Homeschooling Grades 4 & 5 ~ Our Spring Edition

You may click on these images to learn more about each curriculum.

We’ve used most of these materials since last September.  Only the writing curriculum—pictured last—is new to our Expedition Academy.  I’ve been drooling over the Institute for Excellence in Writing (IEW) catalog for a year now, and our tax refund made a purchase possible!  [Last spring I attended several conference sessions presented by Andrew Pudewa, director of IEW and author of the Student Writing Intensive program.  Such an impressive educator!]  I truly look forward to teaching my children with this new-to-us curriculum.

My children are only 18 months apart in age, so much of their learning occurs together.  In most subjects, while they’re learning from the same materials, I simply adjust my requirements and expectations to suit their respective learning levels.  Right now, our only exception to this practice is that Circuit (currently 11 years old) and Button (9.5) study separate levels of math.  That is why 2 grades of math curriculum are pictured above.

I’ve incorporated handwriting practice into spelling practice this year.  Our students are expected to demonstrate proper cursive penmanship when they write out their Spelling Wisdom lessons.  If they fail to produce appropriate cursive handwriting, they write the offending letters again.

For daily reading materials, we rely heavily upon our library system.  Some silent reading selections are chosen from our TruthQuest History guide listings.  I also incorporate suggestions from Sonlight although we no longer purchase their guides.  Otherwise, Button and Circuit choose their own reading (after passing mom’s approval, of course) from our weekly library visits.