Cycle 3 - United States History

Morning (K-6th)

History:

Our focus in Cycle 3 is American History. Students will be inspired by the founding of our nation as they trace the history of our country in the Story of the World Volumes 3 & 4 and learn about Columbus, George Washington and the American Revolution, the Civil War, manifest destiny and our growth and changes in the modern world. Students will be given the option of additional readings at home while class time will be a mix of read-alouds, activities, crafts and discussions.

Math:

Families will be responsible for choosing their own math curriculum at home during the elementary years (we recommend Rightstart or Math U See), but in class on community day each grade will cover 24 weeks of math objectives, and play interactive math games and activities using manipulatives like the abacus, teddy bear counters, number lines, dice, cards and more to enhance those concepts.

Science:

Our community will dive into how our bodies work and what their systems are in the first semester. Each week the students will learn about a body system and complete a project to enhance that learning. In the second semester we will be introducing them to Chemistry through the periodic table, atoms, and elements. We will be memorizing scripture as we study creation, and our Creator.

Geography:

Each student will learn the 50 states and their capitals this year! Alongside those we will learn about major physical features, and will be offering an at home map challenge to encourage students to complete maps at home and bring them to community each week.

Grammar:

Our grades will be split up for the grammar portion of the day as follows:

Grades K-1 Recess

Grades 2-3 Shurley Grammar

Grades 4-6 Latin Primer (Martha Wilson)

Presentation:

"All the great speakers were bad speakers at first." — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Our Students will give a presentation each week for their class. The younger grades will practice a show and tell style to help them gain confidence with speaking in front of others, while our bigger kids will begin to learn the skills of public speaking. Topics and skills will be suggested weekly for our older students as we help them learn the foundations of speech, so they can speak eloquently into the world as they grow in age and wisdom.

Timeline:

While not a segment of our day we encourage the memorization of the timeline from creation to modern times.

Fine Arts:

Students will get their creative juices flowing with Art and Music! On community day they will study drawing, tin whistle, great artists and orchestra.

Afternoon (4th-6th)

The afternoon of our community day builds on some of the concepts from our morning classes. A robust grammar program will teach how our language works, and gives the students a deeper understanding of the morning time and memory work by using the parts of speech as they parse and diagram sentences. MCA uses the Institute for Excellence in Writing (IEW) to equip students as they learn how to structure different types of papers and write eloquently. Latin Vocab games help the students make connections from Latin to our English language.