5th Grade Curriculum!

School starts for us on Monday. Brian and I are putting the final touches on our curriculum for Maddie for 5th grade. Since she is starting a new stage according to the classical model of education this has taken some time and effort for us! Now she will have to put in the time and effort as we will be expecting more of her in independent work. So here is our Logic stage, 5th grade curriculum.

This shelf has a lot of our main books. The Well Trained Mind, Handbook of Nature Study, poetry books and Books Children Love are all here along with my log of paperwork sent to the school district and our portfolio for 5th grade. The portfolio is a new idea this year. I think my end of year evaluation will need to be much more detailed starting this year. The portfolio idea I got from here. We are keeping track of books read, curriculum used, education shows watched, field trips taken(Camp Fowler is already in there!) and any big projects completed. I also put a lot of our planning notes in there so everything is in one spot for future reference.

 

 

Most of our curriculum choices come from recommendations in The Well Trained Mind.

 

History

We will be starting the 4 year cycle all over again this year so we are back to the Ancients. Egypt, Greece, Rome etc.. This time however we will be using the Usborne internet linked Encyclopedia of World History. We will probably continue to read The Story of the World but its time to start getting slightly more in depth so it won't be our main source. We are also going to make a timeline starting this year. We are going to use paper that's super long and can be rolled up out of the way when we aren't using it. We had some debate about this because there are so many forms to do a timeline-notebooks, card file, paper down the hall, cards hanging on a string. We finally decided upon the roll it away plan so Maddie can see it as a long line.

 

Geography

Its hard to do geography for the Ancients. We have a historical atlas and will refer to it but Brian has come up with some plans to relate Ancient geography to where things are located today. He will also do some other mapwork and learning to use a compass. Our big reference book for that is The Ultimate Geography and Timeline Guide.

 

English

We finally came to the end of our old program, First Language Lessons and Writing with Ease. It was time to pick something new! We chose Voyages in English from Loyola Press. Normally we try to stick with secular programs but this one looked really good. It has both grammar lessons and writing lessons.
We are also using a book called Outlining. This will help her with note taking in both History and Science. Its an important skill to have so she can get down to the bare facts.
Spelling will be done by me this year. We started a spelling notebook last year for words that Maddie was having trouble spelling and words from her studies. Then I started adding in words from English from the Roots Up and I've seen her spelling get dramatically better. Apparently I should've thrown out the spelling programs long ago but better now than never!
Reading is not a problem at all. We are just going to continue reading together and have her read on her own and discuss the books we've read. In her testing this year she knocked reading right out of the park. All we need to really do there is keep on practicing!

Math
Teaching Textbooks worked really well for us last year. Maddie was able to complete the lessons on her own and came to Brian or me for help when she needed it. It became easier for her to understand and less anxiety ridden for all of us. We aren't changing a thing!
I did however feel that she needed more daily practice. So we are using Xtramath for basic fact practice. We also got Drive Thru Menu Math for a fun money practice.
Finally we added in Life of Fred. I'm not convinced it would be a good math program all on its own but I think as a supplement to help with some of the more difficult topics it will be good. Its written as a story which will appeal to Maddie.

Science and Nature Study
We will be continuing on with Elemental Science, Biology for the Logic Stage. The program is great, everything is planned out for us in advance and we even know what materials we need. The author is a scientist homeschool mom and her daughter is a few years ahead of us. Maddie loves it.
We will be choosing topics and being a bit more formal with Nature Study this year. Last year was a bit of catch as catch can since we started late. Now all 3 of us love that part of school. We will start off with ferns to match her biology topic and go from there.

Latin
I didn't like our Latin program last year. It was difficult for me since I never took Latin myself. This year we found The Big Book of Lively Latin written by a homeschool mom for other moms who never took Latin. It has some print material and some online. It also includes some history. I think it will work very well.

Logic
Oh fun...the logic stage means we are introducing logic in preparation for rhetoric in high school. So we have to start doing some critical thinking activities. I am not sure how well any of us will do with this at all. Brian and I looked at the book I got for Maddie and went a bit cross eyed! Mind Benders is the name of the book from the Critical Thinking Company. Fortunately I got a deal through the Homeschool Buyers Co-op so we haven't invested much! We will see how it goes.

Art and Music
We are going to spend the first half of the year with Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. The second half of the year we will use Watercolor for the Artistically Undiscovered. I had to hide that book because Maddie wanted to get into it right away.
The Story of the Orchestra will be our music study. Brian is also going to try and learn guitar with Maddie. We have a lot of how to books about guitar and both of them are interested.

We are also practicing handwriting (both print and cursive) and learning to type. She has a lot of writing ahead of her this year!! I think we are in for a lot of fun and lots of new ideas. Here we come 5th grade!!!