Grade 5 Homeschool Curriculum

Our Grade 5 Homeschool Curriculum picks for the 2020/2021 year!

I am delighted to share with you our grade 5 homeschool curriculum choices for the upcoming year. This is what I plan on using for curriculum, and I’ve narrowed it down from previous experience using it so I don’t think it will change throughout the year, but you never know!

Please Note

A lot of the curriculum I’ve highlighted has a link to my review of that curriculum in case you want to read more. This helps you know my thoughts on a specific curriculum and why we’re continuing to use it, or discontinuing. If you’re looking for lots of curriculum ideas I have a longer blog post on choosing the best curriculum for your family and where to buy curriculum.

Our homeschool is a mix of Charlotte Mason, Classical, Brave Writer and very Eclectic!

I pull from different sources as I need them. Some days I will skip over certain lessons that I don’t see as a good fit, or if the child has grasped it. Some of the curriculum is for extra practice should we need it (such as math).

This post will cover our choices for

• Language arts for grade 5
• Grade 5 math curriculum
• History/Arts/Poetry
• Literature
• Science
• Canadian social studies

Our grade 5 Language Arts Curriculum

The following list may seem like a lot of language arts, but please note, that we rotate the flow of what we’re using so things don’t get stagnant. I will share the rhythm of how we use it soon.

• • Brave Writer Arrows : these are some of the books I’ve chosen for this year for writing mechanics and copywork. Not sure if we’ll do all of them or not. Where Mountain Meets the Moon, The One and Only Ivan, the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and some of the new line up:  The Nerviest Girl in the World, Fish in a Tree, The GreenGlass House and maybe Pax.

• Writing with Ease 2 for some copywork/dictation and narration on the months that we aren’t doing a Brave Writer Arrow
• Brave Writer Friday free writes, Partnership Writing projects and poetry tea time
• Language Lessons for a Living Education 5
• All About Reading Level 4
• Fix it! Grammar was the original plan but my grade 5 is very creative and loves hands on things. I might actually combine my grade 3 with Beowulf Grammar which I just discovered from Project Happy Home’s YouTube review) instead of using Fix it and save that one when she’s older.
• Evan Moor Spelling or All About Spelling or Spelling You See (haven’t decided which one yet, I’m leaning towards Evan Moor)
• Explode the Code 6, 7, 8

Grade 5 Math Curriculum

I’m honestly still trying to find the ‘perfect’ curriculum for our kids. I just discovered Dimensions math this week after already selecting the following (grass is always greener…)

• Math Mammoth as a spine, some added Jump Math for Canadian money and measurements and Beast Academy online/comic as a supplement. I do have Math Lessons for a Living Education 5, but I’m starting to find it lacking in instruction now that we’re venturing into older grades. I might use it here and there however. When I purchased Math Mammoth 4a/4b it honestly felt too advanced of a switch to make at the beginning of grade 4 after MLLE. We started using it towards the end of the school year and the plan is to continue using Math Mammoth 4a/4b the move into level 5a next year.
• I also enjoy adding in some math morning basket books and applied real life math (for example home building projects or fractions in the kitchen).

History/Art/Poetry/more Literature

• I combine Torchlight 2 and Build your Library 2, which you can read more about that here. I don’t complete the level in one school year, it takes us about 1.5 years. Level 2 is the Medieval history period. Please note that I don’t read all of the literature books because we also do Brave Writer. I’m still narrowing down our literature choices for the year, and I’m also adding in lighter books because we have a Kindergarten around that listens in. I am finding that my 10 year old has a longer attention span and is craving more reads full of action, so I may read to just her instead of as a whole family for certain books.

Some literature picks for the year

Science for grade 5

• Botany Unit 1- Forest and Tree Biomes is an 8 week nature unit study and morning basket that I’m currently creating for the upcoming year. It also includes secular copywork and some writing projects, nature journal, forest school activities and walks. It will be listed in my shop in the coming weeks!
• Geology and Earth Science morning basket books and science experiments and the Sassafras Earth Science and Geology. I am also looking at Real Science Odyssey or Astronomy and Earth Sciences for the Grammar stage as a potential.
• An astronomy unit study is also in the works for the winter 2021, I’ll share resources for those more in-depth later.

Canadian Social Studies Curriculum

• We’ve been enjoying the Great Canadian Adventure for some Canadian socials and geography lapbooking
• Morning basket books on Canada has been our favorite way to learn more about our country so far!

Stay tuned for more reviews!

What are you using this year?