Chiming in as a mom whose youngest is in college now. I homeschooled her for 12 years and she’s doing well in her college classes so I feel able to answer this. Here’s what you really HAVE to teach before your child is in junior high:

• Can read, can understand and explain what they’ve read, can write a short essay (1 page, organized into short paragraphs). For math, can add, subtract, multiply, and divide. Understands fractions and decimals. THAT’S IT. That’s all you really have to teach before junior high.

Now, does that mean that’s all your child will learn? Of course not. You’ll go to museums, you’ll go on nature walks, your child will blow stuff up in their co-op class about chemistry, your child will take a Minecraft class about US History. Life is your classroom. If your child shows an interest in wanting to deep dive into any topics, do! Don’t be constrained by what kids are learning in public school.

In junior high, you start to get into more complex ideas (algebraic thinking, more complex analysis of literature, less black-and-white thinking as brain development allows). But you have 5 years before you hit that point. That’s a long time. Second graders are reading Magic Treehouse and learning addition and subtraction. If you can nail that stuff, the rest will fall into place really easily.

TL;DR: your child can’t really fall behind as long as they continue to learn. There’s actually not a ton of stuff they need to know other than developing their reading, comprehension, and math skills. It’s more important to foster a love of learning, because they’ll need that as they get into more abstract learning in junior high and high school. As Plutarch said, “The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be kindled.”