The Syllabus
Aliyah’s Modified Oak Meadow Curriculum
A full sixth-grade course of study, taught the old way — by Socratic challenge, not rote memorization.
The Core Package
Oak Meadow, Sixth Grade, Full Package
Aliyah’s general syllabus for core curriculum is the application of Oak Meadow’s sixth grade full package — a progressive, Vermont-based program we follow closely, with some improvisations of our own. It consists of four core texts, their teacher manuals, and a shelf of interdisciplinary fiction chosen to make history come alive and teach by application of knowledge rather than rote knowledge.
Full credit to Oak Meadow for the sixth grade package we ordered and adapted for Aliyah’s year.
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Language Arts
Reading of American literary classics paired with free writing and stream-of-consciousness composition.
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Mathematics
Long division, multiplication of larger numbers, addition and subtraction of decimals, and an introduction to basic algebra.
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Science
Identification of local flora and fauna, hands-on dissection, and observation drawn from our own fifty acres.
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History & Social Studies
Interdisciplinary study of historical events, examined for what really happened and why it matters today.
The Lyceum
Fifty Acres of Classroom
Our classroom, or “Lyceum,” is the entire world. Fifty acres of farmland and woodland give Aliyah a living laboratory for local flora and fauna, rocks and minerals, and local history — supplemented by historical films and visits to the sites themselves.
Flora & Fauna
We study the local flora and fauna as they present themselves, season by season, dissection included.
Rocks & Minerals
Geology walks turn into lessons on what the land beneath our feet is actually made of.
Local History
Historical movies and visits to local historical sites make the past a place, not a paragraph.
Fifty Acres
Farmland and woodland at dusk, dawn, and every season in between — our living laboratory.
The Method
“I challenge Aliyah using the Socratic Method, and do so at random times, in random ways — the old way.”
The questioning is deliberately cross-disciplinary. When we covered the “discovery” of America, she wrote about whether that was even a true statement — drawing on history, English, writing, social sciences, and critical thinking all at once.
A Movie Friday screening of a space program film became a lesson on gravitational pull and re-entry geometry, and then a debate: should that mission have flown at all, and should the program continue? Academic separation of subjects is a matter of convenience — not how she is taught to think.
Not Percentiles
Understanding, Not Rote Memorization
This is not rote memorization to place Aliyah in a certain percentile. What does her happiness and her power to bring good to the world have to do with that? Nothing. We aren’t about funding, politics, or religion, and we have no interest in owning your hearts or minds. We bring contextual understanding through critical study and challenging questions, so she grows up prepared to separate the wheat from the chaff — aware of her own uniqueness and her own internal locus of identity.