Homeschool 8th Grade
Ages 13–14
Grade 8 is the year of the linear function. Slope is not a formula, it's a rate of change — and that one sentence carries the whole year.
Plan this yearEverything 8th Grade covers
The full scope and sequence, on the page. No signup to read it.
📖 Reading
Rhetoric — how persuasion actually works
Identifies appeals to credibility, emotion and logic, and judges whether the argument survives without the rhetoric.
Literary analysis — how the writing creates the meaning
Explains how specific choices — structure, imagery, point of view — produce the effect on a reader.
Synthesising several sources into one understanding
Reads three or four sources and builds a single account that handles their disagreements.
✏️ Writing
The analytical essay
Writes paragraphs where analysis takes up more space than quotation or summary.
A research-based argument
Plans and writes a multi-page argument using evidence from several sources, properly cited.
Sentence craft and academic register
Varies sentence structure deliberately and writes in an appropriate register without sounding stilted.
🔢 Math
Linear functions and what slope actually means
Moves between table, graph, equation and words, and interprets slope and intercept in context.
What a function is
Determines whether a relation is a function and uses function notation confidently.
Systems of equations
Solves systems by graphing, substitution and elimination, and knows what the solution represents.
Exponent rules and scientific notation
Applies exponent laws including zero and negative exponents, and computes with scientific notation.
Pythagoras and irrational numbers
Applies the theorem in two and three dimensions and understands why √2 is irrational.
Transformations, congruence and similarity
Performs and describes translations, rotations, reflections and dilations, and uses them to justify congruence and similarity.
Volume of cylinders, cones and spheres
Applies the volume formulas correctly and reasons about the relationships between them.
Scatter plots, correlation and the line of best fit
Plots bivariate data, describes the association, and knows correlation isn't causation.
🔬 Science
Forces, motion and Newton's laws
Applies the three laws to real situations and draws a force diagram.
Waves and the electromagnetic spectrum
Relates wavelength, frequency and energy, and places everyday technologies on the spectrum.
Plate tectonics and Earth's history
Explains plate movement, the evidence for it, and how rock layers record time.
🌍 Social Studies
Constitutions, rights and the limits of power
Explains how power is separated and limited, and applies rights reasoning to a real case.
Industrialisation and how technology changes societies
Analyses how a technological change reshaped work, cities and family life, and who won and lost.
🧭 Study & Life Skills
A study system that survives high school
Uses spaced retrieval, self-testing and a real revision schedule rather than cramming.
Sleep, stress and actually functioning
Protects sleep, recognises stress signals, and has a strategy that isn't avoidance.
What you will have in June
- Attendance — days and instructional hours, derived from work actually finished.
- Report cards — one a quarter, with the level each strand started and ended at.
- A portfolio — finished work, collected as it happens rather than assembled in a panic.
- A reading log — in the app and off it.
We keep records. We do not give legal advice and we never certify compliance — check with your state’s department of education.
When to ask for help
- Cannot interpret slope as a rate of change by June — this makes Algebra I very hard.
- Exponent and negative-number errors persist across every topic.
- Essays remain quote-heavy with almost no analysis, despite feedback.
- Consistently under six or seven hours of sleep, with the resulting drop treated as an attitude problem.
- Withdrawal from school work alongside mood change — treat this as wellbeing first, and ask for help early.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many hours a day is 8th Grade homeschool?
We default to three hours a day across 180 school days, and you can set it anywhere from one to five. At this age Thirty-five to forty minutes, self-directed. The most useful question you can ask this year is "what does that number mean in the situation?"
What if my child is ahead or behind in one subject?
Each of the six strands has its own level. A child can do this grade in reading and the one below in maths without any of it being a workaround — that is the normal case here, not an exception.
What records will I have at the end of 8th Grade?
Attendance in days and instructional hours, a report card per quarter, a portfolio of finished work, and a reading log. From Grade 9 there is also a parent-issued transcript with credits and GPA.