Fifth Grade Summary

This past school year was a stressful one, mostly because of Mr M's crazy busy schedule that left everything on me. When his schedule changed we knew this would be the case, but that doesn't make the reality of it any easier. We made it through the year, though some subjects did get glossed over in the interest of everyone's sanity. The post on our plans for fifth grade can be found here, and this is how things actually happened.

Fifth Grade Subjects

History and Geography
We spent the first half of the school year working on junior ranger programs, and completed them for Yorktown, Ft Monroe, Shenandoah NP, Blue Ridge Parkway, Independence NHP, and Fredericksburg & Spotsylvania NMP (actually four different parks, and we visited all of them). We also visited Natural Bridge SP.

Sunshine listened to a couple of the Story of the World books during the year, but our main curriculum this year was Year 1 of the history curriculum from The Good and the Beautiful, which allowed us to work a few more scripture based historical events into our timeline. The Good and the Beautiful history curriculum covers events over a long span of time, with each year focusing on different events throughout that span, unlike the Story of the World, which focuses on just one chunk of time for each book. We continued with our monthly history club meetings and went on field trips to Yorktown and a local cultural museum with the club.

Math & Logic
Sunshine continued using CTC math this past year. While I think it's an effective program for the most part, she was not enjoying it. I want her to learn to like math, not hate it, so we'll change things up for sixth grade.

She worked her way through all the logic puzzles in Mind Benders level 4. She enjoyed those, so we'll continue with the next level.

Latin
Sunshine finished Song School Latin 2 at the end of the year. There's not a third book in the series, so we could switch to a different curriculum, but she wants to give Greek a try next. We may re-visit Latin in a couple years, but for now I'm fine with her skipping around and being exposed to different languages.

Handwriting
We used level 5 of The Good and the Beautiful's handwriting curriculum this past year, and Sunshine enjoyed it as much as one can enjoy handwriting practice. It was a good mix of letter formation review, grammar, copywork, and drawing and coloring, so it was more interesting than what we've used in the past.

Spelling & Grammar

We didn't use a stand-alone curriculum for these, but both subjects were covered in Latin and Handwriting, so I didn't feel we needed to beat a dead horse just yet. 

Science
We did part of the meteorology course from The Good and the Beautiful, but it didn't really hold our attention, so we didn't finish it. We also participated in a science experiment club that Sunshine enjoyed. They hosted a field trip to a DNA lab and a science fair in the spring. Sunshine had the best project, not that I'm biased or anything :) The year ended up a bit light on science, but that's the way it goes.

Reading
Sunshine read lots of books, and while we kept a log, I know some of the books still didn't make it to the list. She prefers adventures that have some fantasy in them, so that's mostly what she reads. I'm trying to get her to branch out, with mixed success. I'm not pushing it too much though, since I don't want to turn her off reading.

Writing
Sunshine did some story writing on her own, but this is another subject that didn't receive a lot of attention.

Art/Cooking/Sewing
Sunshine did some art projects, and her sewing skills have improved quite a bit as she's sewed outfits for her dolls and stuffed animals for her brothers. She's also becoming more skilled in the kitchen, though I wasn't able to spend as much time with her on this as I'd have liked. Too many things to do, too little time.

Coding
Coding was on the list of subjects to cover last year, but it didn't happen. I didn't have the time, and I don't really understand it anyway. I'll let Mr M take this one.

Extra Curriculars
Weekly fiddle lessons
Weekly Irish music class/performing group
Weekly hikes
We started trying to go on a hike every week in March 2016, and have gotten more consistent as time has progressed. It's a rare week now where we don't go on a hike.
Weekly park day
We only managed to attend a few times. The boys' nap schedules and the timing of the Irish music class made it really difficult to attend on a regular basis.
Weekly gymnastics class
Sunshine attended gymnastics the whole year, but decided she didn't want to pursue it any longer.
Monthly science experiments club
Sunshine got to see a wide variety of experiments and participate in a science fair. The organizers have other things they want to focus on this year, so we won't be doing this again next year.
Monthly history club
We continued meeting with them and went on several field trips.
Summer day camps
Irish music day camp and nature camp.

Field trips
We went to a number of national park sites, a state park, a cultural museum, and a science lab.

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We used a notebook to track each day's assignments, and that worked so much better than anything else we've tried. I love the flexibility of it as well as the ease in tracking what was accomplished.