Logic School 5th-8th Grade

At the Logic level, history reviews the cataloged facts and aids the students in recognizing the connectivity of historical events, people and locations. Principles of logic and rhetoric are integrated to enhance student learning, discussion, debate and presentation.

GRAMMAR

5th & 6th GRAMMAR

Rod and Staff English is used to help students master formal grammar to build the language skills necessary for successful writing. Assignments will include written work and worksheets each week that cover elements of a sentence, parts of speech, punctuation, clauses, and diagramming. Class time will be spent each week on new concepts and how to diagram them. Most of the Rod & Staff tests will be completed at home and a few in class.

7th & 8th GRAMMAR

Analytical Grammar teaches English grammar, punctuation, and usage. It is designed to be taught in three grammar “seasons” over two-year schedule. Analytical Grammar is an easy-to-follow, step-by-step approach that will prepare your student for high school and college-level work.

WRITING

Dictation, narration, writing of summaries, keyword outlines, and writing of narratives will work together to build the student’s writing ability. Students will rewrite paragraphs from selections in history weekly. Students will be taught in the model from the Institute in Excellence in Writing and will follow this model through the year in specific, simple assignments.

LITERATURE

Reading is key to the historical period. Literature will be biographies, classic works of imagination, and historical fiction. Students will receive a novel every two to four weeks. Some novels will have study guides that go with them, some quizzes, and others will be used in a writing assignment.

VOCABULARY

Ideal for students mastering a growing content-area vocabulary in social studies, science, literature, and mathematics – predominantly multisyllabic Greek – and Latin-based words. Strategic instruction helps students learn to unlock the meanings of thousands of words. As students transition from learning to read to reading to learn, they will develop a useful, transferable technique to make sense out of unfamiliar words.

LITERATURE & WRITING

Grade 8

Starting in 8th grade we use Excellence in Literature Curriculum. This five-year curriculum focuses on full-length classic literature studied in its historic, artistic, and literary context. That means you study great literature, see famous art, and hear beautiful music, all in appropriate historic context. Curriculum includes instructions and models to help your student complete each type of writing assignment. Also included rubric makes writing evaluation simple and constructive.

At the Logic level, students develop in symbolic mathematics. Algebra requires the student to work with the unknown, to analyze each problem, to discover its central point and to apply knowledge already acquired to its solution.

Saxon Math Intermediate 5 and Course I,II and III are used to give students time to learn and practice skills throughout the year. Developing higher-order thinking, Saxon Math helps students to become more confident problem solvers. Focusing directly on math to eliminate distraction. Our teachers introduce and teach the skills for the lessons that will be covered during the week. Assignments will be given each week and assignments will be given including a midterm and final exam.

ALGEBRA I

This class meets each week. Students come to class after reading the textbook and answering assigned questions at home. They come with interest and the background knowledge needed to participate in class during the lecture dialogue. The textbook is designed for home education and includes a few simple labs, crafts, and research assignments to be done at home. More complex lab exercises are demonstrated in class when possible. The class-hour is focused by using a 24-inch monitor with custom-made

PowerPoint slides that demonstrate many things for dialog and lab questions which enhance the learning of the lecture concepts. The slides develop and expand the textbook material by showing detailed pictures most efficiently. Students respond with exciting questions and eagerness to learn. Homework questions are emailed to parents with answers provided for grading, correcting and discussion at home. Unit tests are e-mailed every few weeks to be administered at home by parents. These are returned with the graded, weekly homework to the teacher for evaluating and recording. The textbook, God’s Design, is designed for home school and includes a few simple labs, crafts, and research assignments to be done at home. More complex lab exercises are demonstrated in class when possible.

This course is designed to be a student’s first systematic introduction to the sciences. The course covers such topics as the scientific method, designing experiments, simple machines, archaeology, geology, paleontology, biology, and human anatomy and physiology. Its scope, therefore, is quite wide. There are many hands-on experiments to do, and they all use household items.

This course is designed to be the last science course the student takes before high school biology. The text discusses such topics as the atmosphere, the hydrosphere, weather, the structure of the earth, environmentalism, the physics of motion, Newton’s Laws, gravity, and astrophysics. The author especially concentrates on the myths generated by the hysterical environmentalist movement. There are many hands-on experiments to do, and they all use household chemicals and supplies. It is an excellent course for preparing the student to take a college-prep high school science curriculum.

In order to give students the tools they need to develop decision making skills, we will do a variety of weekly critical thinking assignments. These skills will be useful in developing the ability to effectively discern whether a particular thought or idea lines up with the Word of God. Students will receive a myriad of different exercises each week. They should spread them out over the week instead of doing them all at once. They should break the monotony of regular school work while exercising the brain’s different capacities.