7th Grade Homeschool Recap, 2024-2025

Homeschooling John is a lot of fun! Despite his love of sleeping in, he has become a very dedicated worker and handles all his school responsibilities with a great attitude. It is a joy to see his interests and aptitudes continue to develop. 

John went deeper into a lot of subjects and interests this year from battle bots to Magic the Gathering to programming to math. He is always open to try to new things and loves to be helpful, especially to his younger siblings and to his Grandma who lives down the street.

Here is what John worked on for his 7th grade year. 

This post contains affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. Read my full disclosure to learn more.

Language Arts

Reading

John has put in a lot of work to improve his reading skills and it has paid off. He is a solid reader, but his speed is still slower. To continue to work on reading, I had him read to me twice per week from A Wonder Book for Boys and Girls by Nathanial Hawthorne [already owned $1 book sale find]

John also read all of his school books and course content this year, except that he used an audiobook to follow along with The Body by Bill Bryson for science. Reading his own books was so good for improving his reading and I could tell that he got so much out of them by listening to the quality of his narrations. 

Writing

John did written narrations twice per week, once each for science and history. He typed his narrations and I can see a lot of improvement over the course of the year. He probably would have benefited from me requiring more in this area, but I felt it was more important to improve spelling first. 

Grammar

John worked on the Khan Academy Grammar course this year and will complete it next year. 

Recitation

John prepared and recited 15 poems and passages, including poems by the poets we studied, passages from the Shakespeare plays we were reading, and several poems of his choosing. 

Spelling

Spelling is probably John's most challenging subject. After starting All About Spelling 2 several times, this was the year that John really was able to internalize all of the lessons. This year, John used

•  All About Spelling Level 2 [already owned teachers manual only on used on Amazon for $11.99 shipped] Completed
•  All About Spelling Level 3 [already owned teachers manual only] Completed 2/3 of the book
• Used with the All About Spelling Letter Tiles App [already owned - $14.49 introductory price]

I'm very pleased with John's progress this year in reading, spelling, and writing. But he knows that he is behind his peers in spelling and writing and it frustrates him. I try to reassure him that he is making great progress, but he doesn't always feel good about his spelling level relative to his age. He chose to work on spelling more times per week to make more progress and I feel confident that his new skills will help him with getting his writing close enough so spell check can work well.  

Science / Nature

Experimental Science

John studied 2 experimental sciences this year using Sabbath Mood guides:

• Sabbath Mood Homeschool's Anatomy, Part 1 [already owned $9.60 with coupon] and Part 2 [already owned $12] using The Body by Bill Bryson [already owned $11.32 after multi-buy discount] John followed along with the book while listening to the audiobook on Libby
• Sabbath Mood Homeschool's Earth Science: Geology [already owned $9.60 with coupon] using Aerial Geology by Mary Caperton Morton [already owned $17.54 used on Amazon].  John was able to read this book himself.

Programming

John worked on several different courses to learn more programming skills including

• working several times per week on Carnegie Mellon's CS Academy Exploring Programming Course (python) [Free to teachers, including homeschoolers]. He completed about 75% of the course
• working once per week to finish Code Combat's python course, and complete most of the java course [$104.94 for 1 year access purchased in Feb 2024 and used throughout last summer as well]
• work on 30 Days Lost in Space coding challenge [Christmas gift]
• coding projects in Scratch for fun in his free time

Other Science

We also read the following books at our together time in the afternoon:

• The Lay of the Land by Dallas Lore Sharp [Free ebook] from my Nature Lore Book List
• Buzztail, the story of a Rattlesnake [Free ebook] from my Nature Lore Book List
• The Adventure Book of Underwater Life by Dr. Carleton Ray [$1 book sale find]
• The Tree Book for Kids and Their Grown Ups [already owned]

John was also a part of a local team that builds battle bots and competes in ant-weight battle bot competitions. This was his second year on the team and he was able to compete in 3 competitions and even finished in 6th place at his second competition, which are mainly against high schoolers and adults. 

John also does a lot of science-related kits and tinkering. 

Social Studies

I had planned several books to cover the 20th century and the middle ages but John's reading was slower than I expected. Maybe I should have scheduled more time for history this year and I will keep that in mind for next year. Regardless, he got a lot out of the books he completed this year and we listened to a lot of nonfiction and historical fiction books and audiobooks in addition to his assigned books which he read and narrated.

• The Yanks Are Coming: The United States in the First World War by Albert Marrin [$9.84 on Pangobooks]
• Famous Men of the Middle Ages [already owned $5.89 from from Thriftbooks] 
• Team Moon: How 400,000 People Landed Apollo 11 on the Moon by Catherin Thimmesh [$1 book sale find]

For geography, he read and narrated from:

• Richard Halliburton's Book of Marvels: The Orient [already owned $16 from Living Book Press] and watched the companion videos from Wonder and Wildness. 

Also, I took all my kids on a 2.5 week road trip in September throughout Michigan and the upper peninsula. We camped on or near Lake Erie, Lake Michigan, and Lake Superior and stayed at a hotel next to Lake Huron. We saw waterfalls and traveled through the American and Canadian locks at Soo locks. We visited museums, took a shipwreck boat tour, ate ice cream, and visited Sleeping Bear Dunes and Pictured Rocks National Lakeshores. I hope that it made Paddle to the Sea come alive for all my children.

John and his sister were studying the 20th century so we read and listened to lots of books about that topic. Some additional nonfiction or historical fiction books we read this year included:

• Talking Leaves by Joseph Bruchac
• Lines of Courage by Jennifer A. Nielsen
• Amelia Lost by Candace Fleming
• Underground Fire by Sally M. Walker
• Only a Dog by Bertha Whitridge Smith 
• Daughter of the Mountains by Louise Rankin
• The Singing Tree by Kate Seredy
• I Survived the Nazi Invasion, 1944 by Lauren Tarshis
• I Survived the Battle of D-Day, 1944 by Lauren Tarshis
• I Survived the Attacks of September 11, 2001 by Lauren Tarshis
• The Chestry Oak by Kate Seredy
• A Place to Hang the Moon by Kate Albus
• Number the Stars by Lois Lowry
• I Survived the Wellington Avalanche, 1910 by Lauren Tarshis
• A Place to Hang the Moon by Kate Albus
• Remember: The Journey to School Integration by Toni Morrison
• Story of the World, Volume 4 by Susan Wise Bauer

And we watched CNN10 together 4-5 days a week. 

Math

Without tests or much formal assessment, sometimes it can be difficult to tell how well a child is doing in a subject. This year, I could finally really see how well he is doing in math and hopefully help him appreciate his gifts in this area as well. 

Last year, when he was in 6th grade, we tried CTC math and he completed 7th grade math in less than a school year. I didn't think CTC was practicing enough complex problems to be a good fit for him so I began a search for an appropriate math curriculum for a child who needed a rigorous program but for whom a very heavily text-based program would not be a great fit (so no AoPS). 

Meanwhile, over the summer, I had him work through the short Khan Academy math course Getting Ready for Algebra 1. This helped me feel more confident that he didn't have any major holes in his preparation and it was a great refresher course. 

Finally, after much deliberation, I selected Thinkwell Algebra 1 for him. He took the pretest and tested into the honors level so I purchased Thinkwell Honors Algebra 1 for $126.41 with a Facebook discount code for one year of access. 

Thinkwell was a great choice for John! It has videos that explain all the concepts and then it has lots of practice to tell if he understands everything before moving on. The only downside is that I didn't understand the pacing needed to complete this course within a school year and he is nowhere near to being done. I've since found the pacing guide and we are going to have to figure out how much progress on this course can be made this summer. 

Fortunately, I can extend our subscription to this course to give him enough time to finish it before moving on to geometry. And his brother took his time with Algebra 1, so this is charted territory for me. 

This year, John's math learning included

• completing >60% of Thinkwell Honors Algebra 1
• taking a 2 week detour to use Beast Academy to review the algorithm for long division 
• participating in a homeschool math club that I started to prepare my kids and their friends for local and online math competitions
• competing in the AMC 8 at a local university
• scoring high enough at our MATHCOUNTS chapter competition to earn a spot to compete at the state competition
• attending the MATHCOUNTS state competition
• completing the math activity packet (MAP) to apply to Bard College Creative and Analytical Math Program (CAMP). He was accepted to the program and looks forward to attending this day camp while camping at a nearby state park. 

Arts and Handicrafts

John completed his Shutterfly scrapbook of his trip to Portugal he took in May 2023. He also designed many k'nex projects and Scratch projects and projects for his exploring programming course. He also cooked dinner for our family ever other week--pizza with homemade dough and homemade sauce and tacos with homemade tortillas and homemade refried beans--and often baked cookies or other treats. I am happy to call all of these handicrafts. 

We studied three fine artists this year and I decided to reuse some materials from the beginning of my homeschool journey:

• Turner, using previously purchased Artist Portfolio from Simply Charlotte Mason
• Delacroix, using A Humble Place free artist study
• Cassatt, using previously purchased Artist Portfolio from Simply Charlotte Mason

We studied two composers using Tillberry Table Guides plus her YouTube playlists bought during a 20% off black Friday sale. I decided to only do two instead of three because it is more realistic for me:

• Bach
• Dvorak

We studied three poets this year using the Poetry for Young People series because I bought a bundle of them for $5 at a used curriculum sale last year.

• Lewis Carroll 
• Edgar Allan Poe
• Emily Dickinson

We followed the Ambleside Online folksong rotation this year using materials shared on the Ambleside Facebook page and a YouTube playlist. In past years, I would select our own folksongs but because two families at our Wild + Free group follow Ambleside it is nice to have the kids learning the the same songs. 

We read three Shakespeare plays together as a family:

• Twelfth Night
• Romeo and Juliet
• The Merchant of Venice

Everything Else

John had an excellent school year overall with many fun extras. In July 2024, he attended a career day camp at a local university and enjoyed trying out different careers. He also attended a new-to-him YMCA week-long residential camp. In August, he took a babysitting course. Last June he attended a day camp to do electromechanical engineering at our local technical school and this June he will attend the same program to try out welding.

Throughout the year, he continued to attend a weekly ninja class for homeschoolers. In the fall and spring, he played on a AYSO soccer team. He has been working on a 100-mile hiking challenge but he still has a long way to go to complete it by August 31! He often spends free time biking around town. 

He continues to enjoy tabletop gaming and he and his brother have recently gotten into attending Magic the Gathering tournaments at local game shops. He still enjoys attending our weekly Wild + Free nature group. 

I loved seeing John come more into his own this year in many different areas. I'm excited (as always) to dive into planning another year of learning for him.