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This week, I’m sharing my curriculum and book choices for the upcoming year. Each day will focus on selections for one of my five homeschoolers. Today’s selections are for John Mark, my rising 6th grader. John Mark will be in his fifth year of Foundations and his second of Essentials. This is his second trip through American history, and one I hope to use to add greater depth to his understanding of not only the world in which he lives, but his role and responsibilities in it. John Mark’s learning is filtered through the lens of dyslexia, dyscalculia, and dysgraphia, challenges he’s learning to turn into strengths. He enjoys history and science the most, but really, he doesn’t dislike any strand of learning. John Mark is an eager student and is ready to begin asserting ownership over many areas of his own education, which is a hallmark of our homeschool during the middle school years.
Foundations— John Mark will be in an Enhanced Masters class this year, with me as his tutor for the third year in a row. It will be my first year tutoring at this level, but I’m excited to see how last year’s class rises to the challenge of leading all of the memory work and putting a larger focus on their presentations. That will be a stretch for John Mark, and I’m expecting a lot of time will be invested in presentations this year. To help him see a weekly overview, manage his time, and stay on track, I’ll be using a fabulous planner by a fellow CC mom who blogs at Grace For This Mom. Also, we progress through our weekly memory work, we’ll be using my CC Morning Basket Plans together, as a family.
Math—For math, I’ll be moving John Mark back to Teaching Textbooks. Last year, after finishing his Teaching Textbooks course, he switched to CTC Math with the rest of my kids, but it has not been a good fit. CTC Math doesn’t use commas in large numbers— and commas are a “mile marker” for dysgraphic kids as they wrangle with place value. In addition, the way questions are phrased often trip him up, even when the math itself doesn’t. Since he puts so much effort into the actual computation and and logic side of math, a language layer he has to aggressively decode seems like too much to ask.
I also assign living books for math for kids. This year, John Mark will take leisurely strolls through A Piece of the Mountain: The Story of Blaise Pascal (by Joyce McPherson) and The Ocean of Truth: The Story of Sir Isaac Newton (also Joyce McPherson) as he learns to appreciate not just numbers, but the bigger picture of mathematical thought.
Latin—The Lord has blessed me, and my husband will be directing Challenge A this fall, meaning that I will have an in-house tutor for the foreseeable future! Since Latin is a new language for my husband as well, he will join John Mark in working through the highly recommended Henle Prep Vol. 1 & vol. 2 this upcoming year.
Science— After looking and looking for a science curriculum that fit my Charlotte Mason approach and also had solid reviews, I despaired and actually sat down to write my own. Three weeks in, I discovered Learning With Friends 20/21 Science School Year Pack and was hooked. Combining the solid instruction and experiments included in these super easy to use guides— which are so well-written I feel like I’ve won the lottery here, to be honest— with weekly tutorial videos for me and a support page for questions is even more than I could have dreamed of finding. Also, they’re completely aligned with CC’s Cycle 3 and written by fellow CC moms! All that’s missing from my perfect CM living science curriculum are the books. For John Mark, I selected Medicine (Great Lives series) (by Robert H. Curtis),and Mystery of the Periodic Table (by Jeanne Bendick, Benjamin Wiker, and Ted Schleudenfritz). We’ll use our trusted Nature Anatomy (by Julia Rothman) as we end the year and as we do nature study throughout!
History— I intended to use a classic children’s history as a spine this year, but in the end am selecting chapters from Genevieve Foster’s The World of Columbus and Sons, George Washington’s World, and Abraham Lincoln’s World as well as The Landmark History of the American People (by Daniel J. Boorstin). From there I have so much excellent historical literature, which I’ll outline in a later post.
John Mark’s specific independent history readers this year will be:
Pedro’s Journal (by Pam Conrad)
Naya Nuki: Shoshoni Girl Who Ran (by Kenneth Thomasma)
Poor Richard (by James Daugherty)
Daniel Boone (by James Daugherty)
Of Courage Undaunted (by James Daugherty)
Diary of an Early American Boy: Noah Blake 1805 (Eric Sloane)
Henry David Thoreau (by James Daugherty)
The Story of Eli Whitney (by Jean Lee Latham)
The Boy’s War: Confederate and Union Soldiers Talk About the Civil War (by Jim Murphy)
The Panama Canal (by Bob Considine)
Years of Dust: The Story of the Dust Bowl (by Albert Marrin)
Geography—This year, we’ll use Geography Through Literature by Beautiful Feet to study the United States and its features. I’ve done this study once before, and it’s fantastic. Highly, highly recommended!
Bible— John Mark will continue developing his own personal reading study habits by using The One Year Bible for Kids each day. After each reading, he’ll consult The Victor Journey Through the Bible (by V. Gilbert Beers) and journal whatever the Lord is speaking to his heart.
English— Last year, I found some fabulous weekly worksbooks on CC Connected that lead students deeper into the weekly Essentials work. (They are by user wandagg.) We’ll be using those again, and following the program fairly closely otherwise. I feel like the weekly papers plus the extra expectations in presentations will give John Mark plenty of practice with his skills.
Music—Weekly cello lessons and daily practice will continue on as usual, but we’re unsure as to the future of the youth orchestra or our participation thanks to Covid. John Mark began piano in the midst of lockdown via Hoffman Academy, and we plan on continuing that as well.
Tomorrow, I’ll share my curriculum plan for Birdie, a rising 5th grader.
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