Thursday, November 26, 2015

6th Grade Curriculum - Index of Posts

Here is a list of posts about what curriculum we are using for 6th grade:

6th Grade Science - Botany, Anatomy & Zoology

For 6th grade science, we will be doing block studies of botany, anatomy and zoology.  We have several science encyclopedias and will use them as references and we have the 2014 World Book on DVD.


Our main book for botany is Usborne's World of Plants and then we will also reference our DK Nature Encyclopedia.  I have a few books on botany and a guide for Washington state plants/trees.  She will be doing activities/labs from ideas I find online or in a library book that pertains to what she is studying that week and a terrarium.



For zoology, we will be using various encyclopedias and some animal encyclopedias we own.  We have many books on different animals, insects and classification.  She will be doing activities/labs about animals that involve the microscope and a frog (plastic) dissection kit. (no books pictured)


Anatomy will be taught from our Scholastic Human Body Encyclopedia, DK Human Body Encyclopedia (this has graphic images) and combined with other books we own.  We will also be using the My Incredible Body PC program, optical science kit and anatomy coloring book.








For all the science topics we will be studying, I will be giving worksheets from Science Essentials Grades 5-6, it also includes some activities/labs.  I will also be using some free things from the internet to flesh out our studies.


Sunday, June 14, 2015

K'nex Education - Blender

Another awesome physics project from the Gears set!

Wednesday, May 27, 2015

Narration With Minecraft

K isn't a big fan of history and it is the one subject that she isn't too enthused about writing a narration for.  I had her evaluated and we were told her writing was advanced, so that isn't the problem - the problem is interest with history.  We were given ideas of doing history narrations a different way - acting them out, drawing them, typing them, etc. but then the idea of creating them on Minecraft came up and well - K was sold!

She did her first history narration on Minecraft today and it was awesome!  She read a section in Story of the World 4 from chapter 11 about Australia.  She told me a bit about what it was about and then she did her Minecraft creations.

The first one is the map of what Australia was at that time, the next 2 creations are easy to understand by reading her signs.




Saturday, March 21, 2015

K'nex Education - Car Window Crank

K built her 2nd physics project - a car window crank.  She didn't understand it at first and I had to explain to her that we used to have to crank up the window manually.  She was shocked that we had to do such "hard" things - yep, pushing a button these days is pretty easy!  Let's not forget the days of hard things...


Monday, March 9, 2015

Organizing Homeschool Books by Subject or Category

We have accumulated a lot of science, history or other books that pertain to homeschool topics and I wanted them organized even more than just grouped by science or history, etc.  I wanted to split my science up into several fields and here are the ones we did: anatomy, botany, physics, chemistry, farms, earth science, astronomy, zoology and insects. 

I couldn't find any affordable dividers, so I made my own with colorful cards but I do want to eventually make some that are sturdier; something like poster board.  I also did the few language-related books we have, math, government services and geography.  I've yet to do the history shelf but when I do, I want to divide it up into time periods; ancient, medieval, etc.


Saturday, March 7, 2015

6th Grade History

K has already completed a study of history from ancient times to modern, so she will be starting the chronological cycle all over again.

For 6th grade history, K is going to start at the beginning again with Ancient History up until 1400.  We have all 3 volumes of Human Odyssey and that is what she will be using for 6th, 7th and 8th grade history and we will weave in Notgrass American history throughout the years to meet requirements.  The first book is Volume 1 The Human Odyssey; Prehistory Through the Middle Ages.


We have many resources that we own to help her in her studies.  We have timelines, encyclopedias, primary resources, atlases, Uncle Josh's outline maps CD and other various books to read.  I took a picture of some of what we have that she will be using along with her studies.  K will also be reading from a book list for literature on correlating topics, you can see it here: http://www.cambridgeshireacademy.com/2016/07/6th-grade-ancient-history-book-list.html.




6th Grade Math, Logic and Bible

In Math, K will be finishing up Saxon Math 6/5 and starting 7/6 mid-year hopefully.  We use Saxon Teacher and love, love, love it!!


For Logic, K will be finishing up Building Thinking Skills 3 and starting with Critical Thinking Book One and then work her way into Critical Thinking Book Two.


Our Bible program is the same and we are continuing on with Memoria Press Christian Studies Book III after we finish the second book.  K also reads the Bible on her own and memorizes scriptures.

6th Grade Language Arts - English, Latin, Reading, Writing, Spelling

For English, we are still in Rod and Staff English 5 but continuing on with R&S English 6 - we love this curriculum!  It also teaches writing, so we don't need a separate curriculum for writing.


In Spelling, we are finishing up the All About Spelling series with the last two books, AAS 6 & 7.  K will also be doing Spelling Workout E & F and possibly G & H.  Since we have been doing AAS, Spelling Workout is really just extra practice for her and she has been going through a lesson faster since we returned to it recently as an extra.





K is still doing Latina Christiana I since we took off time from Latin to focus on the main subjects while I was having health issues.  She will continue on with Latina Christiana II using the DVD teacher.


Reading for us is not a curriculum, it is a book list.  I plan on listing her 6th grade book list in another post, which I will link to here (if I remember!).  She will be reading books that correlate with Ancient History.  She writes full-page narrations after she reads each book and also reads in the evening.

Thursday, February 12, 2015

K'nex Simple Machines Gears - Crank Fan

K is really enjoying physics and one of the recent projects she made was an crank fan from the K'nex Simple Machines Gears Kit.  She was so excited to start the kit and at first, the parts weren't fitting but she realized after going back over the directions, that she put something in the wrong place.  She was so excited to complete her fan and she learned so much about gears!


I highly recommend the kit, there are a total of 7 projects to build:  crank fan, car window, blender, phonograph, eggbeater, stationary bike and chainsaw.

Friday, January 16, 2015

Completed 4th Grade Reading List

Here are the books that K read this past year for 4rd grade and also the read-alouds we read to her.

I was pretty lenient this year for the evening reading, so she only read 2 on the list.  However, she read a lot of books on her own at night AND listens to audiobooks just about everyday that she chose but I don't keep a record of those.

Independent Morning Reading
  1. A Child's Garden of Verses - Stevenson 
  2. Kidnapped - Stepping Stone series
  3. Treasure Island - Audio by Jim Weiss
  4. Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde - Stepping Stone series
  5. Mysteries of Sherlock Holmes - Stepping Stone series
  6. Heidi - Spyri
  7. Pinocchio - Classic Starts 
  8. War of the Worlds - Stepping Stone series
  9. The Time Machine - Classic Starts 
  10. Little Women - Stepping Stone series
  11. Little Men - Classic Starts
  12. Blue, Orange or Lilac Fairy Books - Lang 
  13. Secret Garden - Audio 
  14. The Little Princess - Audio 
  15. The Wind in the Willows - Grahame 
  16. Peter Pan - Classic Starts 
  17. How the Camel Got His Hump - Kipling 
  18. The Jungle Book - Stepping Stone series 
  19. Rikki-Tikki-Tavi - Kipling 
  20. Just So Stories - Kipling; Audio 
  21. Laura Ingalls Wilder - all the novels
  22. Beatrix Potter Tales
  23. Walter de la Mare - poems 
  24. Poetry for Young People - Sandberg 
  25. You Read To Me, I'll Read To You - Ciardi
  26. Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats - Eliot 
  27. Charlotte Bronte and Jane Eyre - Ross
  28. Jane Eyre -Stepping Stone series
  29. Frankenstein - Stepping Stone series
  30. Phantom of the Opera - Stepping Stone series
Evening "Fun" Reading
  1. The Family Under the Bridge
  2. The Moffats
Family Read-Alouds
  1. To Swim In Our Pond - Vietnamese proverbs
  2. South Korea - True books
  3. North Korea - True books
  4. Far Beyond the Garden Gate - Brown
  5. Beijing - Platt
  6. All the Way to Lhasa - Berger
  7. A Picture Book of Daniel Boone - Adler
  8. If You Grew Up With George Washington - Gross
  9. Betsy Ross and the Silver Thimble - Greene
  10. Can't You Make Them Behave King George - Fritz
  11. Boston Tea Party - Freedman
  12. And Then What Happened Paul Revere - Fritz
  13. Kids At Work - Freedman (just looked at pictures)
  14. Cotton Mill Town - Hershey
  15. The Story of an English Village - Goodall
  16. The Bobbin Girl - McCully
  17. Redoute: The Man Who Painted Flowers - Croll
  18. Life On a Plantation - Kalman
  19. Cotton Mill Town - Hershey
  20. How We Crossed the West: The Adventures of Lewis & Clark - Schanzer
  21. Swamp Angel - Isaacs
  22. The Lewis and Clark Expedition - A True Book - Perritano
  23. Working Cotton - Williams
  24. A Visit to William Blake's Inn - Willard
  25. Please, Malese!  A Trickster Tale from Haiti - MacDonald
  26. The Miracle of the First Poinsettia: A Mexican Christmas Story - Oppenheim
  27. Ruby's Wish - Bridges
  28. Striking It Rich: The Story of the California Gold Rush - Krensky

5th Grade History and Literature Read-Aloud List

Some of these are family read-a-louds and some are extra independent reading for K that pertain to what she is studying in history.  They are either factual books or literature.

*These books go along with Story of the World Volume 4

  1.  The Visual Dictionary of the Civil War - DK
  2.  Life in the West - True book
  3.  Wild West - DK
  4.  Korean Children's Favorite Stories - Kim
  5.  Wagon Train: A Family Goes West in 1865 - Wright
  6.  World War I - DK
  7.  The Great Migration: An American Story - Lawrence
  8.  Theodore Roosevelt: The Adventurous President - TIME
  9.  Kids During the Great Depression - Wroble
  10.  The 1900s Decade in Photos - Corrigan
  11.  Stubby the War Dog - Bausum
  12.  Old Yeller - Gipson
  13.  Who is Anne Frank - Abramson
  14.