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A Minimalist Homeschool Program for 6th Grade, 3rd Grade, 2nd Grade, and PreK

September 5, 2016 by Selena Robinson 4 Comments

We usually hold off on beginning our new homeschool year until the first week of September each year. Which means we’re starting up this week! Woohoo!

Since we’re entering our 8th year of homeschooling, I don’t have the same intense excitement I once did. Now it’s more of a relaxed anticipation to what we’ll learn this year.

I’ve also changed my entire homeschooling approach this time around. After many years of hoarding curriculum and books, I’m making the change to minimalist homeschooling. I’ve been exploring it for the past few months and now I’m finally ready to take the plunge.

So – what does minimalist homeschooling look like when you’re trying to teach four children? Take a look at our minimalist homeschool program for 6th grade, 3rd grade, 2nd grade, and PreK!

We're using a minimalist homeschool program for 6th grade, 3rd grade, 2nd grade, and PreK this year. Get the details!

Image c/o: Mr. Webicon / depositphotos

A Minimalist Homeschool Program for 6th Grade

Our sixth grader has definitely become a more independent student. So her workload is substantially heavier than the younger kids, as it should be for a middle schooler.

Still, since she has ADHD, it’s important that I don’t overwhelm her with lots of different curriculum choices. All that changing up takes a mental toll on her and adds to her stress level. This year, we’re keeping it pretty simple.

Minimalist Homeschool Program for 6th Grade

Here are my 6th grader’s homeschooling resources for this year:

  • ELA: National Geographic Hampton-Brown Edge Interactive Level B – A teacher friend of ours gave us this book and the accompanying practice workbook when she retired and, boy, am I glad. This is an excellent resource for teaching reading, writing, and language.
  • MATH: For math, we’ll be using CTC Math, which my daughter is loving. Plus, we’ll be supplementing with pre-algebra classes via Mr. D Math.
  • HISTORY: This year, we’re focusing on the 1920s using the book The 1920s in America from Kendall Hunt Publishing. We’ll also be reviewing ancient civilizations
  • SCIENCE: We had so much fun with Real Science-4-Kids Level 6 that it’s going to be our science curriculum!
  • GEOGRAPHY: I’m putting together her geography curriculum based on the National Geographic World Atlas for Young Explorers and the book Hungry Planet: What the World Eats. We’ll be covering both world cultures and the inequalities of human society.

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A Minimalist Homeschool Program for 3rd Grade

My third grader has a huge interest in animals, so we’ll be visiting the zoo a TON this year. Since he’s an avid reader (as are all my kids), he’ll have a substantial reading list to complete. (I’ll be sharing all the kids’ reading lists in the coming weeks.)

Minimalist Homeschool Program for 3rd Grade

For 3rd grade, we’ll pretty much be using these three resources:

  • What Your Third Grader Needs to Know – The CoreKnowledge series is excellent for giving you a framework for the elementary grades.
  • CTC Math – We have the Family subscription, so all of my three oldest kids are using this program.
  • Ancient and World History Unit Study Bundle – It’s time to introduce my boys to ancient civilizations, which is one of my favorite history topics! This is a super huge unit study bundle that is worth every penny.

With these, we’ll get the math basis we need and we’ll get the introduction to our other topics as well. When we find a topic of interest, it’s off to the library we go!

Since this is a standardized testing year for him and for my 6th grader, I picked up Spectrum Test Prep: Grade 6 and Spectrum Test Prep: Grade 3. But other than that, I’m not stressing too much about teaching to the test.

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A Minimalist Homeschool Program for 2nd Grade

My ultimate goal is to combine my 2nd grader and my 3rd grader into one mega grade each year. Think of how much lesson planning energy I’d save! Plus, they could study together and help each other out! One day…

For now, I’m doing a sort of 2/3 year with the two. So their topics of study are pretty much the same this year. I’ll just be adapting specific lessons as needed to make sure they each understand everything they’re learning.

Minimalist Homeschool Program for 2nd Grade

Our 2nd grader will be using these resources:

  • What Your Second Grader Needs to Know – Yes, again. It’s a really good way to make sure you cover all the bases.
  • CTC Math – This is my most active child and he has really taken to CTC Math. I couldn’t be happier!
  • Ancient and World History Unit Study Bundle – My boys are pretty much on the same level with reading comprehension, so they’ll be taking history together this year. Plus, it saves me time!

A Minimalist Homeschool Program for PreK

It feels a little strange to think about what a minimalist homeschool program is like for a preschooler. After all, we’re talking about a preschooler. But I’ve been a first-year homeschooler and I remember stressing about planning my preschool curriculum for my first daughter. Oh, how times have changed.

Minimalist Homeschool Program for Preschool

My preschooler’s homeschool program will consist of two main resources:

  • Teach Me Mommy – A wonderful preschool-at-home program written many years ago that is affordable and thorough. Just really, really good.
  • Starfall – This is a free website and app, but you can pay $35 a year and get the full version. It’s worth it. My preschooler loves it! And because it’s has PreK through 1st grade content, she can skip around and learn whatever she likes. She’s already learning about parallelograms!

Minimalist Homeschooling for 6th Grade, 3rd Grade, 2nd Grade, and PreK

What are you using for homeschool curriculum this year? Have you ever tried a minimalist homeschool program? Let me know about your experiences in the comments!

Interested in learning more about minimalist homeschooling? Check out these posts!

Simple Homeschool Lesson Planning

Minimalist Homeschooling Digital Decluttering

How to Homeschool as a Minimalist

Get more ideas for your homeschooling year on my Homeschool Planning board on Pinterest!

This post is part of the 2016 Back to Homeschool Blog Hop hosted by iHomeschool Network! Click on over to read other awesome homeschool curriculum choices from my fellow bloggers!

2016 Back to Homeschool Blog Hop


Filed Under: 2016-17 Curriculum, Homeschool Curriculum, Homeschooling Tagged With: curriculum, homeschool, homeschool curriculum, homeschooling, homeschooling curriculum, minimalism, minimalist homeschool, minimalist homeschooling

Essential Skills Advantage Review

February 24, 2014 by Selena Robinson 2 Comments

Good morning! It’s a new day at Look! We’re Learning! because today we’re featuring our first-ever sponsored post from our good friends at Educents!

The program we’re highlighting is Essential Skills Advantage and it’s an excellent reading and language computer program for children aged 4 to 12! In the past Essential Skills Advantage has been used in the public school system, but the program is now available for homeschoolers and tutoring!

This is a sponsored post. I received access to this program in exchange for this review. See our Disclosure Policy for details.

Essential Skills Advantage Review

Essential Skills Advantage Review

A quick rundown of what the Essential Skills Advantage program consists of:

  • Thousands of activities for grades K-6
  • Reading, Language, and Spelling activities
  • A $7.99 monthly membership that includes access to all seven grade levels

Trying Essential Skills Advantage

The multi-grade level access is what really won me over to the program. We decided to start Roo out with the kindergarten level, just to see how he did. He did so well at it that we’re going to go right into the first grade level with him afterward! Since Essential Skills Advantage allows parents to work on any grade level with their children, it’s simple to go up or down a level as you need to.

As soon as we started, I noticed that the program has a constant background sound of crickets and birdsongs. It literally sounds as if you’re sitting outside while you’re working. It’s very peaceful and relaxing, and I wouldn’t be surprised if that didn’t contribute to Roo’s ability to sit still during the lesson, especially since he has ADHD.

Essential Skills Advantage for Kindergarten

We began with the “Picture Vocabulary” unit in the Complete Reading Grade K program. Rather than working on sight words and phonics right away, ESA starts with simple picture words that are paired with spoken words and related sounds.

For example, in the Animal Names lesson, students are shown a picture of an animal while they listen to the name of an animal being said. If the animal name and picture match, kids click a checkmark. If they don’t match, they click an “X”.

After the Animal Names lesson, we went on to Animal Sounds where Roo matched animal pictures with the sound they make. Since the program shows one picture and plays one sound at a time, it was easy for Roo to concentrate without becoming overwhelmed.

He could also click a picture of an ear when he needed to hear a sound again. The screen uses picture icons and very few words, so he was able to navigate it himself.

Essential Skills Advantage Matching Game

In the Food, Transportation, Action, and Clothing units, kids get to play a memory concentration game. They’re asked to flip over cards that match a picture with a written word. The program says the written word as well, which is great for kids who are still working on their reading skills (like Roo).

As they match cards, they get to see part of a picture below the puzzle. For Roo, that was a big incentive to finish the activity, since he wanted to see the finished picture underneath.

While Roo was working on the Transportation unit, he had to listen to transportation words to see if they matched the pictures of transportation vehicles such as bicycles, cars, and vans. After the word played, Jay would try to distract him by saying “He didn’t say ‘motorcycle’. He said ‘Popsicle’.” or “He didn’t say ‘truck’. He said ‘duck’.” Each time, Roo would say, “No, he said ‘motorcycle’.” or “No, he said ‘truck’.”, which just goes to show how well the program held his attention.

Essential Skills Advantage Word Search

At the end of the Human Body unit, there was a word search activity. Initially, Roo was a little confused about how to do a word search, since it was his first time. We showed him how to look for the beginning letter of each word in the puzzle and then spell out the following letters to make sure he chose the correct word.

Trying Essential Skills Advantage for Homeschool

It wasn’t long before he got the hang of it. And the look on his face when he found his first word all by himself was priceless. 🙂

What was even more impressive to me about Essential Skills Advantage is that it was so engrossing, Roo sat at the computer for a solid hour and did not move ONCE. We’re talking about a boy who cannot utter a single sentence without turning around in a circle. And he sat in the chair for an hour working on this program. Incredible.

Essential Skills Advantage Review for Kindergarten

Happy four-year-old learner for the win!

One more thing I loved about Essential Skills Advantage is that it presents small challenges to kids to keep them on task. For example, in the Action Names lesson, Roo was asked to match pictures of action with spoken words. When the program would say a word like “walking”, he would have to look at three pictures and select the one that showed walking.

Of his three choices, two of the pictures rhymed. One picture showed someone walking, and another showed someone talking. That kind of challenge requires kids to practice active listening skills and deliberate attention on their tasks.

We absolutely loved using Essential Skills Advantage! It was a wonderful program that even managed to keep a four-year-old ADHD learner’s attention! If you’d like to learn more about ESA or sign up for a free trial, visit the Essential Skills Advantage website today!

Like this post? Check out some of our other curriculum reviews!

Creatures of the African Savannah Lapbook Review

Studying Animal Predators with Scanorama Interactive Books

Engineering a Toothpick Bridge for Kids

Follow our Homeschool Curriculum Choices board on Pinterest for more ideas!

Filed Under: Curriculum Reviews, Homeschool Curriculum Tagged With: curriculum, curriculum review, essential skills advantage, essential skills advantage review, homeschool curriculum

Hi! I'm Selena, a teacher and a veteran homeschool mom to four. I'm so glad you're here!
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