8th Grade Homeschool Curriculum Choices 2022-2023

Stack of 8th grade homeschool books

If there was an award for the child with the most unique hobbies, I think my fourth born would definitely be a contender. His list of favorites includes metal detecting, blacksmithing, foraging for scraps of metal and antique bottles, curing natural clay and making pottery, collecting coins, fishing, drawing homemade field guides, and memorizing trivia. 

He’s my autodidactic. Always learning. Always doing. Curious. He’s the first one to find something fun to do with his time each morning and the last one out of the woods every night. If you need him, just follow the muddy footprints.

Here's what he'll be learning. Since we only homeschool 4-days a week, you can assume that each of these subjects will only be covered four times each week unless otherwise indicated.

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8th Grade Homeschool Curriculum Choices 2022-2023 #homeschool #curriculum

Content-rich Subjects

As always, he'll do all of his content-rich subjects like Morning time/Bible, history, art, and creative writing with his other siblings. You can see those curriculum choices here>>>

Personal Devotions- every day


Language

  • LLATL Gray Book (Use coupon code unlikelyhomeschool at checkout to get 15% off your entire purchase from Common Sense Press, the makers of LLATL.)

Math

  • Fundamentals of Pre-Algebra-- This is a Zoom class offered by Excelsior Classes, a group of Christian teachers who teach online classes to homeschoolers. 

Science


Life Skills/Extra-Curricular Subjects

  • Blacksmithing with a local forging community- a few Saturdays each season
  • Mow the lawn or shovel the snow as needed for an Airbnb in our neighborhood
  • Who is My Neighbor?- I highly recommend every single title in this four-volume What We Believe series! 
  • Clean his room and make his bed each day.
  • Daily chores: sweep the library, empty the dishwasher with his younger brother, wipe down the surfaces in the upstairs bathroom
  • Weekly Chores for his child-of-the-day privileges and responsibilities: help make lunch/dinner and do two loads of laundry (Fridays), rotate with his brothers to mow the lawn and/or shovel the snow as needed
  • Monthly Chores: dust the main floor with his brothers, mop the library, plus randomly select and complete two chores from our chore jar one Saturday each month

Co-operative Learning

Twice a month, he'll attend the homeschool co-op that I lead and participate in two enrichment classes each semester for a total of four for the 2022-2023 school year. In addition, he'll be able to join in on several field trips offered by the group.

His first-semester co-op classes will be as follows:
  • Mixed Media Art
  • Creative Writing with Literary Devices (I'll be teaching this one!)

Eighth grade has always been a gentle transition for my kids--a year when they can practice more traditional learning like reading from a textbook (as opposed to a living book) and taking tests before his "grades" will have to count for high school credit. I'm hopeful that the 2022-2023 school year will be the long runway my outside-the-box learner will need to get him ready for the final four years. 

7 comments:

  1. Would you be able to share information about the local blacksmith? We’re way north but my husband has taken an interest in forging and I’d love to see it go somewhere.

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    1. There is a forging center here in our town. It's run by master forgers. You pay a daily rate to come and apprentice. After you've apprenticed for a certain number of hours you move up to the next level where you're just practicing your skills. After that, you move up to master forger.

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  2. Oh wow. It never occurred to me to look and see if we had any local forgers in our area for my son. He loves watching Forged in Fire and has an interest in learning blacksmithing. I have an uncle who is a blacksmith, but he is begging to get too old to do it like he used to. We also haven't seen him and my aunt in 2-3 years due to covid. I will have to look into that for him. Thank you for sharing that!

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  3. Thanks for this list! My oldest is going into 8th grade this year (for most subjects) and I'm just now starting to think about what to get him. :) I was looking at the BJU science...it looks pretty good. I wonder why Abeka has decided to price theirs so much more?! I've used them from time to time (went to PCC and worked as a student illustrator there) but I feel like their pricing increase has just made it too much for people like me. :(

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    1. I'm not really sure. ABeka has always been priced quite high.

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  4. Could you provide me any details on the neighborhood blacksmith? We live in the far north, but my husband has developed a passion for forging, and I would want to see it progress.

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