What does this look like for sixth grade?

[Deniseibase]

Trying to sort out in my head if this is gonna work - I THINK I have the final version here, any comments or suggestions? This is a full six hours daily, but I think that's what most sixth graders do, right?

 

Math - about an hour daily. We're having a 'fun' year this year, she is finished with pre-algebra but I want a break before algebra, also I want her to try out AoPS, so we are spending the first 17 weeks of the year doing one chapter each week from Crossing the River With Dogs, and the rest of the year doing AoPS Intro to Number Theory. Mondays she is at her dad's house so I'll just send along some supplements for there, mostly some pre-algebra review to keep it fresh but also some fun stuff like Murderous Maths. Also we will do Building Thinking Skills, a couple pages daily, just for fun.

 

Language Arts - This is our problem area. I'm figuring we'll spend about 2 1/2 hours daily on various language arts. That seems like a lot, but we've been letting writing slide because it's been SO hard to get her to understand it. We're going to start the year doing Sentence Composing for Elementary, about 20 minutes a day worth, for about a month, and then she is going to take a class with a local writing teacher who is purportedly VERY good with reluctant writers, especially kids like her who have engineering brains and don't grasp writing well. Homework for that class I'm guessing will take about 30 minutes daily. Then we'll have about 30 minutes of Saxon Grammar and 10 minutes of Soaring with Spelling. Read aloud time is about 30 minutes, and free choice reading is one hour. So, it's a lot of time, but a lot of it is just reading.

 

Science - we're using Holt Science and Technology Physical Science as a spine and supplementing it with books, DVDs, experiments, and the online worksheets for this book. So, a typical day might be read a few pages, answer 3-4 short questions about what she read, do a worksheet on math related to what we're studying and read a short book or watch Bill Nye. I'm guessing roughly 45 minutes, most days, give or take.

 

History - SOTW4 as a spine, with the review questions, outlines, map work, and a few of the activities from the Activity Guide, but we'll probably do a lot more historical fiction than activities. Again I'm guessing roughly 45 minutes daily.

 

Latin - Latin for Children B, on the 2 week per chapter plan. Most days she will do a page in the book and review vocabulary, writing out any that she has missed.

 

Chinese - with a tutor. She's been having half and hour to an hour daily on the homework, I expect that to stay the same.

[almondbutterandjelly]

This sounds like a LOT to me. If this is a fun year for math, why are you spending an hour a day on it? And isn't Crossing the River with Dogs for high school and college students? Isn't the AOPS book post-algebra, not pre-algebra? These seem like really challenging books, not fun books. Maybe consider Life of Fred instead? It seems more age-appropriate. I do like the Murderous Maths idea.

 

Personally, I would alternate grammar and writing. Spend a week on grammar, then a week on writing, and back to grammar the following week. Especially if it's an area of struggle, it would be a relief to have a break, and also maybe just allow things to "percolate." I would also add in very short copywork assignments every day, just a couple sentences, to be typed or handwritten. It's amazing how helpful copywork can be.

 

Your science seems very ambitious, what you want to complete in a day. I'd split that into a couple days at least.

 

Just some thoughts. Obviously, you know best what would work for your dc.

[Riverland]

This sounds like a LOT to me. If this is a fun year for math, why are you spending an hour a day on it? And isn't Crossing the River with Dogs for high school and college students? Isn't the AOPS book post-algebra, not pre-algebra? These seem like really challenging books, not fun books. Maybe consider Life of Fred instead? It seems more age-appropriate. I do like the Murderous Maths idea.

 

Personally, I would alternate grammar and writing. Spend a week on grammar, then a week on writing, and back to grammar the following week. Especially if it's an area of struggle, it would be a relief to have a break, and also maybe just allow things to "percolate." I would also add in very short copywork assignments every day, just a couple sentences, to be typed or handwritten. It's amazing how helpful copywork can be.

 

Your science seems very ambitious, what you want to complete in a day. I'd split that into a couple days at least.

 

Just some thoughts. Obviously, you know best what would work for your dc.

 

:iagree:

[lewelma]

An easy way to drop the work load is to alternate weeks with history and science.

 

I think an hour a day on math is totally reasonable, but I also am not clear on where in the sequence AoPS Number Theory comes in.

 

Ruth in NZ

[Luckymama]

AoPS Number Theory is not a post-algebra topic---it stands on its own. I think you'll be fine with that choice. I read through Number Theory and Counting and Probability this past weekend (at the Valley Forge conference) and feel that they are both fascinating texts. My dd has already started AoPS Algebra but if she hadn't, I would have her use either NT or C&P this year.

 

So an hour of math, an hour of (non-reading) LA, 45 minutes of science, 45 minutes of history, some Latin, an hour of Chinese hw? That sounds perfectly reasonable to me for a strong student who thrives on challenge. Replace the languages with French and here's my dd's 6th grade daily "schedule"------1 hr math, 1 hr LA (non-reading), 45 min-1.5 hr science (lab days run longer), 30-45 min history, 30-45 min French. Art, music and logic are not scheduled daily.

 

:)

[Chris in VA]

6 hours seems excessive, but if you are not doing everything everyday, it seems to come out to less than that. I also never count free reading or even reading aloud in that time--:D.

 

So, if it's about 4-5 hours, I'd say that's fine.

 

Science could be 2 or 3 days a week, as could history. That's totally doable. I like to do less over more days, but don't like to go over a certain amt of time each day.

 

I love the idea of putting something between prealg and alg--I would have had to do that for my dd, too, if we had not chosen to send her to ps for 6th next year.

[EKS]

If she's so far ahead in math that you're going sideways for a year but struggles in writing, I'd focus on the writing. But instead of adding more time to your LA plan, I'd add it into science and history. Have her do short reports on the topics she is learning about (about one per week). I would do this instead of doing worksheets (that way you'll focus the writing energy on writing). If writing these reports is too difficult, then you can be her scribe.

 

Also, if she doesn't know how to type yet, I'd make that a priority. Using a computer for written work can really help turn a reluctant writer around.

[Jean in CA]

30 minutes of grammar in addition to all the writing seems like a lot. Can you do Saxon Grammar orally, and cut it down to 10 mins/ 3 or 4 times a week? Cut out the review? If you have time to plan ahead, you can also try to teach grammar and spelling in the context of her writing assignments. This takes some practice, but would save you 40 or so minutes daily!

 

If your child loves science, and enjoys the curriculum, I'd say go for it! If you want to work on her writing skills, you might want to try simple write-ups in lieu of the worksheets. Or have her summarize the worksheet answers in paragraph form.

 

We do science 2 days/week and alterate with history 3 days/week, in order to fit it all in.

 

Free time is also essential and one of the great benefits of homeschooling. If all you've scheduled and planned leaves little "down time", then that's when I'd consider modifying the schedule!

 

Chinese for an hour a day seems like a lot too. Especially if its just written work. Does she have someone to practice with?

[Deniseibase]

Thanks for all the replies! So, it sounds like it will be a challenge, but not undoable, which is kinda what I was thinking. She is a good student, she just hates writing - she LEARNS quickly enough! :) She's also probably a future STEM major, as she's been saying for three years that she wants to be an engineer.

 

Thanks for the suggestion of typing, she started typing some assignments a couple years ago, but this year we're really going to ramp it up. We're giving her a laptop for school use only to do the majority of her writing on - I think I gave the impression we are doing a lot of worksheets, but really we aren't, those are just going to be for things where it is less work than writing it out - like the Saxon Grammar, I will have her write in the book rather than re-write the words on a sheet of paper. Does that make more sense?

 

Chinese is not all written work, this is her sixth year studying it so a lot of her work is simply reading, but she will have some written and oral work daily too.

 

As far as math, I guess I should have clarified that the 'fun' was in parentheses because of ME, LOL!!! :) DD is genuinely excited about working on these texts - she took a short problem solving course at co-op last year and really wanted to get more in depth. I considered a lot of different texts, and part of the reason I went with these is because she got really excited about them - she's kind of a weird kid that way!! :D For Crossing the River with Dogs, we will probably just do the easier, Level A exercises, and skip the Level B ones (unless she really wants to), and she only missed one question on the AoPS pre-test, so she's probably ready for it. I think there might be a few chapters that rely on algebraic concepts that we haven't covered yet, but I'm ok with it if we don't do the whole book in the 19 weeks we'll have to spend on it.

 

I know, I should have been more descriptive last night, sorry, I was tired :( But, thanks to everyone who replied!