Biology Co-op for 10/2

 Using BJU Press' 7th Grade Life Science, this is my syllabus for 10/2.  I'm teaching a tiny co-op class out of my house.

CHAPTER 2: CELL STRUCTURES

Video: "Baby Flying Squirrel Takes Flight for the First Time"

Cell Theory

Difference between prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells

Eukaryotic Cell Structures

• Nucleus
• Cell Membrane
• Cytoplasm
• Endoplasmic reticulum
• Golgi apparatus
• Ribosomes
• Cytoskeleton
• Lysosomes
• Mitochondria

Video: "The Inner Life of a Cell"

View plant and animal cells under the microscope

LAB MANUAL:

• LAB 1E Classifying Animals
• LAB 2D Diffusion

Homeschool Day 10/1

 I just realized that it's now October.  We are almost finished with everything except math and language arts for the year.  We're coming to the end of science, literature, history and Bible.  It's time to buckle down and figure out what we're doing next.

Bible

• The Action Bible - the sermon on the mount

Reading

• Where the Red Fern Grows
• The Wild Robot

Language Arts

• The Good and the Beautiful Cursive 6
• The Good and the Beautiful LA6

Math

• Life of Fred Fractions

History

• Story of the World 2 - the Songhay Empire

Science

• Apologia's Earth Science - climate, solstice and equinox

Homeschool Day 9/30

 Bible

• The Action Bible
• Confirmation class tonight

Reading

• Where the Red Fern Grows

Math

• Life of Fred Fractions

History

• Story of the World 2 - Mansa Musa
• The Ghost in the Tokaido Inn

Art & Music

• Private violin lesson

Homeschool Day 9/29

 Bible

• The Action Bible

Reading

• Where the Red Fern Grows
• The Wild Robot

Language Arts

• The Good and the Beautiful LA 6
• Art project with pastels

Math

• Life of Fred Fractions

Science

• Apologia's Earth Science
• Water

Art & Music

• Violin practice

Homeschool Day 9/28

 We struggled a little with schoolwork today, because I had to take the 18 year-old on a college tour, which took up the entire morning.

Bible

• The Action Bible - the Samaritan at the well

Reading

• Where the Red Fern Grows

Language Arts

• The Good and the Beautiful LA 6
• The Good and the Beautiful Cursive 6

Math

• Life of Fred Fractions

Art & Music

• The Good and the Beautiful Drawing I

Homeschool Day 9/24 + Making Some Adjustments

 After looking at some of his scores on the standardized test, I'm going to make some adjustments.  

Language Arts

• I think it would be ok if we took a break from spelling or worked on spelling during his writing
• I would like to add copywork, dictation and narration to his writing.  I don't feel like he's getting enough writing with The Good and the Beautiful
• I feel like we are doing too much language arts in general

Math

• Because of his math scores, I told him we can either bump him up into Saxon 7/6 or we could do Life of Fred Fractions, Decimals and Percents and then jump into Saxon 8/7 or Life of Fred Prealgebra.  He chose Life of Fred Fractions.  

What we finished today:

Reading

• Where the Red Fern Grows
• The Wild Robot

Language Arts

• The Good and the Beautiful LA 6
• The Good and the Beautiful Cursive 6 - this counts as copywork in my opinion

Math

• Life of Fred Fractions - we did the first lesson, which he says was too easy

Science

• Apologia Earth Science
• How tides work
• How the major five ocean currents work

We finished the California Achievement Test Grade 6

 We finished the California Achievement Test Grade 6...which is the grade he would have just started if he went to public school.  I try to do standardized testing once in middle school, just to give my kids some exposure and experience with testing.  Then, about sophomore year of high school, we dive into SAT test prep.  Eventually, my kids take either the SAT or TSI (we prefer the TSI).

Results

Let me just say that the results were a bit unexpected.  

Overal Composite = 99th percentile

Reading Composite = 94th percentile

Language Composite = 99th percentile

Math Composite = 97th percentile

Things that make you go hmmmm....

Lack of a complete understanding of fractions lowered his math score.  This has been an issue for about a year now.  I think he's just little and struggles with fractions because they take a bit of a conceptual leap to understand.

Saxon Math is definitely doing him good.  Before this, Life of Fred was probably giving him a great foundation also.  I'm totally ok if he would like to jump between Saxon and Life of Fred.  Both are apparently super solid math programs.

The Good and the Beautiful Language Arts is excellent and so was Grammar Island, the book we used over the summer which taught him the eight parts of speech.  Spelling Workout is apparently...um...working out.  I think his spelling was in the 96th percentile.  

I expected his reading/language arts scores to be much higher than his math, but I guess I'm wrong.  He may end up being a really good test taker, which will help him with the SAT or TSI.

This was a huge morale booster for him.  It really helped his self-esteem, especially since he has been through so much with his dyslexia.  I'm glad we took the time to do this.