Fifth grade ready!

The count down to school has started!  I have two more weeks until my classes start and the girls will start the week after that!  Last years materials have been removed and file boxes are stuffed with new materials!
 

 So here is what Merry has to look forward to:

Plans:

I'm trying something new this year with two sets of lesson plans.  The first is for Merry.  It contains a general idea of which books or lessons we will be doing on each day.  She will be able to tell at a glance which subjects we will be doing.

The second is for me.  Each day has its own page and each page has a complete list of the day's assignments.  I'm really hoping this helps me to stay on top of things, because it was a ton of work.  The reasoning behind two planners is Merry will know what to expect each day with out being overwhelmed by the longer list.

History:

 

History will be the only joint subject for the girls this year.  They will be studying American history using "America the Beautiful" from the Notgrass company.  The curriculum is heavily influenced by the religious stand point of the author in how the material is presented (chapters about geographical features are titled, "God Created...") but they don't appear to be heavily bias in the history.  History has been a hard subject for me.  I'm better at finding what I don't like than what I do.  But I'm optimistic that we may have found a good fit.

 

Along with the history text Merry will be reading though the American Girl historical fictions. These books really show how the facts of history influenced the lives of those living in the different time periods.  Also history is about more than dates. Fashion, technology, industry,  food, education, and entertainment all are a part of history and I'm hoping the fictional books about girls her age will really highlight this for Merry.

Science:

Science this year is a bit of a repeat from two years ago.  We decided to go with the same text book as we used when we tried a co-op.  The difference is this year we won't have a second science book and Merry will be using the journal.  Age wise I think the concepts will be easier for her to understand this year.

Math:

It is no secret that I love the "Life of Fred" books.  Merry will be working through "Fractions" and then "Decimals and Percents" next year.  These are the last two books before Pre-Algebra.  The Fred books are great for working at your own pace.  From the beginning we have re-read books that were a bit hard (like when multiplication was introduced) so it is hard to tell if Merry will finish these two books and be ready for pre-algebra or need to go over them a second time next year. 

Along with reading about Fred she will also have daily math.  I found to free printable resources online, a daily math review and math vocabulary cards.  The math review pages are great for test preparation, since Fred has very few problems and most are story problems.  Merry will get exposure to the variety of problems that might show up on tests.

The vocabulary cards are going to help us make math journals.  The idea is we will label a page with the vocabulary term then draw our own illustration to help remember what it means.  This is something new I'm trying so we'll see if it works.

Latin:

Last year Latin seemed to finally click for Merry.  I think not working with her sister was  good thing for her.  The lack of competition and ability to move at her own pace was just what she needed.  So we will continue with "Latin for Children" this year using book two. The DVDs have been a huge help for me.  

We will also keep using "Minimus" as a supplement.  Merry likes to read about the silly little mouse.

Writing:

Our main writing curriculum will be "Writing Strands."  In between lessons I'm hoping to do some mini poetry units.  And we will participating in National Novel Writing Month in November.  I also printed out a grammar workbook I found online.

Spelling:

We will be using "All About Spelling" again this year.  The program is more about phonetics than learning lists of words.  That is both its strong point and its weak point.  The lessons take time, between review and new teaching the can last half hour easily.  And all that time is teacher intensive.  But it is helping me to spell and understand spelling in a way memorizing lists of words never did.  So the good continues to out weigh the amount of time.

There is what Merry has to look forward to next year.  It should be a good one!

"Insta"-replay 110, so much July!

Last month was a busy one:

We had crafting fun at Michael's.

Went to a civil war reenactment with cousins.

Dressed up festively to watch a local Independence Day parade.

Saw one of the best magic/juggling/comedy acts ever, Stunt Bear was awesome.  Kids still aren't sure how he excaped!

Found a way to send love with Gramdma Jackie where ever she goes.

Discovered Pokemon in the real world, which is awesome.

This happened.

Road a bus, it was an adventure for us.

Clogged at the art fair (I'm in the middle.)

Saw how we measured up at the children's museum.

Twinsied with my sister on our last day living in the same state.

Went camping with the Walters family.

Saw a light house.

Hiked 3 miles to the top of humbug mountain only to find the best view was actually at the halfway point, we should have stopped there!

We had blizzards on Miracle Treat Day, an annual tradition.

Drove to Idaho, trip there wasn't too bad.

Saw Kezi, she's quite the puppeteer.

Had fun with the other cousins there.

And brought one of those cousins home for the week!

What a month!