First Day of Homeschool 6th Grade

This is our 7th year of homeschooling, so with Kinder, Young Man’s “6th Grade” year. We don’t generally follow grade levels. However, we do for Bible class at church so when asked he answers whatever the grade level he is there. 

Disclosure: There may be affiliate or sales link within this post.

We started the day off with breakfast (cereal and juice for him, toast and coffee for me), then getting dressed and chores. I am so glad that a few weeks back, before I went out of town for a week and a half, that I spent a good amount of time going through our new curriculum, and writing lesson plans. I’m using my Simply Pretty Homeschool Teacher Planner. 

I have to say, even though I created it, I love it. My sister was so kind to have it printed and spiral bound for me. It is so bright and cheery and easy to write on. I write lesson plans in pencil because, well, I change things as we go. Be sure to read through to the end to see how you can get the planner for $1. Then you can simply print on your home printer and have it spiral bound at your local office supply store.

We started school at 10:00 with a selfie of he and I, followed by prayer. His first lesson of the day was Bible Study, from Bible Study Guide for all Ages and he is doing a 2-day review of Joseph, Moses and Joshua. 

The rest of the morning was spent with our new American history unit study, America the Beautiful from Notgrass Company. It incorporates, history, literature, writing and vocabulary words. Today’s focus was the overall land that God created which is now known as America. 

His literature assignment was to read and copy the poem, America the Beautiful. Just for the sake of teaching my son, I also sang it with him, and will review the song often through the week. For writing he listed the days of creation and what we in America can enjoy from each of those days, as well as a paragraph about an animal that God created that is native to our country. 

For lunch today, we had ham and cheese with crackers. Some baby carrots and frozen blueberries. Young Man gets the lunch hour as free time.

The afternoon lessons we picked up with where we left off in science for last year. Lesson 8 of Swimming Creatures of the 5th Day, Crustaceans. I’ll be setting up an aquarium and hopefully soon a separate tank for sea monkeys or triops. 

For math we are continuing working with Khan Academy. They continue to update the program making it more user friendly for participants who like to follow grade leveled assignments. We continue to skip around. Young Man worked on skills from a wide variety of “levels” today. 

I’m adding in some electives this year. Nutrition utilizing Standard Deviants Accelerate Program and I’ll also be looking into their English Composition program because writing continues to be a struggle area in our homeschool. They have a good selection of online courses for students to take, since they have some math, I may be utilizing their program to reinforce what he is learning at Khan Academy. OH, and you too can give them a try for FREE! Sign up now through Nov. 15, 2014 for full access to all 14 subjects for free. Find details Here: FREE for Homeschoolers. 

I am also adding German into our line up of electives this year. I am happy to be able to review Middlebury Interactive Languages. It is an immersion based online learning course. They offer four different language courses, French, Spanish, Chinese and German. My son has an ear for languages and I’ve known this since he was about 2. Yet, time has slipped away and I haven’t really allowed him to explore this passion. I’m so stoked to have this opportunity and I’ll be sharing more about it as we go and a full review later in the month. 

During lunch break I put a roast with veggies in the crockpot. I set out to thaw/rise of frozen dough of bread. With a quick bake, dinner was ready to go. I had a bit of extra time, since Beloved worked late. So I went out and picked some fresh apples from the apple tree in the back yard and made a small apple pie. 

We had a bit of struggle over the writing assignment of the day, but that is par for the course in our homeschool. Overall, it’s been a good first day of school. How has your school year started? Share your days in comments.