Recap and Review Sixth Grade Charlotte Mason Homeschool Plans 2021-2022

We have just wrapped up another fruitful year of homeschooling. My plans for Peter worked well, but of course, we all grew and changed throughout the year (including me) and so adjustments were made. I'm going to recap mostly what we did accomplish, but you can check out my original plans to compare all the things that we didn't get too this year!

This schedule worked pretty well as originally planned. After Christmas, we made some changes and let a few things go while adding some others, which I'll discuss below.

Peter used his free time to annotate a map with family-friendly hiking spots, to take an online financial literacy course, to read many fiction and nonfiction books, and play his instruments. 

I love to consult Ambleside Online, a Catholic Charlotte Mason curriculum, A Gentle Feast, Wildwood Curriculum,  A Delectable Education, Sabbath Mood Homeschool, and Heritage Mom for book ideas, but I put our plans together in my own way. I have tried to note in [ ] whether I'm using a free book or how much I paid for each of the resources we are using. I am committed to homeschooling with free or really cheap books as part of our journey to be debt-free while living on one income. I have also listed all of the subjects we do as a family here.

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Peter is an avid reader for pleasure, but I assign him books to keep him always reading new things. He read the following assigned fiction books this year:

The Illiad (Fagles translation)

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

Watership Down by Richard Adams

Gulliver's Travels by Jonathon Swift

He also decided to push hard on his own to complete the remaining titles on the Mensa for Kids Excellence in Reading List for grades 4-6. Fortunately, he was able to find all the books that weren't available to borrow from our library (as books or ebooks) on archive.org. He sent off his list to Mensa and they quickly sent him back this nice shirt for free:

We read three Shakespeare plays together as a family this year:

Peter worked through selected language arts pages from Brainquest Grade 6 [$5.18 from Target with coupon] and Sentence Diagramming: Beginning [$10.40 with Amazon promo credit]. 

Once per week, he selected a sentence to copy in cursive into a wide-ruled composition notebook. But we dropped this practice by Term 3. I just didn't feel like it was essential. 

While Peter continued to narrate orally via voxer's note to self feature, he also wrote 2-3 narrations each week on a private blog. He much prefers typing to handwriting. 

Peter recited the following poems, plus 6 additional poems of his choosing, at our poetry teas:

The Cloud by Sara Teasdale

The Illiad lines 1-15 by Homer

The Star by Sara Teasdale

Prospero monologue from The Tempest by William Shakespeare

Going for Water by Robert Frost

Whoso List to Hunt, I Know There Is a Hind by Sir Thomas Wyatt

Tree at My Window by Robert Frost

Once more unto the breach dear friends, once more from Henry V by William Shakespeare

The Chimney Sweeper by William Blake

I heard myself proclaim'd from King Lear by William Shakespeare

The Ecchoing Green by William Blade

To Althea, from Prison by Richard Lovelace

Peter read Richard Halliburton's Book of Marvels: The Orient [$16 from Living Book Press] and watched the companion videos from Wonder and Wildness. 

He alternated Book of Marvels with selected worksheets from 180 Days of Geography for Sixth Grade [$12.09 from Rainbow Resource Center]. He also began using Seterra for map drills--first working on Ireland (to prepare for his November trip there) and then Africa and Asia. 

Citizenship 

Although I had planned to read 3 of Plutarch's lives this year, we only accomplished 1.5 before giving it up. Peter listened to and narrated Coriolanus and half of Publicola. 

Personally, I got a lot out of reading Plutarch's Lives, but the boys really disliked it and I couldn't justify why we were putting the energy into it. It doens't seem important to me, so I'm letting it go. If I want to read Plutarch, I need to make time for reading it on my own.

Peter finished AOPS Prealgebra and then begin working through AOPS Algebra [$45 used from homeschool Facebook group], getting through about 1/2 of the book. He also worked with a local college student majoring in math and secondary education to explore interesting math topics. He prepared for and took the AMC 8 in January, earning a merit certificate for being a high scoring student in 6th grade or below. 

In March, he paused his Algebra work to enroll in the AOPS class Introduction to Counting and Probability which has been really good for him, if sometimes frustrating! He does not love having deadlines when the problems can be quite difficult. 

Peter studied a new science each term with the following books and materials:

Astronomy: Stars: A New Way to See Them by H.A. Rey [$1 book sale find] with activities from Astronomy for All Ages by Phillip Harrington [already owned], continued from when he studied astronomy in 4th grade.

Physics: Secrets of the Universe Set by Paul Fleisher [gift from grandparent] along with experiments and activities from or inspired by the text.

Electronics: Electronics Study from Sabbath Mood Homeschool using Electronics for Kids by Oyvind Nydal Dahl

I had planned for him to study Botany using The First Book of Plants by Alice Dickinson, but swapped it out for Electronics. We will save the Botany study for next year. 

Peter read for 20 minutes per week in this area, completing the following books:

Peter journaled two nature prompts per week from Exploring Nature Around the Year in his nature journal for half of the year. This was something I took off of his schedule after Christmas to make room for more passion projects and free time.

Peter attended our year-round all-weather nature group at a rural property every week that he did not have band class on a Friday. He would prefer that our group did more long hikes and more exploring new places, but that is something that we try to do as a family on the weekends.

New to us since January, Peter and his sibings joined a local 4-H club that focuses on hiking and nature. And Peter and his brother are attending 4-H camp this year in June. 

As planned, we used picture study aids from A Humble Place during morning time to study

We subscribed to SQUILT for July-August and November-February. The last few months we continued to listen to SQUILT calenders that we hadn't already completed. It was not focused on particular composers, but we listened to great music and learned a lot.

We learned a few new folk songs, including

Peter continues to move forward with Hoffman Academy and is almost done Unit 16. He doesn't love waiting for new lessons to come out to move forward, but I think that this format suits him as he enjoys playing but isn't competitive or perfectionistic about it. 

Peter has marched off to middle school all year and been a member of the band class, learning to play the trumpet and performing in two concerts with his bandmates. 

Peter participated in the following this year

• Swimming lessons (summer)
• Ice skating (winter)
• 4-H Outdoors Club hikes
• Wild + Free nature group
• Hiking, biking, and frequent walks around our town