A Closer Look at 5th Grade Charlotte Mason Curriculum
Do you have a fifth grader you’d like to homeschool using a Charlotte Mason-inspired curriculum? Well, Creation to Christ is a Charlotte Mason-inspired, complete, literature-based, Christ-centered curriculum written specifically for 9 to 11 year-olds. It works well for 5th grade and includes all your student needs for a complete year of Charlotte Mason-style curriculum! Let’s take a look at this inspirational 5th grade Charlotte Mason curriculum!
A Charlotte Mason Living Books’ Approach to History
Told in story form, Heart of Dakota’s Creation to Christ provides students with a Biblical overview of ancient history. In this 5th grade Charlotte Mason curriculum, students learn about the Sumerians, Hebrews, Egyptians, Phoenicians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, and Romans. Biblical history is shown to be authoritative, and the history of ancient civilizations weaves in and out of Old Testament stories at the proper times in the overall narrative. An exciting overview of ancient Greece, ancient Rome, and of Christ’s life comes next, and the year concludes with the readings of the gospels of Luke, John, and Acts. As students ‘travel’ chronologically through ancient history, they chronicle their journey by keeping a timeline in a beautiful, full-color notebook. Very Charlotte Mason-inspired!
Full of ‘can’t put them down’ books, Creation to Christ’s ancients history weaves an exciting coherent and memorable timeline. Just as Charlotte Mason advocated, students at this age should begin reading a portion of their history independently. The Story of the Ancient World, Ancient Greece, and Ancient Rome provide the perfect Charlotte Mason-style books for students to read independently. However, students aren’t the only ones that get to have fun reading Charlotte Mason-style books! Parents enjoy reading aloud the Charlotte Mason-inspired Storytime set of books. Likewise, just as Charlotte Mason matched geography lessons to the historical time period, Geography of the Holy Lands matches the ancients time period. Parents lead this geography study, as well as an inspirational Genesis study. So, together, students and parents read Charlotte Mason-style living books to make the ancients come to life!
A Charlotte Mason Living Books’ Approach to Science, Literature, and Composition
Creation to Christ features a unique, Charlotte Mason living books approach to life science that integrates notebooking, narration, relevant Scriptures, and hands-on experiments. The science study is written directly to the student, helping them learn to follow written directions and gain independence. As students delve into life science, they will find what they learn matches up with the Bible. Students make connections between science and history as topics, people, and events overlap between the two subjects. As students learn about the advance of scientific achievements, they visualize the historic backdrop behind the discoveries. A hands-on approach to experiments makes science come to life right along with the living books’ readings!
With Drawn into the Heart of Reading, students read captivating books, explore nine different genres, learn common story elements, discover Godly character traits, and complete fun activities. This flexible literature program will help your 5th grader become passionate about books, while still teaching necessary reading skills. Based on clear instructions and engaging activities, this innovative program will work with any literature. You can choose your own books, or use our engaging Level 4/5 or 5/6 Book Packs instead!
A Charlotte Mason’s living books approach recognizes the importance of choosing good authors! Creation to Christ’s composition program follows Charlotte Mason’s advice by choosing simply the best authors! Write With the Best: Vol 1 uses literary passages from respected and well-loved authors teach students how to write. Creative activities break the writing into manageable chunks and help students identify what makes a literary work “great”. This 5th grade Charlotte Mason curriculum takes a beautiful living books’ approach virtually every subject it can!
Oral and Written Narrations
Oral and written narrations provide important Charlotte Mason assessments, and Creation to Christ’s plans include both! Just as Charlotte Mason recommended, only narrative, living books provide the basis for narrating. In response to their independent history living books’ readings, students write 5-8 sentence written narrations, highlight the main idea in each written narration, and use the Written Narration Tips to edit their narrations. However, the guide narrows down the focus of the narration to just a portion of the history reading, and guided questions help students think about their narration before they begin writing. Likewise, students work through the Written Narration Tips one at a time when they are editing. This helps fifth grade students develop strong written narration skills!
In response to the living books read aloud for Storytime, students rotate through giving a detailed oral narration, doing an outline sketch narration, a short skit narration, a question and answer session, an advertisement speech for the book, a summary narration, and a making connections between the story and Proverbs session. Students also orally narrate in response to their living books’ science readings! This variety keeps narration fresh and fun, and also teaches different styles of oral narration skills. This 5th grade Charlotte Mason curriculum helps students learn to successfully narrate in both oral and written form!
An Inspirational Poetry Study, Copywork/Common Place Books, Memorization, Studied Dictation
“The heavens declare the glory of the Lord,” and Robert Frost’s poetry just simply celebrates the beauty of Creation. Students begin by reading Robert Frost’s poems, move on to discussing the moods/meaning of the poem, learn about Robert Frost’s life, follow step-by-step directions to learn to water color paint a painting each week to match the poem’s meaning, and interactively share the poem by reading it to an audience (a.k.a. the family). Finally, every 9 week term, they choose a Robert Frost poem they’ve studied to memorize. Very Charlotte Mason-like for your fifth grade student, don’t you think?!?
Using either the Illustrated Family Bible Stories or their own Bible, students begin their day with their own private Bible Quiet Time. This is such an important habit to have, and this Bible Quiet Time has all the facets you’d want in a Bible quiet time! Reading from the Bible, praying with the 4 parts of prayer using the ACTS model, memorizing Philippians 2, singing the Scriptures being memorized along with praise music, and copying verses in a Charlotte Mason-style Common Place Book to forever be remembered!
Practice spelling using the Charlotte Mason method of studied dictation. Using passages provided in Creation to Christ, your fifth grade student will study a passage and then reproduce it as you dictate the passage aloud. This process quickly builds writing skills while teaching spelling, capitalization, and punctuation. To read more about Charlotte Mason’s studied dictation method, click here!
Completing Your Charlotte Mason-Inspired Fifth Grade Curriculum
In addition to all of the Charlotte Mason-inspired skills already mentioned, Creation to Christ includes all other necessary subjects for fifth graders today! Math, grammar, science labs, music, fine arts, history projects, research questions, vocabulary, discussion questions, comprehension questions, etc. round out your fifth grade students’ curriculum. Rest assured, as you enjoy all the Charlotte Mason-inspired components, your student will also be learning all that is necessary for fifth grade requirements today!
For more details about Creation to Christ, click on these links…
Resources (click each basket and ‘view details’)
If you still have questions about this 5th Grade Charlotte Mason-inspired curriculum, reach out to Heart of Dakota! We love to help!
In Christ,
Julie
This Post Has 3 Comments
Hello there I have 3 students. 5th, 3rd ish, and kindergarten. All of your curriculums have a read aloud section and separate history and science lessons. Do you suggest reading from each one, or selecting one curriculums read aloud?
How do you suggest group learning history and science! Is that possible with HOD?
Hello Erin!
Thank you for your interest in Heart of Dakota! I am a placement specialist and a fellow homeschool mom with three sons. I’ve enjoyed using HOD PreK-12th grade and would love to help you with questions and placement.
Combining sometimes works well and other times does not. Age is just one part of placement and of determining whether combining is best or not. With placement, we find it most effective to help you one of the following ways:
1: placement specialist by phone (call 605-428-4068 Monday through Friday)
2: HOD Message Board https://forum.heartofdakota.com/ (free to join, please post on the Main Board)
3: placement chart: https://www.heartofdakota.com/placement/
4: catalog https://www.heartofdakota.com/catalog/ (free to order, full of lots of helpful placement information)
I am here this afternoon until 5 PM Central Time, or the rest of the week from noon to 5 PM Central Time. You can always schedule a time too. If you let me know an afternoon you are free, I can let you know what openings I have available for a phone call. I’d be happy to help! Hope to hear from you one of these ways soon!
In Christ,
Julie Grosz, M.Ed.
Good afternoon, Erin!
Just wanted you to know I received your phone message and tried calling! Each time I call, I am getting an automated response that says “all circuits are busy now, try again later.” I’ve tried multiple times, and I keep getting the same message. I thought I’d reach out to you here and let you know! If you could please call HOD back at your convenience, I’d be happy to help!
In Christ,
Julie