I tried not to over do the amount of subjects or studies expected to cover. I have found in the past we try to do too much and wind up either rushing through things or dropping them altogether (meaning we waisted money). We will be doing the main subjects just not adding extra studies to these: Math, English, Science and History plus some Bible. I am hoping the Home School Assistance Program will continue with weekly German because we dropped Latin.
I spent countless hours trying to find a reading list I knew Em would enjoy as well as get lots from but they all fell short. Too many dry history readers or over the top emotional books. Trust me an 11 yr old girl has enough emotional angst just by being pubescent why add to the daily drama. So I opted for a few historical reads and the rest were picked from a vast study of youth books. I tried to cover a variety of genres too.
History Readers:
Readers:
Read Alouds:
Math this year will be with Saxon. Life of Fred has made Emma go from mathematically challenged to testing into the Saxon 7/6 book. I looked through several math curriculums but Saxon looked to be the best fit, number one was constant review. Emma forgets math concepts quickly but with Saxon will keep everything fresh. Another reason I chose Saxon, it is written so the student can be independent. They encourage hands off from parents/teachers. The book even has the lesson number on how to do the problems when reviewing. So if your child cannot remember how to find the GCF, the problem has the lesson number GCF was taught so the student can flip back and refresh their memory. We both like the idea of mom being hands off. Which is surprising since onlt two years ago I was not allowed to leave the room when she was working math...tanks to LOF, she feels confident in her math abilities. Yay LOF!
For English we will use a workbook for Grammar skills. Nothing real time consuming. I just wanted something to keep the grammar fresh. Next year we will do a greater in depth study using Saxon Grammar. Writing will be with Wordsmith. This is an easy curriculum to use. The Teachers Guide has a schedule plus some extras that make it worth the purchase. Wordsmith gets the student writing in small chunks but then polishes the writing and produced quality pieces.
Emma has been wanting to learn code so I found this book at an Usborne party. She started it at the end of 5th grade and was enjoying it. We will finish this and then go farther if she still is interested. There are sone great ideas on AirSkull's blog (a great blog).
Science will focus on Botany this year. Botany in 8 Lessons was a great find. It takes the subject of botany and presents it in such a way a tween will not feel is being talked down to (Apologia Botany has this feel for the older student). It starts off with the chemistry and microscopy of botany and goes from there. Activities and labs that look engaging. We will add in notebooking, nature journaling, a flower study, plus several library books to complete the botany course.
(Science in the Scientific Revolution will be discussed more when I do a blog on our History study)
(History will be Renaissance and Reformation, but I will be devoting a whole blog to this. I will say we will be using Homeschool in the Woods Passport to History series Renaissance and Reformation CD. We love this series and it deserves it's own piece.)
Emma will continue Piano and Home School Assist activities to round out her 6th grade year.
