Our Homeschool Curriculum Choices For Middle School

How do you choose a homeschool curriculum for the year? I get so excited about choosing new resources! There’s a lot to love.

It can be tough to know which curriculum to choose. It’s easy to get excited about all the cool new resources and forget to think about what works best for Emily. I’ve compiled a list of everything we use for middle school this year. 

As always, this list is what works for us, and it’s a great place to begin planning your resources for the year. Make adjustments as needed and enjoy the excitement of planning another fun homeschool year!

How We Choose Our Homeschool Curriculum

There are so many fantastic books, games, and resources! I honestly love all the things, but I know what works and what doesn’t work for Emily. I do my best to choose our homeschool curriculum based on what will work best for our daughter. 

I like to choose many books we can use as resources whenever Emily has a question or I need a reference. Choosing great books to fill this role in our homeschool cuts down on the amount of time we spend on screens. We love to follow Emily’s interests throughout the year, so many of our curriculum resources won’t get used in their entirety. 

Instead, we pick and choose what works for us and take parts from different resources to form a curriculum that’s unique and perfect for our family. Ready to see our homeschool curriculum choices for middle school? Check out the resources I’m most excited about below. 

Our Homeschool Curriculum Choices For Middle School

Middle school is a whole new ball game! We are keeping some of our favorites and embracing lots of fun new homeschool curriculum choices for middle school too. Discover what we’re using for language arts, math, science, and more to get ideas for your middle schooler.

Language Arts

The main resource for our middle school language arts study this year is focused on a literature-based book club offered by Outschool. Emily loves these online classes! In sixth grade, we took 2 book club classes. For eighth, we signed up for the monthly fiction teen book club and the weekly graphic novel book club.

My friend Mary Henna Wilson teaches the class, and we’ve been taking it for several years. The classes meet once a month, and the kids get to discuss the books. 

Plus, they focus on a different literary element each month. Some of the books we are doing this year include The Mouse and the Motorcycle, The Girl Who Stole an Elephant, and The Very Very Far North. To see more of the fun books we will be reading this year, check out our book list for ideas.

We will use Fix It Grammar as a mainstay, continuing from last year. Emily will work independently using the student notebook and teacher’s manual. This takes about 10–15 minutes per lesson and fits perfectly into her daily independent work routine.

Other resources we’re using for language arts this year include Mad Libs, creative writing projects, journaling, letter writing, novel studies like Holes and The Giver, and projects from Language Arts for Everyday Learning.

Math

Math is probably the only subject where we follow the curriculum very closely. We tend to complete most of the math lessons in our curriculum and stick very closely to the lessons in order. However, I’ll skip over concepts Emily has already mastered and pull in extra practice in all kinds of fun ways.

Our favorite math curriculum in sixth grade was Teaching Textbooks. We used this program for years, and it was enough all by itself. We added lots of fun games and other activities to give Emily lots of real-world practice with math too. 

In seventh and eighth grade, we discovered Denison Math. The transition from Teaching Textbook Math 6 to Denison Pre-Algebra was seemless. Emily watches the videos, takes guided notes, and uses the solution manual to review. Tests come from the parent guide. She typically works independently on both Fix It Grammar and Denison Math while I am working out. It’s an easy way for me to encourage independent learning and make time for self-care.

Some of our fun new math resources this year include Generation Genius math videos, MEL math boxes, and Prodigy on her tablet. We also pull projects from the ebook Mathematics for Everyday Learning to integrate real-world math concepts.

Science

We use lots of subscription boxes for science too. Emily and Kevin really enjoy doing MEL science kits and Kiwi Crate Eureka boxes together. They engage in all sorts of projects to learn about different scientific concepts and experiment together throughout the year.

Much of our science for middle school comes from our unit studies. This year, Emily is really curious about weather and natural disasters. We have an exciting weather unit study coming up that we’re excited to dive into!

We also take in-person homeschool classes at a nearby zoo, paired with My Zoo Box Subscription kits. Additional science enrichment comes from Crash Course Science and Generation Genius videos.

Crash Course Science and Generation Genius offer fun videos about a wide variety of scientific concepts. They’re great for watching during learning lunches or right before completing a Generation Genius subscription box. All these great science resources will be accompanied by our favorite science games, videos, and books too!

Discovery Decks have been a fantastic addition too, giving Emily a fun, screen-supported way to dive into science topics like sharks, geology, and the human body.

History & Geography

This year, our social studies is going to focus heavily on the United States. We plan to travel to a few more national parks this year, so I’ll be using our Traveling the Parks unit study to learn along the way. Plus, we’ll use our Traveling the States unit study to dive deep into the 50 states.

In addition to our field trips in the parks, we will be using our new mini-unit studies to learn more about the historical events and key figures Emily is really curious about. The Who Was? Unit Studies are perfect for learning more about important historical figures and the What Was? Unit Studies cover key events in a way that’s engaging and easy to understand for middle schoolers.

We use lots of fun subscriptions to help as we learn about history and geography too. This year, we’re sticking with our tasty Universal Yums box and our History Unboxed subscription. Plus, we’ll use the History Timeline book for a quick daily lesson with fun facts and Crash Course History Videos to learn more about the things we’re really curious about this year.

Electives

There are lots of fun curriculum options for electives! Every year, we choose fun new electives to add. We keep up with our favorites like taking daily walks together as a family and competing in archery tournaments. Emily also enjoys weekly karate classes, which have been a wonderful way to build strength, focus, and confidence.

Art is Emily’s favorite elective, and we will continue with some of our favorite curriculum resources for art, including Chalk Pastel, Masterpiece Society, Yellow Spot Sun, Deep Space Sparkle, and Art for Kids Hub. For music, she is continuing guitar lessons while we also explore SQUILT classes to appreciate and understand music in new ways.

Finally, we’re learning Spanish with the Duolingo app. Emily is excited about taking on this app since it gives her a chance to learn the language more independently. It’s a great place to begin, and we can always add more resources later in the year.

Logic & Character Development

One important thing we have learned about homeschooling during the middle school years is that sometimes it’s truly more important to focus on connection and character development than academics. That’s one reason we’re incorporating logic and character-building into our lessons.

Emily has enjoyed working through The Fallacy Detective, and we’re excited to explore the follow-up, The Art of Argument, in eighth grade. We plan to cover one fallacy per week through discussion so it’s interactive learning together and won’t feel overwhelming.

For character development, we are using What Do You Stand For? for Teens, covering traits like honesty, integrity, courage, empathy, and leadership. It’s an easy win to add to our morning basket time together.

Looking for More Curriculum Options?

I’ve just shared a lot of curriculum choices we’ve used throughout the middle school years! Some became long-time favorites that we return to year after year, while others we only used for a short season before moving on. That’s the beauty of homeschooling—you can pivot and adjust as your child grows and their needs change.

At the heart of it all, we always come back to connection. Our homeschool is built around spending time together, learning side by side, and creating memories as a family. Curriculum is important, but it’s not the end goal—it’s simply the tool we use to spark curiosity and guide Emily’s learning. That’s why we lean so heavily on interest-led unit studies, hands-on resources, and time outdoors. It keeps learning fresh, relevant, and joyful.

If you’d like to see how our curriculum has shifted each year of middle school, I’ve put together grade-level video playlists. These give you a peek into the real-life resources we’ve used, what stuck, and what we switched up along the way:

  • 6th Grade Playlist – A look at how we transitioned into middle school and the resources that worked best that year.
  • 7th Grade Playlist – What we kept, what we changed, and how we followed Emily’s growing interests.
  • 8th Grade Playlist – The final stretch of middle school, including more independent work and preparation for high school.

And if you’re looking for even more inspiration, here are some related posts packed with ideas to help you customize your own middle school homeschool experience:

No two middle school years look exactly the same—and that’s a good thing! Homeschooling gives us the freedom to adapt, explore, and create an education that fits our kids.

Do you have amazing curriculum resources for middle school this year? Share your favorites in the comments—I’d love to hear what’s working in your homeschool and maybe even discover a few new resources to try ourselves!