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.

K'nex Education - Blender

Another awesome physics project from the Gears set!

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.

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...

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.

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.

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.

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.  

Our Growing Educational Books

I like having books on a variety of topics available for my kids, so when they have a yearning for a certain subject, chances are we will have a book on it!  If not, they can use the World Book encyclopedia DVD we bought, which contains all of the encyclopedias on one disk!  My daughter has really enjoyed looking up things in the encyclopedia and I'm glad we purchased the DVD because it takes up less space than an entire set would on the shelf!

Most of the extra books I have are on history and science topics, so we dedicated a shelf to each.  This is our history-related bookshelf but it does include some geography books on states as well:

This is our science bookshelf, which is so full, we had to put some on another shelf:

The last shelf is full of miscellaneous things from geography to math:

I buy a lot of our books from Scholastic and more than half were FREE!  We have what we call "Scholastic Time" and my daughter reads for an hour from any of the books on these shelves.  She always comes away really excited with what she has learned.  My son, even though he is just 2, has already enjoyed several of the books, like the pop-up Presidents and Magic School bus books.

5th Grade Curriculum Index of Posts

Here is an index of posts of what we are using for 5th grade:

• Bible, Logic and Foreign Language
• Math, Writing, English and Spelling
• History and Science

5th Grade History & Science

For history we have took our time and are just now getting to Story of the World Volume 4.  I don't regret it though because we have read a LOT of extra books on all the different historical topics and it has been enjoyable.  I have some extra activities to go with this time of history, like a Civil War fun pack but didn't picture those.  We also plan on adding in a state history study and learning the states and capitals this year.

Science is one of those neglected subjects in our house but we finally made it to the last subject to complete our full-science learning - physics! We are using Elemental Science Physics that includes the Usborne encyclopedia, 2 biography books and some others pictured.  We are using K'nex Gears kit and Snap Circuits Lights as well.

5th Grade Math, Writing, English & Spelling

K is almost finished with Saxon Math 5/4 and will go right on to Saxon Math 6/5 by February and will most likely finish it before 6th grade.  I don't teach math, she loves using the Saxon Teacher and it has been working great for her! 

For writing, most of it is included in our English curriculum and she also writes a lot in history, science and reading but I may also add in Writing Strands Level 3.  For English (grammar), we are using Rod & Staff's English 5 Following the Plan. 

For spelling, we were going to go on to Spelling Workout D and finish it up but decided to buy the next level of All About Spelling - so we are finishing up All About Spelling Level 6 and then also doing Level 7.  Level 7 is high school level but K is ready for it and she loves this spelling program!  I haven't ordered Level 7 yet, so it isn't pictured.

5th Grade Bible, Logic and Foreign Language

For Bible, we are in the middle of Christian Studies II and may make it to the 3rd book before 5th grade ends, but I decided to plan the 3rd one for 6th grade. 

A new subject for 5th grade is Logic and we chose to go with a game, Building Thinking Skills Level 2, to ease K in to adding on another subject and she loves it! 

K is in her 2nd program for Latin - Latina Christiana I and then she is also adding in Spanish this year with La Clase Divertida Level 1.  I added Ludere Latine games that go along with the lessons in Latina Christiana I.

My Picks for Best Elementary Curriculum

I can't believe we have finished the grammar stage!  It went really fast and there was a lot of needless worry as elementary was really easy and nothing to stress over.  I can say that LOOKING BACK but during it, I didn't always have the proper picture in my mind.

I decided to list the best curriculum, my favorites and also ones I disliked.  I plan on using mostly the same curriculum with my son because they work and they produced what I was hoping for and even more than that with my daughter.  I feel she is well-prepared for the logic stage curriculum.

Best Elementary Curriculum

1. Story of the World - hands down this is the BEST history curriculum!  We used it along with the activity guide and used the reading lists for each week for read-alouds.  We took so much time with these books that we still have the last book to do.  I can't wait to do this history with my son!  We also have the audio for each book and listen to them on long road-trips.  
2. Saxon Math - it has a gentle introduction and builds the foundation very well with constant review, so the child doesn't forget concepts.  K loved this up until the 5/4 book where it got difficult but she is very good at math regardless.  We plan on staying with Saxon until Calculus and most Saxon users get high SAT scores in math, so it is a winner!
3. First Language Lessons - this is probably the BEST curriculum of all that we used in elementary.  This grammar program has 4 books and uses a gentle introduction and constant review that really cements grammar into the child.  We are almost done with the last book and my daughter can diagram a sentence fast!
4. All About Spelling - this curriculum works but is very teacher-intensive.  My daughter loves it and we are completing the 6th level by the end of January hopefully.  She had issues with spelling and once we began this program, she had immediate results.
5. Prima Latina - awesome introduction to Latin!  My daughter loved this and is using the next book (Latina Christiana I) and loving that as well.  We used the DVD teacher.
6. Golden Children's Bible - not a curriculum but what we used for 1st and 2nd grade.  I started reading to my daughter but she ended up finishing the book by 2nd grade on her own.  Good overview of the bible and aligns with the KJV.
7. Memoria Press' Christian Studies - best bible curriculum that is thorough and doesn't jump around but rather follows a mostly chronological sequence.  I would wait until 3rd grade before starting the first book.  This will continue on into middle school or the logic stage.

My Favorites

1. First Language Lessons - love, love, love this grammar!!
2. Story of the World - can't say enough about this history, the best and something we can refer back to in years to come.
3. Golden Children's Bible - best children's bible in my opinion as it is the only one I could find aligned with the KJV.  (We used Zondervan's The Beginner's Bible for Kindergarten)

They Worked but I Disliked Teaching Them

• Writing With Ease - I did not like this curriculum at all BUT I have to say it did work.  My daughter was able to do narration very well using this program and learned proper sentence structure.  It is the one curriculum that made us BOTH cry many, many times!  I'm not entirely sure I will use it with my son as we didn't even finish the 3rd book because we could not take the long dictation anymore.
• All About Spelling - my daughter loved this program but I hated it because it was so teacher intensive!  Definitely works but made me cringe every time we had to do it.  I would have quit this program had my daughter not loved it so much and did so well with it.
• Saxon Math - again, daughter loved it and it works perfectly but I hated teaching it.  However, with the 5/4 book, we used the Saxon Teacher CD and this made me love it as I didn't have to teach it!  I would have hated ANY math program though because I just despise math.

Our Family Chunk Clock

I listened to a wonderful seminar from The Homeschool Coach, Mary Ann Johnson, on Hecoa's free Not-Back-to-School Summit about the family chunk clock.  It was so amazing, I watched it again and took a LOT of notes and then also listened to the audio and printed out the handouts to make ours.  My daughter K has voiced to me before that she feels like she doesn't know what is next each day.  I knew that this would not only benefit me, but especially her!

How it works is, you divide your day up into chunks of things you do.  If there are days where things come up, someone gets sick, etc. (and they will!) this chunk clock helps you see a visual of what is important to finish that day, what you can skip and to help you refocus when you get off track.  You can listen to the audio on her website, just google the homeschool coach and family chunk clock.

We wanted a catchy funny name for our clock instead of the generic -- Family Chunk Clock, so we came up with "Got Chunks?" LOL! 

You may be wondering what is up with the weird names on each chunk.  Well, my daughter created each of those names to add some FUN to our chunk clock!  Here are the why's of each chunk:

• Snore No More - because we are not morning people and we must stop snoozing
• Moddy Time - She took Mo from Mom and ddy from Buddy (my son’s nickname) to show it was for me and Buddy (Z) to have time together.
• Hope Lu - She took Ho from homeschool, pe from P.E. and Lu from lunch!
• Kazm Time - Ka from K, Z is for her brother Z and M from Mom - since this is our time to do individualized things
• Chep Hour - usually 5-6pm, so an hour and she got Ch from chores and ep from prep (dinner).
• Foing Up - Fo from food (dinner) and ing from Washing (dishes)
• Chee - Ch from church and ee from Free(time)
• Spied - Spi from spiritual and ed from bed

I didn't put every detail in our clock (showers, time with husband, etc.) because I wanted to keep it simple and this is our guide to show us our natural flow and/or routine.

This has already helped K KNOW what is next and have a visual of how our day will go.  This also is helping me in the same regards and also to have my priorities highlighted, so I don't lose sight of what is important - God, School and Family!  It will also make a great conversation piece when friends visit!

5th Grade Writing

I shared our 5th Grade curriculum choices in this post and you may have noticed that we do not have a writing curriculum.  We were going to do Writing With Ease 4 but after Susan Wise Bauer's updated recommendations, we decided to forego WWE 4.  We were almost done with Writing With Ease 3 and both of us were really done with the dictations but we kept pressing on through the pain of them.  I ended up giving K the evaluation in the back and she passed with flying colors, so I knew that she was ready to move on.  I also didn't see a need to do the next level because it was just more of the dictation but in paragraph lengths and that made us both cringe!  However, K loves reading the little snippets of stories out of WWE 3, so we may still do those.

So, I knew I wasn't going to do the WWE 4 book but what would I do now for writing for 5th grade?  As I was re-reading the Logic Stage section of The Well Trained Mind, that is when I saw it:

"If you choose to use Rod & Staff, the composition exercises provided can fulfill the middle-grade student's need for a writing program."

I think I heard a choir singing the Hallelujah chorus (in my head of course) - little did I know that we already had our writing covered with our grammar book: Rod & Staff English!  I quickly got it out and saw that it taught outlining, paragraph formation and all that good stuff - awesome!  Then, I also realized that K gets dictation in spelling right now anyway and she will be writing narrations from books she reads and in history and science.  Enough - I have to tell myself that IS enough, she doesn't need a fancy, shiny new writing curriculum - we got the bases covered throughout the curriculum we are using.

I do eventually want to use the Institute for Excellence in Writing's program but for 5th grade we got it covered!