Second Day of School 5/27

 Another great start to our school year.  He loved everything!

Book Basket

Archimedes and the Door of Science

A Light in the Attic

Bible

My First Hymnal

The Action Bible

The Action Bible Devotional

Language Arts

Cursive practice

All About Spelling 3

Queen's Language Lessons for the Elementary Child vol 1

Geography

Around the World Coloring Book

Geography from A to Z

We made landforms out of play dough

Music

Story of the Orchestra (Vivaldi and Bach)

We started Ukulele

First Day of 5th Grade! 5/26

Today was our first day of school after taking two months off.  5th grade, Logic Stage and all new subjects.  

He did great and told me how much he liked it.  He said his favorite subject today was Latin, followed by Math.

I timed it to get an idea of how long his school day will take with just him and it was three hours.  We took a "recess" after every two subjects.  

Here's what we did for school.

Book Basket

• Sarah Witcher's Story 
• A Light in the Attic

Math

• We played Sleeping Queens
• We did math fact practice
• Life of Fred Farming

Language Arts

• Handwriting without Tears Cursive Success
• All About Spelling 3
• Queen's Language Lessons for the Elementary Child vol 1

Ancient History

• The Story of Civilization volume 1
• History Pockets - Ancient Egypt
• Egyptian Gods and Goddesses

Logic

• Cat Crimes (board game)
• Red Herring Mysteries vol 1

Latin

• Prima Latina lesson 1

Our 5th Grade Daily Routine

 I chose our curriculum, bought it, organized it into our book basket and now I'm looking at daily routines/schedules for 5th grade.  

I'm not sure how all of this is going to work out, but this seems to be my best option.  

Weekly Schedule

Monday

• Book Basket
• Math
• Language Arts
• History
• Logic
• Latin

Tuesday

• Book Basket
• Language Arts
• Bible
• Geography
• Music

Wednesday

• Book Basket
• Math
• Language Arts
• History
• Latin
• Physics

Thursday

• Book Basket
• Math
• Language Arts
• Bible
• Art/Handicrafts

Friday

• Physics
• Texas History

Finalizing 5th Grade Plans/Preparing to Start

 Although our plans are generally the same, we've made a couple of small changes as we looked at samples, talked over what we want to do, etc.  I still haven't solidified a weekly schedule for ourselves.  I might just throw everything into a book basket and fly by the seat of our pants without a schedule.

We start the second week of June (after Vacation Bible School).

Here's what we have:

BIBLE

My First Hymnal (Concordia Publishing House)

The Action Bible

The Action Bible Devotional

MATH

Continue Life of Fred series

Math games

LANGUAGE ARTS

Language Lessons for the Elementary Child volume 1

All About Spelling 3, hopefully 4 also

Handwriting without Tears Cursive Success

LITERATURE

Choose as we go

Poetry

HISTORY (2 STREAMS: WORLD AND AMERICAN)

The Story of Civilization volume 1 (Spine)

Famous Figures of Ancient Times

Choose books as we go

GEOGRAPHY

Geography from A to Z

Countries of the World Coloring Book

Paddle to the Sea

Seabird

LOGIC

Cat Crimes Game

Mindbenders volume 3

Red Herring Mysteries Book 1

PHYSICS

Real Science 4 Kids Physics (spine)

Max Axiom comics series

Mark Rober's Crunch Labs year 2

Other labs as we go

Archimedes and the Door of Science

The Librarian Who Measured the Earth

LATIN

Minimus: Starting Out in Latin

Learn some of the church prayers in Latin (Prima Latina)

ART

Arts: A Visual Encyclopedia

MUSIC

Story of the Orchestra

HANDICRAFTS

Choose as we go

Awesome Field Trip: DFW Car and Toy Museum

https://dfwcarandtoymuseum.com/

This was truly one of the greatest boy field trips of all time.

It's free.

It's the largest car museum in Texas.

Cars...cars...cars...  My two sons would NOT leave.  We were there for over three hours.  There are couches and places to stop and rest all over the facility (because there is no way I can stare at cars for three hours like my sons can).

The staff is super nice and they'll answer questions about the cars.  If you have kids obsessed with cars, just GO.  I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.

Interactive Notebooks Blog Post

We don't use Interactive Notebooks, but I was really fascinated by this blog post on how to make/use them with upper elementary students.

https://thriveingradefive.com/interactive-notebooks-how-to-get-started/#:~:text=I%20highly%20recommend%20using%20composition,work%20to%20pull%20them%20out.

Getting Ready for Homeschool Graduation

 I've posted something similar three years ago when the last kid graduated.  Now, here we are - getting ready for high school graduate #4.

Since this kid is also a dual enrollment student at the college, I need to wait until she has her final exams at the college to graduate her from our homeschool.  Her college exams will be during the first week of May.  On her paperwork, I will probably put her high school graduation date as May 1, 2025.  Just to keep things simple.

Here's my homeschool graduation checklist:

• Transcripts
• I make these on Microsoft Word, but Google Docs or Excel or anything else would be fine.  I finalize all her grades and GPA on the transcript.  I print out 10 copies, sign them, place 3 or 4 into envelopes, seal the envelopes and sign my name/date across the back.  I then put all of these transcripts into her Graduation Folder (which is literally a folder).
• Graduation Packet
• This is a folder where I print out booklists, curriculum we used, volunteer work/dates, sports they played, activities, leadership activities (like Scouts), awards (some of mine held sports records), etc.  This goes in the folder with the transcripts.
• Diploma, Cap and Gown, and Tassel
• I order these from www.homeschooldiploma.com.  I design an individual diploma for each student and choose colors for their tassel.  Two of my kids had tassel colors based off their team colors (they did track and football).  One kid had her colors chosen by a sibling.  
• Graduation Pictures
• This is pretty obvious
• Graduation Announcements
• I think I will order these from www.snapfish.com.  
• Scrapbook
• I make a scrapbook for each kid and give it to them at graduation.  I also make these on Snapfish.
• Gift Bag and Ceremony
• We have a tiny ceremony in our dining room with just family.  We give them a gift bag, their diploma and their graduation packet

That's it!  My daughter is already taking college classes, so nothing is really going to change for her in the fall other than she will take a full-time college load, instead of two classes at a time.  She's already picking out her fall classes and putting them in her registration cart.

She is graduating high school as a 17 year-old (a year early), but having completed high school and four college courses (Composition 1, Composition 2, US History 1 and Kinesiology).