General Science 1
First graders at Live Oak Academy receive an overview of science topics that relate to the world around them. These include: eating healthy foods, manners, the forces of gravity and magnetism, the earth’s weather system, habitats, and the life cycle of plants and butterflies. The purpose of first grade science is to foster the student’s natural curiosity about the world around them. Learning takes place primarily through activities that employ the five senses, such as observations, experiments and simple projects. The goal is to strengthen the student’s understanding of the world around them, while retaining the joy of discovery.
General Science 2
Second graders at Live Oak Academy will receive an overview of science topics that relate to the world around them. These include the difference between living and non-living things, the life cycle of plants, the human body (bones and muscles), the forces of gravity and magnetism, the earth, and oceans. Learning will take place primarily through activities that employ the five senses, such as observations and simple experiments. The goal is to strengthen the student’s understanding of the world around them, while retaining the joy of discovery.
General Science 3
Third graders at Live Oak Academy spend roughly one semester each studying Earth Science and Astronomy. Earth Science includes plate tectonics, landforms and erosion, rocks and minerals, the water cycle, weather, and the seasons. Astronomy includes the sun, the moon, the solar system, and outer space. The textbook will be used primarily at home for directed reading and activities. Websites are used extensively in the course, both for required home assignments and optional enrichment.
Class time will include lectures and simple note-taking, worksheets, discussions, activities, experiments, show-and-tell, and oral sharing of experiments and reports. Students have up to an hour of required home assignments on Fridays, though parents are encouraged to take advantage of opportunities to expand the curriculum as they see fit. Home assignments should always be done with the help of a parent or other home teacher and include worksheets (using the textbook or websites), crossword puzzles, drawings, experiments, journals (brief daily logs of observations), short research reports, and tests.
Primary Earth Science 4
Fourth graders at Live Oak Academy study earth science. While investigating the heavens and the earth, students will learn about the lithosphere, the atmosphere, weather, and astronomy. The textbooks will be used primarily at home for directed reading and activities. Websites are also used in the course, both for required home assignments and optional enrichment. Class time will include lectures and simple note-taking, discussions, activities, experiments, show-and-tell, and oral sharing of experiments and reports. Home assignments include readings, science notebook work, worksheets (using the textbook or websites), drawings, experiments, journals (brief daily logs of observations), short research reports, and tests.
Primary Biology 5
This class covers biology at a grade appropriate level, including the topics of taxonomy, cells, photosynthesis, plants, protists, animals, and ecology. Our approach will be appropriate to the grammar stage: an emphasis on memorization, observation, measurement, classification, and use of mnemonics.
Primary Chemistry 6
Sixth grade Chemistry will utilize inquiry-based instruction. Our study has four lesson sets: matter’s phases, density, attractive forces and finally atoms and molecules.
Students begin the year investigating the solid, liquid and gas phases of matter. The behavior of atoms and molecules in each phase of matter is described using kinetic theory. Students begin to relate macroscopic observations of matter to the behavior of atoms and molecules.
Students will study density in our second lesson set. They will use water displacement to determine the volume of irregular solids and thus calculate density values in the laboratory. There will be opportunities to compare densities of substances and identify factors that influence density values.
The third lesson set focuses on the attractive forces that hold atoms and molecules together. The behavior of water in various situations is examined. Students learn how adhesive and cohesive forces help to explain surface tension.
In the last lesson set, atomic theory is introduced and students learn about the structure of the atom. The periodic table is explored to see how element families, periods and groups are related to each other by common properties. Students will research an element and make an atom model.