Homeschool Fifth Grade- What Worked

In our town fifth grade is the end of elementary school, and I just truly can’t believe that this month I am completing elementary school with my boy! I am officially one of those sentimental older moms looking back at those preschool years with tears in my eyes.

I also have another round of preschool years ahead of me, and two more shots at teaching 5th grade! I wanted to document what we did this year that worked in hopes of helping my future self out, and anyone else who might be aided by our experience.

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Here’s what filled our fifth grade year:

Language Arts

I will always start these lists with “we read lots of books.” It’s possibly a given on this particular blog, but in the various seasons of life we have been through in the last few years, read alouds have been a constant- in the endless morning sickness, with a colicky newborn, wrangling a destructive toddler. More often than not, those read alouds were accomplished with the help of professional readers (audiobooks). You can find our archives here. Podcasts and independent reading from a variety of interest-led books always have a place as well.

Grammar. After completing the First Language Lessons course, we moved to Fix It Grammar from IEW (Institute for Excellence in Writing). Given how simple the assignments appeared, I wasn’t sure how effective it would be… but having completed the book I am super impressed! My son can identify tricky homophones (to/too, there/their, etc.), parts of speech, types of clauses, and capitalization errors, and the assignments take less than 10 minutes per day. We also use this for handwriting practice, alongside of The Good and the Beautiful handwriting.

All About Spelling. We have used this program from the beginning, and it’s so thorough! It’s been effective for my struggling speller and my natural speller as well. Full review here.

Night Zookeeper. For writing and general language arts, we use the Night Zookeeper online program. Both my boys love it, and I’ve been so pleased by the way it’s developed them as writers! You can read my full review here. This was the sleeper success of the school year, and the kids already insisted to continue using it this summer (!). That feels like a huge win where writing is concerned!

Typing. My kids wanted a break from the Keyboarding Without Tears program, so I went with Typsey this year. It gets the job done with nice bite-size lessons. Not free but I like the simple, ad-free interface.

Math

We have used Right Start Math since kindergarten, and it’s a treasure! I just love the way that it teaches mathematical thinking and understanding the concepts rather than algorithms. This year learning decimals/percents/long division I was blown away time after time by how hands-on the lessons were. We continued to use the abacus and manipulatives even in this advanced stage. One day after learning long division, the lesson instructed to hand a calculator to the child and ask them to solve a (3 digit into 4 digit) division problem without using the divide key! He understood the foundation of what division is well enough to know how to tackle that (while I looked sheepishly at the teacher guide). My full review here. 

Science

This is a topic that we routed through our co-op and had so much fun with. We used Chemistry for the Grammar Stage. It was a lot to cover in one day per week, but our science teacher did a fabulous job. Yay for co-ops!

I also consider nature study to fall in the science bucket as well, We enjoyed using Exploring Nature Around the Year: 365 Days of Nature Journaling for a guide in nature sketching. It includes a prompt per day, but we didn’t nearly complete that much– which certainly leaves the opportunity to repeat the curriculum next year. I love the way it encourages looking for patterns and changes throughout the year. For example, we measured the shadow of a particular lamppost at our favorite nature trail every few months. Full review here. 

History

Story of the World. We completed this with our co-op as well. The kids are all required to complete a narration of the weekly reading at their developmental level. For my son, this year I was still scribing his oral narrations because I want him to focus on his ideas rather than spelling and writing conventions. His skills have blossomed over the years. If you’re wondering about narration, I highly recommend the book Know and Tell.

Geography

I taught this subject at co-op using Beautiful Feet Books’ intermediate U.S. geography curriculum. It did not suit itself well to a once a week co-op, so I ended up largely using it as a reference for suggested books, videos, and activities. I did feel it was worth the cost for just the bit I used it, and I would recommend it if you have more time to delve into the whole unit. I liked how literature-based it was with rabbit trails coming from the spine texts.

Memory Work

Once again, a co-op subject. You can find my list of What We’ve Memorized in Our Homeschool here. This year we tackled extended scripture passages, poetry, and history timeline.

 

Phew! That feels like a lot when it’s typed out, but I find myself questioning *often* if I’m doing enough. We have plenty of space in our days for creativity born out of boredom! We’ve followed the spark of my boy’s interest in woodworking by finding a local craftsman to learn from; I’ve learned a LOT about LEGOs and motor functions this year; I’ve supervised uncountable games of tag (and even think I now understand the rules of “rock paper scissors tag”?!). What a beautiful year it’s been!

P.S. As one of those older moms, I also wanted to share that it’s really fun having older kids. I used to be filled with dread when thinking of middle school (even though I taught middle school and truly loved it, being a mom felt very different!). It’s a wild ride for sure as we navigate new emotions and independence; but, the deepening conversations, the connections made from earlier learning, the way my boy is developing into a leader to the younger kids in our co-ops, the more sophisticated books we can read now- it’s all so rich! Be encouraged!

Warmly,