Weekly Wrap-Up: Our Productive First Week of Fifth Grade

We're linking up with Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers for the Weekly Wrap-Up!

This week we did so much!  I've already shared some of it, so I'll just recap and include links to keep from repeating, while sharing with you some FRESH EXCITEMENT!

This week kicked off fifth grade.  We only enjoyed a portion of our schedule with Saxon Math, Learning Language Arts Through Literature, and Mystery of History Volume 2, making for some relaxed days.

Rosalinda did her first book study of the year!  She surprisingly enjoyed Farmer Boy by Laura Ingles Wilder.  Historical fiction isn't really her genre, so I was so excited to see her find things that she loved about the book!  Also, having to read the book in such a short amount of time kept her eyes "screen-free" for four days!!!

I've enjoyed watching her use her new planner.  See how I made it here!  (I have made a few modifications and will post those one day soon.)  One of the features I included was a weekly prayer list.  I was honored to see how God works with her heart as we added to the list and prayed over it each day.  It is one of my favorite parts of our school day now!

I completed my Whatever Girls Challenge!  Moms were challenged to write their daughters a letter about the legacy they wish to leave.  Read my letter here and take the challenge yourself...there is still time!  (You can find the challenge on the Whatever Girls Facebook Page.

We also found out that her creative writing group, Collecting Commas, is going to be writing and performing a play in December at our city's art walk!  Rosalinda has landed one of the lead roles!  Inspired by an earlier
writing prompt to write a fractured fairy tale, the group has decided to do a piece focusing on bullying in modern times, but the main characters all face certain challenges in individual dreams that take place in fractured fairy tales!  I can't wait for it!

We also had our first Currclick Live Club Meeting!  We've signed up for the American Girl Book Club and Lego Club.  We had a blast this past week with the American Girl Book Club and linked up with Homegrown Learners' Collage Friday.

And finally...we're planning for Miss Rosalinda's 11th Birthday!  Last year we made a huge deal out of her birthday since she was entering the double-digits!  I did something every day for the 10 days leading up to her birthday.  This year we're going much simpler.  We're going to do a Lego party at the park for a large group of people...ok, so maybe not MUCH simpler, but still not on the scale of last year.  I created the invites myself and ordered them as photos through Walgreens.com using a 33% off coupon!  Yeah baby!  Although I earned my discount.  I went to pick them up and they had black dots on them.  I went home and grabbed the file via SD card and took it physically up to Walgreens.  They had to load them three times before they system finally stopped altering the image.  I already have the ones that needed to be mailed in the mail and the others on hand to drop off/hand off as we go through our week.

How was your week?

Recouped and Revved! & Our Fifth Grade Routine

Sorry it's been a little while.  I spent a week being sick, a week on vacation, and a week writing out our entire school year plans.

I am too psyched about starting school in two weeks!  I think I've already stated this, but when we decided to homeschool, I thought sticking to the public school scheduled would work best since her father's visitation (as spotty as it may be) was setup around that schedule.  I figured it would create the least amount of confusion and it would prevent me from being accused of making it hard for him to see her.

That said, our school district starts August 26th, so we're gearing up for the same start date! :)

This year I was going to create my own planner, but ended up caving and buying A Simple Plan: 2013-2014 Planner for the Homeschooling Family from Mardels during their teacher sales days.  (Praise Him for not paying full price!)

Review to Come!

After writing out a weekly view, I did our daily view and got a good feel for how to span our work throughout the week.  I've even had some preview talks with Miss Rosalinda and she just might be getting the bug too!

Here is our fifth grade schedule!

Rosalinda will also have Lego Club one Monday a month, American Girl Book Club once a month, and Collecting Commas (Creative Writing Club) every Thursday.

How's your lesson planning going?  Anything new and exciting you're throwing into the mix?

Fifth Grade Curriculum Picks

Yea!  We survived fourth grade and are gearing up for fifth!

I have picked out our theme!  We're doing Riveting Robots from Creative Teaching Press.  Well, hopefully, as it is on backorder.

  

I want to make my own version of this pinata I found at party-wagon.com to hang up as a decoration and then let Rosalinda celebrate the end of the year by breaking it open!  (I'll add candy at the end of the year.)

Ok...now on to the actual curriculum...

We're sticking with Saxon for math...which I got at a steal at a 1/2 Price Book Store in Arlington.  They had the student hardback text book for $7.99, the test booklet for $3.99, and I can download the answer key free as an e-book!  It retails at $89.50, but I can find it for a little over $60.  However, I couldn't pass up a $12 deal!

We are also sticking with Learning Language Arts Through Literature, but moving from the Orange book to the Purple

We didn't finish two of our virtues and there are more stories in the other virtues that we haven't explored, so we're going to move forward with Book of Virtue studies that I borrowed from Shiver Academy.

We're sticking to Mystery of History, but moving forward from volume 1 to volume 2!

I randomly received the timeline extra pack from someone clearing out their homeschool stuff, so I'm excited to try it as well.

Last year we had multiple science curricula, but I ended up liking this one the best...

It had a good integration of different skills outside of science and had plenty of experiments that were easy and affordable.

I'm not going to do any additional bible curriculum at the moment.  I'm just going to keep Rosalinda encouraged in her daily Jesus Calling For Kids devotional

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Some maybes that I'm looking at adding to our studies

   

 

Can't wait for our orders to start arriving!