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Secular Science & "Social Studies" for 6th grader that might go back to school?


RootAnn
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An acquaintance of my dh pulled him aside to ask questions about homeschooling. This acquaintance is strongly considering homeschooling his son (6th grade) after the holiday break due to some (non-academic) things going on with his current school.

 

Dh offered to have them over to talk about HSing, including curriculum. :blink: I think I can handle helping them figure out math & language arts, but I want some input on science/social studies because they might put him back in next year or the year after. (I'm assuming they won't want to do a 4 yr history or science rotation.) Our state requires math/LA/science/social studies when they fill out paperwork to pull him from public school, so they need to have something to start with.

 

I've been able to figure out that they'll want something secular. I've done some poking around & came up with:

 

Science Essentials Grades 5-6 (Used to be Complete Book of Science Grades 5-6)

Steck-Vaughn Science Grade 6

Spectrum Science Grade 6

 

Anyone have experience with these & want to chime in on what the pros/cons are? Or offer up another suggestion?

 

I have NO idea what to offer for "social studies" and whether they'll want some geography/map skills to go along with it. Ideas? Are there good "text" / "workbook" ideas like the science ones, above?

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Spectrum Science Grade 6 is more of a test prep book

 

I would go with the CPO science for middle school. There are online student books and lab books for US version and California version.

 

For social studies, just to fill in something for the paperwork, I would go with the Evan Moor workbooks like Daily Geography Practice. I would than look at their district's history requirements and borrow books from the library to cover that.

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You could try The Complete Book of World History with The Complete Book of Maps and Geography. At least that way the child would get some world history before high school. Mapping the World with Art (Ellen McHenry) is another option for geography. Another option is Oak Meadow. They study ancient history in 6th grade.

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My advice would totally depend on the sequence the school follows. Here, they do world history in grades 6 and 7, so I would probably recommend a solid world history like K12's Human Odyssey with student pages (and since he would be half way through the school year, start him halfway through the book). For science, most schools follow a specific sequence... like Life Science in 6th, Earth Science in 7th, Physical Science in 8th; still some other middle schools do integrated science until high school - that would determine my advice on science texts.

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It would totally depends on what the school is doing, but no matter what, I recommend going light on the content subjects and focusing on the 3R's.

 

At what grade does the school start Algebra 1? At this age where the child places in math, generally dictates what science he will be later placed in, and possibly every other class. Are the parents aware of what is going on at the high school level, and do they have goals? Things like wanting him to be prepared for a certain track?

 

I originally pulled out my older son only for one year to clean up the mess the charter school made, in making him ineligible for the high school track I wanted him enrolled in. Then things went WAY differently than I planned, but that's another story. Middle school math can be a BIG deal. For middle school decisions I always start with the math, and then figure out what my options are AFTER dealing with that.

Edited by Hunter
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