Other Guides

For geography, AO includes a list of topics to be covered each term. It suggested that these topics be covered informally during walks and outings and Long’s Geography is referenced. I don’t do well with informal. If I don’t plan it in the schedule, it won’t happen. And most of these topics would not come up in our normal outings. Long’s book does not have enough information for me to feel comfortable discussing the topics. So, I made a schedule of topics and found books and videos to include in a 10-15 min once a week geography concept lesson.

I decided to use Ordinary Genius: The Story of Albert Einstein by Stephanie Sammartino McPherson for the Einstein biography. This is the shorter option and I know M will be able to finish it on his own in one term.

This simple document is a 12-week schedule and a summary of weekly readings. I will use these readings to jog my memory each week to help with narration review.

This document contains my short summaries of each chapter (to help me with weekly recaps), applicable maps, videos, and instructions for several experiments.

We have decided to keep theology and Bible lessons separate from science lessons. In future years, we plan on including John Walton’s book The Lost World of Genesis One: Ancient Cosmology and the Origins Debate in our Bible time. For now, we tell the Biblical story of creation to teach us about God and read the science books to teach us the how. I have written a 36-week schedule for these two books that includes links to helpful videos on some of the topics.

A 36-week schedule covering the following topics:

• Nervous System (6 weeks)
• Hearing (6 weeks)
• Smell & Taste (4 weeks)
• Sight (4 weeks)
• Integumentary System (4 weeks)
• Immune System (5 weeks)
• Urinary System (3 weeks)
• Reproductive System (4 weeks)

The history readings for year 6 include an overview of David Livingstone and several chapters about colonial Africa. But there is nothing much about the Middle East beyond the Ottoman Empire. So I decided to include this engaging biography about a part of WWI history that I never learned much about either, but is so relevant for today.

Pre-reading this book was fun! I thoroughly enjoyed it and can’t wait to read it to the boys. I wrote up a little reading guide to help me each week that includes breaks for narration (or to break the reading into several days), summaries, some science demonstration with supply lists, and words/concepts to remember.

A reading guide with a few resources for a replacement biography in year 6. See Year 6 planning for how this will be used.