Creating a curriculum plan to fit my wild spectrum of learning needs plus the educational values and goals that we believe in can be quite an enormous undertaking, and one I’m constantly evaluating. I believe our family’s ADHD and dyslexia is a gift, not just a struggle, giving my kids unique strengths and perspectives. Can a dyslexic child pursue a literature-rich education? Absolutely! But I can’t force it to look like everyone else’s. Can a child with ADHD handle the rigors of a classical education? Absolutely! The discipline teaches some great skills to my kids with executive function challenges, but it also has to accommodate their creativity and need to move—energy under control. A Classical-Charlotte Mason homeschool curriculum is the perfect combination for our ADHD/dyslexia family.
Classically, we’ll be studying the same time period together this year as part of our four year rotation (Early Modern: Colonial to Pioneers). While my oldest delves deeply into the logic stage, I’ll be keeping my fifth grader at the grammar stage, continuing to lay foundations for her and allowing her to make connections at her own pace. Here’s what our Classical-Charlotte Mason homeschool curriculum looks like at each level.
1st Grade Classical-Charlotte Mason homeschool curriculum
Click here to see First Grade Homeschool Curriculum for a Struggling Starter
5th Grade (ADHD/Dyslexia) Classical-Charlotte Mason homeschool curriculum
Click here to see Fifth Grade Homeschool Curriculum for ADHD/Dyslexia
7th Grade (ADHD) Classical-Charlotte Mason homeschool curriculum
Click here to see Seventh Grade Homeschool Curriculum for a Classically-Charlotte Mason Education
Classical-Charlotte Mason homeschool curriculum:
Electives for the Family
We follow a four-day schedule each week for our core curriculum, and because of our unique challenges with ADHD and learning anxieties we’ve moved away from a lot of our whole family learning on those days. But I do love learning as a family, so I’ve reserved our fifth day for casual educational options that allow us to learn together (and for any catch-up work we need to get to from the rest of the week).
- Visualize the World geography has been a fun whole-family learning program that even my husband has enjoyed being a part of. Through video clips and pictography, the different countries of the world are taught with clever stories and picture prompts. My kids learned most of Europe and Asia last year, and we’ll continue with the rest of those continents and Africa this coming year.
- We will also continue learning Spanish together with different resources. For my younger two, Foreign Languages for Kids has been a huge favorite, while my oldest loves the Duolingo App.
- We explore nature on our own, with an occasional study from NaturExplorers. I push myself to do nature walks throughout the year, no matter the weather. We tromp through the puddles and the misty Pacific Northwest rain, and then snuggle up by the fire with our tea and draw in our journals.
- We explore a variety of handicrafts, from pottery and felt-crafts to paracord projects and woodshop.
My kids have such a wide range of strengths and weaknesses, and I love that homeschooling allows me to customize a plan that fits each of them perfectly. We are a loud, creative, chaotic bunch. And no, my kiddos are not always eager learners. We have struggling days, where my kids battle intense emotions and mood swings, where seratonin is off the chart one direction or another. We have super distracted days, when no one can stay focused, and I’m forced to micromanage each one. We have awesome days, filled with creative projects and fun memories. But no matter what kind of day we are having, we are always learning something.
