Our 6th Grade Curriculum

It seems like each year as I'm pulling together our curriculum picks for the next year I have the hardest time settling on materials for my middle son.

I thought that at some point on this journey it would get easier; especially now that he's older and able to pick out most of it himself, but that's just not the case.

Like me he keeps searching for the perfect materials only to be disappointed when he can't find them. We have, however, found some pretty good compromises for the upcoming year and I hope he is as excited as I am to dig into these new books.

Spelling:  Alec has enjoyed using the Evan- Moor Building Spelling Skills workbook so much this year that we're keeping this and just moving him up to the 5th grade level and we'll probably tie into the 6th grade level at some point too so he'll be pretty close to ending the year on grade level.

Grammar: Alec will continue learning grammar alongside Ian so they'll be using the Grammar Workbook.

Writing:  Alec will be mixing in many things for his writing practice this year.  We'll continue using Draw Write Now books, move onto Pictures in Cursive Book B (he just LOVES this series that combines cursive and works of art), and sprinkle in some lessons from Mastering Writing.

Math: Alec made it part way through his school year before abandoning his book altogether and settling down with Khan Academy each day.  He likes it and so we'll keep on using the on-line resource for him.  There are days he gets very frustrated though and so I like to have a few books to turn to.  We'll continue working in Introductory Geometry, Multiplication games and challenge him to complete a minute review of random facts each day with Sixth Grade math Minutes.

Reading: I'd be lying if I said I planned his reading curriculum at all.  Alec is an avid reader and often has multiple chapter books going at once with random non- fiction picture books sprinkled throughout.  Mostly I'll just be trying to keep up with him in keeping tabs on all that he's reading and all the books he'll ask me to request through our library as the year goes on.

Geography: We're going to try and focus a bit more on the 50 states this year; trying to cover each state as a family while working out of the United States Thinking Tree Journal.  Though, as always, my boys are free to pursue learning about any area of geography that they are interested in and I won't hold them to this.

History: We're trying to come up with a few topics that all the boys might be interested in learning about together.  Right now we're thinking of spending a month or so learning about the civil rights movement.  From there we'll see where their interests take us!

Science: My boys LOVE science; so much so that I feel like I have run out of experiment and topic ideas so we'll be using Ian's 8th grade Science By the Grade to guide us.  Mostly we just focus on the experiments and discussions and discard all the book work.  Alec may choose to continue spending his 6th grade year devouring books about animals and food chains and that's fine too.

Art: Alec loves art in all it's forms and while we never follow a curriculum I do have some plans for next year.  I'd love to introduce drawing and shading with charcoal, some simple sewing projects making his own stuffed animals, and even inviting him to paint with me in my craft room using oil paints.