Holes Novel Study: Middle School Language Arts Curriculum (Digital Download)| Homeschool Curriculum

This is a digital purchase, you will not receive a physical item.

I've created a homeschool literature-based curriculum with options for every grade level—lower and upper elementary, middle school, and high school. This first unit is based on the book Holes by Louis Sachar and is appropriate for grades 5-8.

This unit is meant to be a full language arts program with a 96 page full-color Teacher Guide and a 48 page full-color student workbook.

These units are designed to last anywhere from 3 to 5 weeks, depending on the pace that works best for you and your student. You can adjust the schedule by spreading out the reading, adding more or less activities, or focusing on specific components. This is your language arts curriculum—my goal is for you to adapt it to fit your unique homeschooling needs. If you follow the schedule as it is laid out with the reading, this unit would take you 16 school days to complete the reading and 1-5 days longer for a final project and movie night, if you choose to do those things. I have scheduled reading 4 days a week. This unit does not come with the book, you'll need to obtain a copy of Holes by Louis Sachar before starting this unit.

Each of these unit studies is intended to be a complete, all-in-one language arts curriculum. That means you only need a few of these units throughout the year to cover all major areas of language arts. In our homeschool, we typically complete 6–8 units per year as our language arts program. We read 4 days a week (sometimes less if the book is shorter) and complete grammar and discussion questions daily, sometimes I'll throw in writing assignments daily, sometimes just weekly. On Friday my student or I will choose some hands-on activities and different writing assignments for him to complete. We do vocabulary throughout and a dictation passage weekly- on day 4 of the week. This unit includes a teacher guide with an answer key and a student workbook that will contain all worksheets for the student to complete along with other important information for the student. This unit can be done mostly independently by your student, but they will need your help for dictation and choosing activities so keep that in mind.

This unit offers a buffet of daily and weekly activities and assignments for you to choose from. You’re not expected to complete everything—it’s all about flexibility. Some families stick to reading, discussion questions, and grammar each day, then pick one day a week for hands-on activities like a recipe, science experiment, or project. Others love project-based learning and dive into multiple hands-on activities each week. Do what works best for your homeschool style.

This curriculum began as a labor of love—for my own kids. As a veteran homeschool mom, who also has an English degree, I’ve spent close to a decade searching for a language arts program that I truly enjoyed teaching and that my kids genuinely enjoyed doing. We've tried all kinds of approaches—novel studies, all-in-one programs, a mix of this and that—but my book-loving heart was never quite satisfied.

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