I can well remember the years of homeschooling when our family’s name in the local home school directory would be followed by the type of homeschooling we did — classical — and the curriculum — eclectic.
We chose our own books. But that does not mean I just thought it up every Monday morning. Before we started the school year, we used catalogues. I did a scope and sequence for each child on paper. Back then I didn’t know it was called a scope and sequence (which is education-speak for a list of books you’ll cover, and when you’ll do the various pages.) Back then, it was just a list of books for the year. After that, I’d order the books through the mail, and during the school year, every week we’d go to the library and check out independent reading books. Things have changed somewhat since then, but not too much. Today, I am going to treat on how to create your own classical elementary curriculum for grades K-6 — without breaking the bank.
The subjects of the elementary classical curriculum are: Reading, Math, Writing, History, Grammar, Handwriting, Science, with the negotiable subjects of P.E. (read Classical Sports for a Spiritual Journey and Music (which are critical homeschool subjects but not always covered all year, and not always in elementary.) Latin I will save for middle and high school.
Just because you can do this, does not mean you absolutely should. Next week, I will cover a list of the most well-known complete classical curriculum materials for those who want to go that route.
My quick recommendations for your subjects and the textbooks are as follows:
| Subject | Materials | Cost |
| Reading | For grades K-2 phonics, or students that haven’t mastered phonics and fluency yet, consider using my TpT flashcards. You can use other flash cards as well but I would recommend ones that have the multi-letter phonograms. Extra materials: Romalda Bishop Spaulding’s Writing Road to Reading. Follow these steps for basic phonetic reading instruction. After they master reading, have a scheduled reading time during the day when they read books from the home or the library. | $8.00 |
| Writing | Students write a daily journal with a specified word count goal. Typical for kinder would be copying one sentence. Fourth to fifth graders would write in the neighborhood of 100 words, but you know your child. Then do weekly assignments of postal letters to family and book reports. If you’d like a book report form, you can download my Classical Book Report form from TpT. ($.95) | $0.00 |
| Math | Saxon Math. And then there’s Singapore Math which is also very effective but some teachers find the instructional method it uses a little challenging | $100.00 |
| History | Core Knowledge History by grade. If there is more than one book and you can’t cover them all, chose what you believe is most important. These materials are available free at their site. | $0.00 |
| Grammar | Shurley English — this is a heavy-duty grammar program and gives students a background in writing. It is said that no teacher has ever finished the entire book in a single year; however, if you get a good start on this book your students will be ahead of most. You might just try diagramming the sentences you create students them in reading instruction and/or journal time, using this website. | $16.00 |
| Science | Core Knowledge. Go to the grade level. Free materials applies. | $0.00 |
| Handwriting | Bowmar Noble Handwriting | $15.00 |
| (Music) | Private lessons or classical music listening program, or folk songs and dances. If you are able, play music for them live in the home. In general, use the music you already have. Just make sure you play it for them and they interact with it in a meaningful way. | |
| (PE) | Sports teams, dance, gymnastics or riding lessons; hiking or camping trips; going to the park. | |
| Materials and supplies | Sewn composition book for writing; spiral notebook for math; spiral for history (front) and science (back) spiral for grammar; pencils. | $10.00 |
| $149.00 |
