Welcome to our fifth grade year. Each year I am eager to start our new school year and our new material. I am sure I am more excited than my fifth grader. We do enjoy a Summer vacation with a little reading here and there. At the end of summer I am ready to get back to routines. I know my son would prefer to live free and in the wild. I do take this into consideration when planning our days and field trips.
The below synopsis is the curriculum we will be using for the 2019-2020 school year. Before I purchased this year’s books I conducted, as all us homeschool moms do, a lot of research, and picked what I thought would work best for our family, my son’s learning style and our goals this year.
Our school week is a five day week schedule. Friday’s are reserved for our our weekly Spelling Test. We also cover the weeks Science curriculum. This includes reading the material, review questions, science videos and the experiments. Since our week is full we also work on our cooking and crafts from our History material (more below).
Math Saxon Math 6/7 We have been using Saxon Math since Kindergarten. This year we will be using the updated Homeschool Version of the text. It follows along the same Saxon format. It does get redundant so practice only includes the odd numbered problems.
Writing We will be using the Institute in Excellence Writing/Following Narnia. This is all new for us this year. I do understand it is an excellent program and I am looking forward to learning more about it as we make our way through the Narnia books.
History Last year was our first year using Susan Wise Bauer’s History of the World Series. We started with Vol 1. Ancient History. This is designed as a read aloud. My son read it like a reader. It worked great for us. My then, forth grader sat and read with interest and curiosity. He looked forward to reading it and doing the fun activity book. He retained quite a bit and was able to relate many of the stories to his Sunday School Lessons. I was very pleased with Volume 1 and anticipate being equally pleased with History of the World Volume 2 Middle Ages. We typically cover a chapter a day, three days a week. This includes review questions, dictation and mapping. We save the crafts and recipes for Fridays.
History Activity Workbook History of the World Volume 2 Middle Ages.
Grammar We are using Susan Wise Bauer’s Grammar this year. What I really like about this choice of Grammar is that the Teacher’s Manuel and Student Guide are written to cover 5th Grade through 8th Grade. You just start with a new workbook each year. We started with purple. This should be interesting, we will be diagramming sentences. I was not taught this skill when I was a child so I am looking forward to learning right along side my 5th grader this year. Teacher’s Manuel The Core Material Two other books to consider are the Grammar Guide Book and the Diagramming Dictionary. The way this is set up is that you use all of the books through middle school, you only need to get a new workbook each year.
Science We will be using several science books this year along with a building molecules kit.
Usborne Science and Technology I have had a really hard time settling on curriculum for Science. This year I think I am going to piece mill my material together. I ordered the Usborne Science and Technology soft cover book. I am already very pleased with it. It has internet links to videos and review questions. Not a whole lot of fluff just cold hard science. There are also many science experiments. This book will be the basis for our science studies this year. But I will be supplementing with many of the books listed below.
Making Science. This is a great resource material with a lot of theory. I wish it would have had curriculum included.
Molecules Building Kit I feel like this is a must for understanding molecules. We are still waiting on ours so I will update once it arrives.
Elements and Molecules written by Theodore Gray. These books are supplements for our science studies this year. They both have beautiful pictures and great information I would certainly recommend these as references that will come in handy through middle school and high school.
Usborne Children’s Encyclopedia This is our first Usborne Encyclopedia. I found my son picking it up and reading it on his own. He was interested in the quick interesting facts. Another good reference with internet links.
German. We do dabble a little in German. We were lucky enough to borrow a set of Rossetta Stone German Lessons. The set included disks and headphone along with microphones. It seems anymore you have to pay for an on-line subscription. I like to have something tangible that we can review from time to time when needed. It looks like you can buy access to a lifetime subscription to their dictionary and grammar guide on amazon.
OUR MORNING BASKET This year we are going to have a slow quiet morning time to give our engines some time to warm up before we jump into our day. This will include Shakespeare, Critical Thinking, Art and Art History along with scripture handwriting and memorizing
Strings Straight Edge and Shadow We will start this book during second quarter. The goal being to read a chapter twice a week. I think this will hold his interest.
How to teach your child Shakespeare We will be learning Shakespeare this year. This book is great. It breaks up verses and shows you how to teach your child. I am really looking forward to this. We will supplement books here and there about Shakespeare. It is also interesting to find out that the reason Shakespeare is credited for such a grand understanding of human nature in his characters is his undisputed knowledge of the bible.
Art History I will be using this one as a reference book…basically to help me teach.
Picasso One Liners This is another fun one I am looking forward to. I think first we will review the pictures. Then we will trace them, try to redraw them and draw many of our own.
The Young Peacemaker We have been using this book for the last year. It is a great way to teach conflict resolution in God’s way. It breaks biblical lessons and relates them to children to teach children to grow god’s way and not their own way. It has role playing and short stories to illustrate each lesson. I have been very pleased with the concepts taught in this book.
Building Thinking Skills Book 3 Figural This is our beginning point for critical thinking and logic. It should be a fun activity. At least that is my hope. Since it is Figural there are Figures and mind benders. I think it is a good starting point for us.
Handwriting and Scripture Through handwriting exercises we will be learning a scripture a week. Looking forward to this material.
Mindful Kids This is a stack of cards with activities and techniques for calming nerves and reassuring a peaceful mind set. Sometimes we need a little of this at our house. Keeping that in mind a couple other books I would recommend if you have a sensitive child are “The Highly Sensitive Child”, “The Strong Sensitive Boy” and “The Simple Guide to Sensitive Boys.” There are many more out there to read on this issue. I found these three useful and helpful.
