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.