A Creative Curriculum for 5th Grade

We are doing so many things this year in our homeschool! Many of the topics don’t take long to complete, usually less than a half-hour. This is good for Ian because he gets bored pretty easily. About the only thing taking us any longer than that is all of the reading we are doing together. And, since we’re doing that together, Ian actually enjoys it! Here are a few of the things we are doing:

Reading living history books. My favorite so far has been one about the life of Squanto – why isn’t there a good movie out there somewhere about his life? The dude has a phenomenal story.

Law & Government. We just started this one as a family. It basically consists of a textbook, two CDs and a DVD. The textbook has a two- or three- page introduction and an outline for each lesson, along with questions and suggestions for further reading. This is going to be an interesting course. Unfortunately, we can only do it on Wednesdays when Jesse is home with us.

Reading. This subject has been the biggest surprise this year. Ian has been a good reader for a long time, albeit a slow and reluctant one. This year alone, he has tripled his reading speed (thanks to watching movies in Spanish with English subtitles), and has gone from dreading the subject to loving it. I honestly didn’t think it was ever going to happen for him, but we finally found a book series that he enjoys, and now, he reads anywhere from one to two-and-a-half hours every single day. He only has two books left in the series (Diary of a Wimpy Kid), and I am starting to search for more books he may enjoy.

Math. Ian’s math skills have developed in leaps and bounds this year. We have been using the Memrise app for multiplication and Spanish. I no longer have to drill him anymore, yet I almost always remember to casually quiz him throughout the day on one or two math facts. I was amazed at how well this works! His math book is almost fun for us now that he is better at facts.

Art. Ian has been drawing lots of MineCraft-related pictures on graph paper. It’s perfect for someone who isn’t confident in their skills as an artist because you only have to draw one block at a time. Last night, he began working on a Mario-based art project. He drew a whole level, complete with secrets and switches and pipes – the whole nine yards! And the level was fresh from his own imagination. I was blown away because he created an engaging, challenging world that I would enjoy playing. I have been sending him to his room at 9:30, at which time he does something quiet, so he has been drawing. Then at 10:30, he can either read for an hour or go to bed. He’s been reading, and that makes me happy. 🙂

Python. We have been learning the Python programming language together using a book that I found at a computer store. The program allows you to make small changes to the MineCraft code and alter the game in fun ways. We are having a blast! I have been wanting to teach Python to Ian for a couple of years now, but the first time we tried it, it was above his head. (It was okay until we got into integers.) But now is the perfect time for teaching him, especially since we can use MineCraft as a starting point!

Well, those are a few of the things we are doing. We don’t do them all everyday. Our everyday subjects are reading, Bible, guitar, drums, dictation, typing, and Memrise (Spanish and multiplication). If you would like to read some ideas for language arts or science, you can find those in previous posts.

I hope you find some of these subjects and ideas helpful as you explore your own adventure in homeschooling!

Recording Accomplishments

I think I’m going to have Ian start a list of all of the chapter books he’s finished on his own. So far, that isn’t any, but the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series is going really well. (Up to this point, he’s mainly read comic books and magazines, parts of books, or I have read out loud to him; although, maybe we can count the New Testament when he finishes that.) I am hoping if we make a really neat, bright banner that he will really enjoy adding his books to it.

But now, as I am typing this out, I am wondering if there is a way to get really creative with it, such as have him draw a picture of the main character and write a sentence each about the setting, the plot, etc. Then he could have a binder that contains a little bit of info about a bunch of different books. That would be a big book of short book reports.

Hmmm, thinking some more. What about that game Super Smash Bros. Have any of you all ever played it? (Why does everything have to be video-game related? If you’d ever met my family, you wouldn’t have to ask, lol.) In that game, you choose a character from a video game to fight a character from a completely different video game. I’m wondering if Ian and I could brainstorm some “stats” for each main character, include a little about the setting, and create a book of players. We could record how we think each player would stack up against the competition, and try to give everyone a bit of an edge in their own right, based on personality, super powers, etc. The setting could help or hinder certain characters.

Ah, me and my far-out ideas. I will talk to Ian and see which idea he likes. Maybe he will even have a better one! I just need to balance the fun factor with how much time the project will take. If it’s going to take two hours every time he finishes a book, we will probably never do it. A quick fix for that would be spending an hour creating a form, and then just filling it out after every book.

And then there’s always this page: More Ideas Than You’ll Ever Use for Book Reports.

How do you all motivate your non-readers? How do you record accomplishments of any type? I need ideas that will work! I am willing to do whatever it takes, even silly, crazy projects with my 10-year-old.

A New Writing Idea for Visual Thinkers

(Or a Prompt Disguised as Playing Games)

Ok, so this post is mainly for children who play MineCraft, but it would also work with Legos, clay models, or other types of artwork.

Ian and I are on a mission to write an eBook together so he can publish it on Amazon and earn a small amount of money. I told him I was sure he would sell at least ten copies of the book. (If not, I’ll make it happen. Moms are magical like that, lol.) If we charge $1.99 and he earns 70%, then he will make at least $14.

Fourteen dollars is a lot of money in his world, and even though he doesn’t like the whole physical aspect of writing, he still enjoys brainstorming, coming up with a plot, and even composing sentences – as long as I’m the one doing the actual writing. Although, when we get down to it, we will take turns writing the sentences down. So expect a novella where every other sentence is much shorter than the rest, lol.

We spent Sunday afternoon coming up with a setting, a main character, the major conflict, and a few minor conflicts. We did a little bit of world building and story set-up as well. As soon as we think of a good resolution, we’ll be ready to start writing. (We did write a couple of story sentences along the way, when we happened to think of a good way to get our point across.)

Here’s where the fun begins. Right after we started brainstorming, Ian ran into the living room and switched on the television and Xbox. What? I thought we were going to write a story? It turns out, he had every intention to help me, but while doing so, he wanted to be crafting his story in 3D. Not just his story world, but he used some of the events of the game to help him brainstorm events in his story as well. For instance, he suffered from an explosion (via creeper), and decided that the villagers would nurse him back to health.

Now, I know there are TONS of children (and adults) who play MineCraft, so this could be a fun project for them. And if not, perhaps you or your child like to draw, paint, or make 3D models from construction paper, tin foil, what have you. The idea is to do whatever it takes to open up creative pathways in your thinking patterns while you brainstorm story components.

One little caveat with Ian’s idea: He will have to change the names of his monsters and main characters and other little details to mask the fact that he is really writing fan fiction. I’m sorry, but I don’t think he can get by with publishing a book that contains creepers, Steve the adventurer, and mining for redstone. Oh, and let’s not forget villagers that barter with emeralds…

While Kindle Worlds does have a few licenses with a few companies to enable people to publish fan fiction and get paid for it, MineCraft is not yet one of those options. We are following them on Twitter though, so if it ever does happen, we’ll know, lol.

Post from the Past: Math in Action

I’m going somewhere with this; just hear me out.

Ian has been playing Little Big Planet for months now. After completing each level, the video game tells you what percent of the prizes you have collected from that particular level. He learned pretty quickly that we always aimed for 100%. If we didn’t get 100%, that means we missed something, and we would usually go back and try the level again to see if we could find what we missed. Sometimes there were twenty or thirty things in a level, but never 100 things. Ian figured out that 100% meant “all.” Yesterday, he was playing again. He found a level that he wanted to play and said, “Wow! I don’t even have half of the stuff for this level!” It kind of surprised me that he said that because we’ve never gone into percentages in detail (he’s only six). So, just to find out how much he knew, I said, “So what percent would it be if you had half of the stuff?” “50%,” he says. Hmmm. So I said, “If there were 8 things to get in a level, and you had 50% of them, how many would you have?” He thought for ten or fifteen seconds and said, “4.” Hmmmmmm! I was so impressed, I had to send an email to Jesse at work. Impressed, because I never taught him. He figured out how percentages work on his own, the same way babies learn to use language – by seeing it in action. When Jesse came home from work last night, we were all sitting in the same room, and I thought I’d dig a little deeper into Ian’s well of knowledge. So I said, “Ian do you know how many 25’s there are in 100?” He didn’t. “Remember talking about money? How many quarters are in a dollar?” “Oh, yeah,” he says, “4!” “Okay, so if there were 4 things to get, and you had 25%, how many would you have?” Brief pause. “1!” Explosion of amazement and pride from me and Jesse. “What if there were 8 things to get? How many would you have if you had 25%?” Slightly longer pause. “2!” Yay! I’m so proud of him! Can you tell? So, thanks to Little Big Planet, and a little scaffolding from me (by using Vygotsky’s zone of proximal development), Ian understands percentages. We have another video game called Boom Blox that has made him an expert when it comes to negative numbers. It doesn’t set out to teach you the concept; that’s not the purpose of the game. However, if you lose enough points, your score drops below zero, and since it took Ian a while to get good at the game, he has LOTS of experience with negative numbers 🙂

I said all of that to say this: when teaching math, take time to make sure your child understands each concept. Start with the why, see if they can understand it and figure a few easy problems based on what they know, and then teach them how to work the problem. You’ll be amazed at what they can do.

Math in Action

I’m going somewhere with this; just hear me out.

Ian has been playing Little Big Planet for months now. After completing each level, the video game tells you what percent of the prizes you have collected from that particular level. He learned pretty quickly that we always aimed for 100%. If we didn’t get 100%, that means we missed something, and we would usually go back and try the level again to see if we could find what we missed. Sometimes there were twenty or thirty things in a level, but never 100 things. Ian figured out that 100% meant “all.” Yesterday, he was playing again. He found a level that he wanted to play and said, “Wow! I don’t even have half of the stuff for this level!” It kind of surprised me that he said that because we’ve never gone into percentages in detail (he’s only six). So, just to find out how much he knew, I said, “So what percent would it be if you had half of the stuff?” “50%,” he says. Hmmm. So I said, “If there were 8 things to get in a level, and you had 50% of them, how many would you have?” He thought for ten or fifteen seconds and said, “4.” Hmmmmmm! I was so impressed, I had to send an email to Jesse at work. Impressed, because I never taught him. He figured out how percentages work on his own, the same way babies learn to use language – by seeing it in action. When Jesse came home from work last night, we were all sitting in the same room, and I thought I’d dig a little deeper into Ian’s well of knowledge. So I said, “Ian do you know how many 25’s there are in 100?” He didn’t. “Remember talking about money? How many quarters are in a dollar?” “Oh, yeah,” he says, “4!” “Okay, so if there were 4 things to get, and you had 25%, how many would you have?” Brief pause. “1!” Explosion of amazement and pride from me and Jesse. “What if there were 8 things to get? How many would you have if you had 25%?” Slightly longer pause. “2!” Yay! I’m so proud of him! Can you tell? So, thanks to Little Big Planet, and a little scaffolding from me (by using Vygotsky’s zone of proximal development), Ian understands percentages. We have another video game called Boom Blox that has made him an expert when it comes to negative numbers. It doesn’t set out to teach you the concept; that’s not the purpose of the game. However, if you lose enough points, your score drops below zero, and since it took Ian a while to get good at the game, he has LOTS of experience with negative numbers 🙂

I said all of that to say this: when teaching math, take time to make sure your child understands each concept. Start with the why, see if they can understand it and figure a few easy problems based on what they know, and then teach them how to work the problem. You’ll be amazed at what they can do.