Pick apart my 6th grade plans!

[jeninok]

Ds has come so far! But we are still struggling in a few areas. My goal is to work through the summer on math and writing skills to try to get him up to speed.

 

But for next year so far this is my plan...

Finish up EM daily geography 6, then Mchenry's Mapping the World through Art.

 

IEW starting in a few weeks and going as slow as we need to in order to cement the skills.

 

Math CLE 500-600. Assuming it goes well and with Keys To for supplement and more conceptual thinking, where will this put us as far as pre algebra readiness? And would you continue with CLE 700-800 or switch to BCM or Lial's pre algebra? I have both!

 

History CHOLL Middle Ages and Human Odyssey + timeline and note taking practice

 

Science probably NOEO physics or Elemental physics with Tops Units. Snap circuits/various kits for "fun"

He wants Chem but his math skills aren't ready for Chem at his level of desire.

 

Art drawing lessons at home, nature journaling.

 

Informal Spanish and philosophy at co-op. This is really more for socializing and some group learning.

 

My goal is to continue to cement basic skills while preparing him for the jump in expectations in 7th-12th.

 

 

[jeninok]

Sorry for the poor formatting and grammar, my phone won't let me edit properly!

[AK_Mom4]

This looks good to me. On the math....if it ain't broke, don't change it! If he is doing well and making progress with CLE, I recommend just staying with it - CLE is a good program and will prep him for algebra just fine if you stay the course.

[TarynB]

I think your plan looks great!

 

Not to overload what looks like a pretty full schedule, but do you have anything in mind for vocab or grammar? Maybe he's ready for a break from those, though, while you work on other things?

 

BTW - I hope your DS likes IEW. My DS made a complete turnaround in his attitude toward writing as well as his skill level, after doing SWI-B.

[Alessandra]

I was wondering if you were planning any literature (or does IEW include it)?

 

I like that you are using history for note taking skills & timelining. And cementing basic skills, as you put it, is excellent!

[jeninok]

I am keeping all fingers and toes crossed that IEW is exactly what we need, something has to give with writing, and at this point it is either IEW or outsourcing it to a tutor of some kind.

 

CHOLL is literature that ties in with history, he is a reluctant reader so I don't want to overdo assigned reading. We also do 30 minutes to 1 hour a day of reading time of whatever he chooses, either from the library, a good magazine like Audubon/Nat Geo, or from whatever he picks from the house. (We had 23 boxes of books when we moved :svengo: ) By reluctant, I mean he doesn't like it, I have tested him and he is reading at about a 10th grade level, so I am not concerned with his fluency or reading ability.

 

 

His vocabulary is pretty good, and we always study words in history and science, so I am ok with that I think. We still do copywork for spelling and it seems to make the biggest difference.

 

I have thought about formal grammar, but frankly while he picks up formal grammar in the exercises quite well, it doesn't ever end up benefiting his written work.

 

I wonder if something like EM Daily Word, or their Daily Editing or Grammar would be good to toss in. I LOVE their Daily Geography, and he does seem to retain it. Short little blurbs like that are often best for him in skill areas.

 

 

6th grade is making me panic a little, some days a lot. It just seems like I am running out of time or something!

[jeninok]

CHOLL is www.classicalhouseoflearning.com

 

Maybe it should be just CHOL.....not sure!

[Another Lynn]

I've tried to write a reply a couple times, ended up sounding like a wimp, and then waited to see if anyone else would post what I'm "trying" to say, LOL. They didn't. So, I'm probably, clearly, off-base. LOL. (Just wanted to disclaim first). I'm wondering if timelining and notetaking for history, on top of worksheets for CHOLL on top of IEW will be too much writing on a daily basis? Or maybe they won't all three happen every day? Or maybe it will be fine if they all three happen every day. When I tried similar combinations of history writing, plus literature writing, plus writing instruction, it was joy-sucking and we started dropping things fairly quickly into the school year. It's possible that we are more under achievers than lots of folks here. Or it's possible that I didn't scaffold or ramp up sufficiently slowly to help dc get used to that amount of daily/weekly output. Obviously, I can't judge if it's too much for you and your ds.... so I suppose my advice would be to compare the plan to what you are doing now. If it's a substantial jump in output, you might think about staggering start up or adding more output now to prepare him for the heavier load.

[2_girls_mommy]

I can say from my first year experience w/CHOLL (we are doing ancients logic stage this year) there isn't much writing to it. There aren't worksheets per say. It assigns one summary per most books. Some of the longer books that take 3 weeks or so assign a couple, but never more than one a week. And we do WTM style outlining and summary writing. We don't do IEW, but we do R&S grammar and writing as well. There is dictation included.

 

So dd has 1 summary for CHOLL a week, 1 outline for history a week, and 1 summary for history a week. We aim to do the dictation at least once a week. They are all done on separate days. On the days that she has a separate report for English, I may just assign it for the history writing for the week. So if she is to write a report for English using different resources, I may not have her write the history summary that week. She will do it for English, using its requirements. So I haven't found the combination to be too much. (though again, I am not familiar w/IEW, so I don't know how to combine that w/the others...)