Anyone used Apologia Botnay for 6th grader?

Is Year 6 the same as 6th grade? I ask because I used Apologia Botany with my oldest daughter when she was this age and it was a perfect fit. She did most of the reading on her own and we got together for the experiments. I know the tone of the Apologia books can be a bit singsongy (at least I think it is) but I think the amount and type of information in the botany text was just right for this age.

One thing I added to the study was I had her choose one flower every couple of weeks (she loved flowers, but you could do the same with leaves, trees, anything else botanical) and illustrate it with the medium of her choice. As a result, we have many really nice illustrations of flowers in watercolor and/or colored pencil. She enjoyed this so much that she ended up a few years later taking an adult-level botany illustration class at a local arboretum.

You could also do a selection of pressed flowers/leaves from your neighborhood, like a field guide to your area, labeled with the names of the items. If you had enough of these, you could have them bound in a book or display them in another way of your choice. We live in the city and we find a lot of specimens, so I can only imagine how fun this would be if you live in the country or any area with lots of wildflowers and plants.

With my youngest daughter (almost 7yo) we are not doing a formal botany study right now, but we’re in the habit of collecting and pressing flowers from our neighborhood or our travels. We then glue the pressed flower onto a nice 4×6 card, label the type of flower and where we found it (even if it’s just from our front yard!) and we have these as an ever-growing garland above our school table.

If you live in an area where you can forage, it would be fun to do a study of edible and medicinal plants, then actually eat some things that you find (nettle soup! dandelion salad! ) or make tinctures or oils out of your foragings.

I hope others will chime in with ideas for a higher level botany study if that’s what you’re looking for. Just wanted to throw in a few ideas that you might use to augment Apologia.