineering are all covered in 8th grade.

Around 6th grade, math often diverges in the course that students follow.  Some students need more time to prepare for algebra and aren't ready for algebra until 9th grade.  Some students are ready for algebra in 8th grade, and so do an accelerated combination of 6th grade and 7th grade math for 6th grade, followed by pre-algebra in 7th grade.

I have a separate post regarding high school, Planning for High School.

What we have used for math

 We have used a variety of curriculum for math over the course of the time we have been homeschooling.  The very first curriculum that we used for math was MEP.  We used MEP Reception and Year 1 with my oldest, and Reception with my middle child.  I liked them, especially the early lessons because they progressively worked on skills with smaller numbers, and by the time larger numbers were introduced, my children really understood how the skills worked.  My main issue was with integrating the instruction in the middle that did not relate to a problem on the worksheet.  This was more of an issue of just the way my brain works.  

In between this, my oldest and middle went to Catholic school for 2nd-3rd grade and 1st-2nd grade.

We next used Math Mammoth 2 and 4 for my oldest and middle.  I liked the way that Math Mammoth taught the material, but my children are actually very strong math students, and got bored easily with too much practice over a topic.  During 2nd and 4th grade, we actually moved to using Khan Academy (for my oldest) and Khan Academy Kids (for my middle), and my youngest who was still in Pre-K used Khan Academy Kids. 

I really liked using Khan Academy at that time.  We used Khan Academy from 3rd grade math through part of Algebra.  Although they do have video instruction, I generally gave the instruction and sat with the kids as they worked through the math.  I required my children to complete the quizzes and tests only, but they had to work until 100% mastery.  During 2024 or 2025, the Restart a Lesson button changed or was removed, and that caused my children to no longer like doing Khan Academy, because it affected the way they made progress on the lessons.  

My oldest finished Algebra with a book called Everything You Need to Ace Pre-Algebra and Algebra 1 in One Big Fat Notebook.  This book is part of a series that gives very clear summaries of the formulas, etc for the topics it covers.  It's a good reference book and inexpensive.

For my youngest who just completed 4th grade, we used Minimalist Math 4, plus some extra review of multi-digit multiplication and long division.  I plan to use Minimalist Math 5 next year for him.  Minimalist Math according to the creator: "This curriculum consists of 10 problems per week for 36 weeks. The 10 weekly problems are each very distinct and cover 10 different subject areas. The weeks progressively get more difficult."  Since my children do best without excessive review once they learn math material, this curriculum is working well for my youngest.

This past year, my middle daughter has spent a lot of time not feeling well due to her chronic illness.  However, she had already completed Pre-Algebra before starting 7th grade, so I let her take a break from math this year.  

My oldest took a College Math class at the community college, so she didn't do math with me this past year. 

I recently bought Summit Math Algebra 1 for my middle daughter to use for Algebra 1.  I think that the guided discovery and real world scenarios will work will her.  

Summit Math will be releasing their Geometry curriculum on June 1, and that is what I plan to use for my oldest this year.

The other reason that I was interested in Summit Math was that they offer Algebra 2 and Advanced Algebra/Trigonometry as well in a similar format.  Although my oldest won't need any more math after this year, my middle child plans to go to medical school, so she will need to do through at least Advanced Algebra/Trigonometry.

Planning for High School

Planning for High School: This is when it is very important to be keeping very good records, no matter what level of your state's oversight, since you will be giving your child a high school diploma.  If your child plans to go to college, you should check out your state's graduation requirements or the admission requirements of the college your child is interested in.  Dual credit options can also be part of your high school transcript and cover graduation requirements, depending on your local options.  Our local community college allows students to start in the 9th grade. If your child has special needs, you will want to research the appropriate requirements for your child.  Remember, these recommendations are based on typical children.

Minimal requirements usually involve:

Math

Science

English 

History/Social Studies

Foreign Language

Fine Arts

P.E.

Math: Algebra 1 should be taken in 8th grade for a somewhat advanced student or 9th grade for an average student.  Algebra or more advanced math classes taken in 8th grade can be counted on a high school transcript.  The typical progression is: Algebra 1, Geometry, Algebra II, Precalcus/Trigonometry, and then Calculus classes.  Many students will not need to take all of these if they do not plan for a math- or science-based degree.  For example, we live in Texas, which requires three years of high school math (including Algebra 1, Geometry, and then an advanced math course).  My oldest did algebra 1 in 8th grade, is currently taking a College Math for Liberal Arts class at the community college as a 9th grader, and then will take geometry as a 10th grader.  My middle child will be completing algebra in 8th grade as well.

I am using Summit Math for high school math (and Algebra in 8th grade).

Science: A typical science progression in high school is biology, chemistry, and physics.  Texas's science graduation requirement is a minimum of 3 years of science.  One year is required to be biology, one can be chemistry or physics, and the last can be any advanced science class.  My oldest is currently doing biology.  Next year, she will be taking an Earth Science class through the community college, and she will take chemistry at home in 11th grade.  

I will make separate posts with what I am using for the various science courses.

English: Most states require 4 years of English.  English involves both literature and composition.  Typically, British Literature, American Literature, and World Literature are all covered.  Composition will involve essay writing and research papers.  My oldest is doing a composition class at the community college in 9th grade.  For the associate's dual credit degree that she is doing, she will also have a second dual credit more advanced composition class that she will complete before graduation.  She is doing the literature part of her English classes at home.  This year, she is doing classical epics and early British literature.  The curriculum we use follows literature chronologically instead of by location of writing, so it integrates world literature, British literature, and American literature at their appropriate times.  Here is a link to Mater Amabilis's English curriculum.

History/Social Studies:  Social Studies in high school will typically cover U.S. history, World History (and/or Geography), and U.S. government and economics.  Texas requires 3 years of history, requiring U.S. History, World History or World Geography, and U.S. government and economics.  The curriculum we use also integrates World History, British History, U.S. History, and U.S. government and economics chronologically.  It also includes Church History, which we cover as Catholics.

The curriculum we use is Mater Amabilis.  The high school curriculum is Levels 5 and 6.

Homeschool Planning series 1: Planning overview

How I plan:

1.   Pick the courses you want to do each year for each child. This will depend on the child's age and any special needs. I will be attaching a post, Courses by Age, that gives a general overview of my recommendations of what to cover each year at each age.

2.  Research different curricula after you have decided the kind of curricula you are looking for.  Here is a link about different types of homeschool curricula from Home Educator.com.  You may decide to use books to create your own course.  

3.  Figure out how many days a week you will be doing each subject.  Until high school, my kids only do school work 4 days a week.  We have a co-op on Fridays, and our co-op focuses on enrichment subjects.  

We do: Religion- 4 days a week

            Math-4 days a week

            Phonics/Grammar/Mechanics-4 days a week

            History- 4 days a week

            Science- 2 days a week through elementary, 3 days a week in middle school

            Geography- 3 days a week through early elementary, 4 days a week in late elementary and middle school

            Literature-4 days a week

We use multiple resources for each subject, so I then assign days for various books.

This is this year's daily schedule.  My high schooler's dual credit classes are also listed on the schedule.  Each child has a different color.  My high schooler is in pink, my middle schooler in blue, and my elementary child in orange.

4. If your curriculum doesn't already divide the books (and/or workbooks) into what to read and do each day or you are making your own curriculum, you will need to do it yourself.  I will be attaching a post, Creating Your Own Curriculum, that will include how to do this.

5.  I use Google Sheets (so you can definitely use Microsoft Excel if you have access to it) to plan what work is on each day.  I will post a more detailed post about how I do my daily planning, Making Your Daily Lesson Plan, which I can then use to do my weekly plans.

Reintroducing myself

 I am a mother of 3.  I have been homeschooling off and on since 2016, when my oldest was in kindergarten.  My kids now are 15 (a high school freshman), almost 13 (a 7th-8th grader), and 10.5 years old (an older 4th grader).  All of my kids are neurodiverse; my 15-year-old and 10.5-year-old both have ADHD, and my almost 13-year-old is autistic.  My almost 13-year-old also has a chronic illness that has caused her to be hospitalized multiple times over the past 2 years.  My 10.5-year-old was recently diagnosed with dyslexia and dysgraphia.

We have mainly used Mater Amabilis, a Catholic Charlotte Mason curriculum, throughout.  I have used every level up through 9th grade at least once throughout our homeschooling life.  

I am hoping to share wisdom gained through our experiences to help other parents and families.

Our Weekly Checklist (Kindergarten MA Prep with modifications)

We use a weekly checklist for each week which I fill in before the week starts.  I hand write the specific assignments for the week in the spots on the checklist and I keep the whole year's worth in a binder.  Here is the Google Docs link to the Prep checklist.  I go through and tentatively plan what items will go on what days at the beginning of the week based on what is going on that week with appointments and other activities.  I have next year's checklist mostly complete, but I'll share it once I am pretty firm on what I am using.

Planning for next year (2017-2018)

I have started planning for next year.  We'll continue to use MA and my oldest K who is 6 will be doing 1st grade, which is Level 1B in MA.  For religion, we'll be covering the new testament both using the New Catholic Picture Bible by Rev. Laurence G..Lovasik  as well as A Life of Our Lord for Children which is a narrative that also explains a lot of helpful background information on the gospels. We started reading it this year and should hopefully finish next year. We will also read saint stories from  Lives of the Saints an Illustrated History for Children by Bart Tesoriero  or Saints for Young Readers for Every Day Volumes One and Twoby Pauline Kids. We'll be doing Faith and Life 1: Our Heavenly Father for catechism. A friend told me about Tiny Thomists which is emailed every two weeks and we'll split each one over those two weeks. They also send out an explanation of the Sunday Gospel and we'll include that as well. Religion will be done daily with Bible reading twice a week and A Life of Our Lord for Children, catechism, saints and Tiny Thomists will each be done once a week. During Advent, we'll read some Tomie DePaola books and watch Holy Heroes Advent Adventure. During Lent, we'll cover the Stations of the Cross using the book and CD from Holy Heroes and watching Holy Heroes Lenten Adventure. My 4 year old E and I will be reading Chats with God's Little Ones.

K will continue to use Logic of English for phonics and reading. She is currently working on Level C and she'll finish Level C and start Level D next year. Logic of English covers phonics, reading, spelling and some aspects of English mechanics as well as copywork for handwriting (Levels A and B taught the letters in lowercase and uppercase). However, I plan to use Spelling U See Jack and Jill as well for spelling. We started English Lessons through Literature Level 1 this year doing a lesson broken up over a week and we'll continue this next year. ELTL covers literature, poetry, fables and picture study. I will add at least one additional poem each week, probably either from A Child's Garden of Verses or Now We Are Six. We will read fairy tales and American tall tales. We'll probably read Winnie the Pooh although I haven't decided what other literature we'll read next year. Lighted Lanterns looks like a interesting copywork, etc. resource but they are temporarily unavailable and I don't know when they'll be available again. We would use Pre-Level if it becomes available. MA has a picture book list for a Prep PK that I plan to use with E once a week. E isn't ready yet for LOE lessons yet, but I'll continue to introduce her to phonogram sounds and also read LOE's A-Z sounds book Doodling Dragons more frequently. E is left handed so I want to make sure I teach her properly.

We will continue to use MEP for math. K is currently doing Year 1 and we'll finish that and start Year 2. We will also continue with Life of Fred Apples and do Butterflies if we finish Apples. We may use something for additional addition and subtraction practice. E will do games and activities to practice counting, one to one correspondence and number recognition. I have found quite a few activities at Measured Mom to use for her.

We use Connecting with History for our history studies. We will continue with both American history with Volume 4A and world history with Volume 1 which covers ancient history. In American history, we will be starting with Unit 5 covering the beginning of the nation and the writing of the Constitution. For ancient history, we'll start with Unit 7 covering the divided kingdom (of Israel). When we finish Volume 1, we'll start Volume 2 which begins with the birth of Christ. We are incorporating The Story of Civilization Volume 1 and hopefully they will release Volume 2 before we need it.

Geography and earth studies focuses on family geography and rivers and oceans. Family geography will cover genealogy with My Family Tree Workbook. My mother in law is a genealogist so we'll get her help. We'll also read about areas our ancestors came from such as Ireland and Germany. I also plan to have her do a Child's Own History chart. We'll work from our town to the whole planet doing Expanding Horizons. The Rivers and Oceans study includes water cycle and we'll also read about pond environments and animals using Among the Pond People and One Small Square: Pond.

For nature study/science reading, we'll read Burgess Animal book and Pagoo. We will try to do a nature walk at least once a week.

We have been using Song School Latin 1 and we'll continue that and start Song School Latin 2 when we finish. We might start a modern foreign language but I don't know if we'll do Spanish or French or what resources we'll use.

For music appreciation, we'll start with The Story of the Orchestra. I need to decide the two hymns and folk songs we'll learn for each term after I look at the Latin selections for Classically Catholic Memory for our co-op next year. 

In addition to the picture study in ELTL, we'll probably use the art cards from Memoria Press either the Kindergarten or 1st grade set.  I'm probably going to use ARTistic Pursuits, Early Elementary K-3 Book One with both K and E.

We do our Classically Catholic Memory co-op twice a month and will continue next year. K will be doing CCM while E will be doing Catholic Icing Preschool curriculum in the older preschool class. S who is my youngest and will turn 2 in the fall will be starting in the younger preschool class which will do some aspects of Catholic Icing.

For E, I am considering using Little Saints curriculum. I need to research more to see what I think of it. It would be nice to have something prepared for E, although I generally am pretty eclectic in my curriculum choices and I modify curriculum to better fit our needs.