Both the handwriting and keyboarding curriculum I use for K-5th grade is through the company Learning Without Tears. I actually began handwriting in K-4 using the Handwriting Without Tears student workbook. You can purchase a small chalkboard to help teach writing letters, which I found helpful. I also bought lined paper from the company that is spaced appropriately for different-aged writers (which I used for spelling). I never purchased the teacher book or journals, as I did not feel they were necessary. The website provides an online dashboard for digital teaching that can be helpful.
The program starts cursive in third grade, but you can purchase an additional Cursive Kickoff workbook along with the second grade print workbook if you would like to introduce your second grader to cursive earlier. It’s a pretty simple program to use. (I’m also not terribly picky with handwriting or cursive, as long as they’re putting some effort in to make it relatively neat. I also don’t care if they modify their cursive letters a bit, as long as the letters are recognizable. I’ve done that with my own cursive, so I don’t mind my kids personalizing theirs as well.)
Keyboarding Without Tears has been mostly an enjoyable way for my kids to learn how to type. It starts out with the basics of using a mouse, teaching proper fingering for typing, and it progresses through the years until the students are typing paragraphs. There are speed and accuracy checks to monitor the student’s progress. There is no textbook for the course; you purchase a digital license for each child per year.
I bought Everything You Need to Ace Computer Science and Coding in One Big Fat Notebook for my son to read through on his own during 6th grade. He read a chapter a week. I also let him start to work on a little bit of coding on Scratch once the book discussed that. He really enjoys this, and it gives him some basic coding practice. My daughter is now enjoying doing the same.
I also bought a book that I’m not even going to link here, because it is pretty out of date. But the basic ideas have been helpful. Basically, they give projects that require various computer programs, like powerpoint, creating a pamphlet, writing a poem with properly centered text, creating various graphs, etc. We do a (small, easy) project about once a week. Beyond this, they continue to work on their typing skills as they type their papers for their writing program.
In 5th grade, I start my kids with critical thinking and logic. For 5th grade we use Building Thinking Skills Level 2 (I’m linking to what I’ve used; apparently there is a newer edition that I have not used). It is a workbook that my kids just work through on their own (answers are in the back). It is a good foundation to ease kids into critical thinking.
In 6th grade I use The Basics of Critical Thinking. This too is a workbook that I have my kids independently work through one day a week. In 7th grade we move on to The Art of Argument (I purchased the old edition, but I am linking to the revised edition that I will probably purchase this next year). This teaches informal logic. Again, I only purchased the student edition.
The final logic program that I have purchased is the most intense, but my 8th grader is doing well with it. Traditional Logic I is an introduction to formal logic. It is quite a step up from the other logic, but my son seems to have been prepared for it with the others. I did not purchase the dvd’s, but I did purchase the text (which the student reads), the workbook, the text booklet, and the key. I am unfamiliar with many of the terms, as I never took formal logic, but the text explains things well. If my son was not doing well, I would definitely have to do the hard work of learning alongside him to help him out.
The workbook is set up for 4 days of work, followed by a quiz on the 5th day. I chose to do logic every other week, rotating that with Vocabulary. This has worked well for us.
Again, I hope this is helpful for someone looking for ideas for their homeschool curriculum!
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