Homeschool activities for Grades 5 and 6

Geography

• River to the sea: Follow a leaf downhill, all the way to the sea.
• Rivers of the world: Where the great rivers run, from the hills to the sea.
• Same place, four maps: One town, four maps, and what each map is for.
• Time-zone call: Why it is bedtime somewhere when it is breakfast here.
• What time is it there?: Your child works out what time it is on the other side of the world, and why.
• Where did this come from?: The world is in your kitchen: every label is a place, and your child finds it on the map.
• Where in the world is Pip?: Read the clues on a postcard and find where the Pet went.
• Who can get there?: See a familiar walk through someone else's eyes.
• Wonders of the world: Famous places of the world, one true thing each.

Every geography activity

History

• Before the headline: Coming first is not the same as causing, checked card by card.
• Build it like they did: Build what people long ago built, then test it.
• Detective of the past: Look closely first, then say how you know.
• Older or newer?: Tell older from newer by the clues, not a guess.
• One event, two front pages: Tell a point of view from something made up.
• The one-shelf museum: A museum on one real shelf, and a visitor who learns from it.
• Time capsule: A box for next year, and proof of what changed.
• Walk in their shoes: Stand where someone long ago stood, with what they knew.
• What happened next?: Coming after is not the same as caused by, checked card by card.

Every history activity

Science

• Bread in a bag: A small loaf your child measured, mixed and watched rise.
• A cardboard dinosaur: A cardboard stegosaurus that stands on its own.
• A cardboard house: A box house for a real toy, built to pass a test.
• A cup telephone: A cup telephone your child made and tested, and the counts that show which string carries a whisper best.
• Boats that hold the most: A foil boat your child improved by testing, and the numbers to show it.
• Keep the ice: A test your child ran on real ice, and a record of which wrap kept it longest.
• What a magnet can pull: Your child finds out for themselves what a magnet pulls, how far its pull reaches, and how it makes a needle point roughly north and south.
• A marble run: A marble run your child built and fixed until the marble lands in the cup.
• A paper bridge that holds a book: A paper bridge your child made that holds a book, and the test that proves which shape is strongest.
• A parachute that lands softly: A parachute your child made that lands a peg softly, and the drops that show why.
• A periscope from two cartons: A periscope your child built that sees over the sofa, and the light's path to explain it.
• A rain gauge and a week of weather: A rain gauge your child made, and a week of rain measured.
• Ripples in a tray: A tray of water, a bottle cap and a measured answer to whether the water travels with a ripple.
• Shadow puppets: A shadow puppet your child made, and a shadow they can make twice as big on purpose.
• A soil sponge: Three soils tested side by side by your child, and an answer to which holds the most water.
• A sundial: A sundial your child made that tells the time the next day.
• Our week of rubbish: A week of your household's rubbish, sorted and counted by your child, and one change proposed with the numbers.
• Circuit rescue: Your child finds the break and lights the bulb again.
• Grow it: A real bean on the sill, and a daily look at what changed.
• Kitchen changes: Real changes on your worktop, and whether they go back.
• Light around corners: Aim a torch beam round a corner with a mirror.
• Moon diary: Two minutes at bedtime, and the moon's pattern appears.
• Our solar system: The sun and its planets, in order, at their true sizes.
• Paper carries a load: One sheet of paper, folded right, holds a pile of coins.
• Pull one out: Your child reads a food web and follows what changes when one plant or animal is taken out.
• Ramp race: A fair test with a toy car and a pile of books.
• Read the rocks: Your child reads a cliff of rock layers from the bottom up and sees what the fossils and the rocks say about Earth's past.
• Shadow tracker: Your child finds a pattern in the sky for themselves.
• The moths on the tree: Your child sees where a moth's colour comes from and how the birds change a whole population over the years.
• The night sky: Look up, find a shape, and learn its name.
• The sun's path: the zodiac: The year as a ring of star shapes the sun passes through.
• Where does it go?: Your child follows air, food and blood through the body and sees how the parts work together.
• Who lives here?: A loop of string on the ground becomes a small world.

Every science activity

Math

• A cardboard arcade game: An arcade game your child built from a box, that the family played.
• Origami: a boat, a frog, a crane: A paper model your child folded that works: a boat that stands, a frog that jumps, a crane that flaps.
• Balance the beast: Keep the scale level and find what is in the box.
• Below zero: Your child reads and moves through numbers below zero the way a lift, a thermometer and a diver do.
• Build my room: Your child measures their own room, and the Pet's room changes to match.
• Bundle builders: Ten loose sticks and one bundle of ten are the same ten.
• Cover without gaps: Same tiles, new shape: your child sees what area means.
• Feed the crowd: Your child keeps a recipe's mix the same at any size, the way a cook does.
• Pizza fractions: Fractions make sense, one slice at a time.
• How many do you think?: A feel for how big a number is, and that a guess can be off and still be useful.
• Make the amount: The same amount, made two ways with real coins.
• Pattern parade: Your child hears a rule, keeps it going, then makes one.
• Secret rule machine: Your child finds a machine's secret rule, then tests it on a number it has not seen.
• The Pet's shop: Money maths that buys something real for the Pet's room.
• The picture that fooled us: Your child reads a chart's numbers before its picture, and spots when the picture does not match them.

Every math activity

Reading

• Our family recipe card: A family recipe written down by your child, that someone else made from the card.
• Kindness cards for the street: Three cards your child made for real people nearby, and gave with you.
• Memory pairs: Your child finds the pairs among pictures from their own storybooks, and, from Grade 1, matches each picture to its word.
• Name it: Your child names the things from their storybooks in your family's language, with someone who speaks it.
• Prove it: Your child checks a claim against what a passage really says, and finds the sentence that proves it.
• The Pet's first draft: Your child edits a short paragraph so it makes its point clearly, in order, and for the right reader.

Music & arts

• My piece: Practice that belongs to your child, with no timer and no streak.