Miss Pink's 5th Grade

Miss Pink is starting to resist school a little more, but for the most part it's still easy to work with her. I can usually trust that she'll get assignments done, even if I don't stand over her shoulder the whole day. We've changed a few things for her this year, but overall we've just moved on to the next level of what she was doing.

Math:  She didn't finish all of Math Mammoth 4 last year, so I had her start this year with Teaching Textbooks 4 and just take the quizzes until she got less than 90%. She's now on Lesson 90 of 119 and will then start Teaching Textbooks 5. I found both on Homeschool Classifieds for great deals. It's my latest favorite site. She's also reading Life of Fred Apples and will go on to the other books in the series soon.

Language Arts: This year we've moved to Rod & Staff's Following the Plan. I do the lesson with her and Mr. Blue. We do a lot of even the written review orally, especially since she broke her finger. We don't have the workbooks or tests, but I'm thinking they'll be a helpful addition. She has continued on with Spelling Workout Level G. I have started having her and Miss Purple write the rules for the day in their new Spelling Notebooks.

History: As I mentioned in Miss Purple's post, we're doing Story of the World Ancient Times. I think I'm going to add the tests in this go round for Miss Pink though.

Science: She's going to the science co-op with Miss Purple and also doing Zoology 2 with her and Mr. Yellow.

Latin: The 3 oldest kids have started First Form Latin. I really like it so far. It's challenging for Miss Pink, but I think she'll do fine. That was another purchase from Homeschool Classifieds.

Art: Miss Pink is going to our little art co-op where they are studying Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain.. Once again, this is a little challenging for her, but the teacher is very patient and kind. I think she'll make it through with wonderful results.

Another successful day notebooking

Today we did our basics and finished up with silent reading of history books. Everyone was reading about FDR today. Afterwards, they each drew a picture and captioned it. They knew they would be notebooking their books, and I believe paid better attention to it than as per usual. So, I think we're going to stick with narration for the foreseeable future.

So Mr. Blue's (age 12) plans for now and the coming year are as follows:

MindBenders- B series I think this is his favorite subject. He pulls out extra to do. He likes me to sit with him while he does it and talk him through it. It's lots of fun for both of us. We may move on to the C Series if he completes this before the end of the school year.

Math Mammoth 5 & 6

He's getting a better grasp on math this year. He's actually enjoying long division. He likes to have competitions with his older sister to see who can work a problem faster.

First Language Lessons 4

I really like this program. I'm adding one small thing this year for all of mine using it, copywork for the grammar rules and definitions. He's a champion at diagramming.

Writing With Ease 4

This is another love of mine. I've found that all of mine who have used this program are able to narrate quite well. They're also better at summarizing than the oldest, who never used WWE. I really appreciated watching Susan Wise Bauer teach her son out of this book.

Of course he also has group subjects, which we'll discuss later. I need to add in handwriting for him, as his italics need a little work.

5th grade plans

So, we're here at the end of the year, but we're going to have to work through the summer to catch up. I'm still trying to figure out what we're doing for her this year, and it helps me so much to write it down. So, here we go...

Math: Math U See Epsilon and Life of Fred Fractions. She loves Life Of Fred, but when she picked up Epsilon last week she told me she liked to do both of them. Epsilon she says explains some things better. So, at her request we're doing both.

Science: Apologia Elementary Astronomy with the 2nd and 3rd grader

History: Story of the World 3 with her brother and sister, along with accompanying reading from the library. We're also managing to do some projects this time. Woo-hoo!

Language: I just ordered Language Arts Through Literature for her yesterday. She really enjoyed the orange one, but I wanted to try something else. Well, we're going to go back to LLATL for this year.

Spelling: Spelling Workout G and H

Latin: Latina Christiana I We've worked through Prima Latina and part of LCI already. However, we need to review the first half of the book, which we're doing now. Then we'll move on to new stuff.

Classical Studies: D'Aulaire's Greek Myths and Study Guide from Memoria Press

Bible for Children I: Just starting this, but the three oldest are doing it together.

Music: Themes to Remember, accompanying books, piano lessons twice a week

Art: We go to art lessons with the sweetest woman. She doesn't charge us anything, not even for the supplies. We meet another family of 5 there as well. It's great fun.

So, that's our year!