2018-2019 Homeschool Curricula Choices for 9th Grade - My Father's World

Year 8 of our "I will never, ever, ever homeschool" journey. LOL
I was thinking the other day that my padawans had a combined 6 years in Christian school but now we're at 16 years of homeschooling. Crazy daisy!

While those first years were full of hands-on projects, activities, and field trips, that aspect has definitely slowed down as we've hit high school for both of them. If you follow my blog regularly, I'm guessing you've picked up on the fact that there's very little worth blogging about when it comes to high school work. We still have a few hands-on projects, but it's shifted to more writing and textbooks than picture-worthy assignments.

Anyway, here's what Soprano's freshman year will look like:

Math: Saxon Algebra 1 and Algebra 2 and Life of Fred books
She needed a little more time in Algebra 1 to really grasp all of the concepts so we're scheduling it as half the lesson one day and the rest on day 2. She worked through about 2/3 of the Algebra 1 book last year, so we're plugging away at finishing it sometime this spring and then will move right into Algebra 2 (and probably continue that over the summer). To mix things up, every Friday she will do several chapters in Life of Fred picking up where she left off last year with the Pre-Algebra series.

English/Bible/History/Geography: My Father's World - Ancient History and Literature
Soprano is back using My Father's World this year after having two gap years using Notgrass and Beautiful Feet Books. She is a good writer, so I think she will have great success with AHL this year.

She also has a required literature list from which she needs to pick at least 20 books. Plus there is a good selection of lit recommended in AHL (see the stack with yellow tape on the spines).

Science: Compass Classroom Devotional Biology
I saw a great pre-sale offer for the DVD set, and it really caught my eye. I've just never jumped on the Apologia bandwagon and was on the hunt for something that Tenor and Soprano could do together this year. Devotional Biology has a great premise for teaching attributes of God as they teach aspects of biology. It also includes a full lab program that we'll be using.

Music/Art: Harmony Fine Arts 9th grade plans
Soprano will also be working towards a fine arts credit using the Harmony Fine Arts plans from 9th to 12th grade. This year she'll be focusing on ancient art through the Byzantines and baroque and early classical composers.

I'm also adding in a hymn study this year. Once a week, I'll read a chapter from one of the Mr. Pipes books and together, we'll learn and sing the hymns. Next year, I'd love to continue the hymn study...maybe adding in one of the books about some of our modern hymns or worship songs. Music geek alert. :)

Foreign Language: French Essentials Books 5 and 6 and Learn French the Fast and Easy Way
We need to get her 2 credits in foreign language to graduate. In previous years, Soprano has worked through the elementary and middle school levels of French Essentials. In order to make sure she will get a full credit this year, I added Learn French as well.

Electives:
Spelling - no credit/not graded
Soprano is going to work on her spelling this year using Apples and Apples 2. They are short, daily lessons specifically for secondary students. No random spelling lists...just quick reminders of basic spelling rules and then some practice exercises or word puzzles each day.




Logic - 1/2 credit
I did not like the logic books recommended by MFW when Tenor was in 9th grade, so Soprano will be using Art of Argument (Tenor used it in 10th) for her logic elective. She was grumbling about having to take it, but then I told her since she likes to argue this will help her learn to argue better. Then I stopped and thought about if I really wanted her to be able to argue better.... parenting fail. ;)
At least we'll be finishing this one up at the end of our first semester. Should I just give her an 'A' now? ;)


Creative Writing - 1 credit
Soprano is my writer. Since I despise writing, I am so pleased that I have one kid that enjoys it and doesn't seem to struggle with it like I do. AHL has plenty of academic writing in it, but we are also using The Creative Writer and My Book of Stories: Fairy Tales to give her time to work on her stories.


Interior Design - 1 credit
I sort of suggested this as a possible elective, and Soprano got really excited. Since we won't start this until after Christmas break, I haven't purchased any of the books yet. I have several resources in mind and once I get them in hand I will be able to pull the course together and come up with a schedule. I'm pretty sure we will definitely need to resubscribe to Sling TV so we can get HGTV and DIY Network...for research and educational purposes of course. :D
Possible books/resources:
Learning Zone Express: Interior Design
In the Hands of a Child Project Pack: Elements of Interior Design
AOP Consumer Science Lifepac 6: Interior Decorating 
Interior Design Studio (Kit)

Interior Design Course (book)
Design Your Dream Room (book/toy)
My Beautiful Room: Interior Design Workbook
Fashion Angels: Interior Design Sketch Portfolio (book/kit)
Interior Design Master Class (book...which is at our local library)

These lit-based curricula make the amount of needed books look insane!

2018-2019 Homeschool Curricula Choices for 11th Grade

Year 8 of our "I will never, ever, ever homeschool" journey. LOL
And this might be Tenor's last year *sniff, sniff* pending his acceptance into an early entry full dual enrollment program at a local tech college.

That potentiality has made planning this year a little tricky. But I think we have a good plan that could work with either scenario (either early entry/dual enrollment or regular homeschooling for his senior year).

Here's Tenor's Junior Year in our house:

Math: Life of Fred books
Since he doesn't *need* calculus to graduate (he already has enough credits) and doesn't need it for college admission and doesn't need it for his career path, we're not tackling a full year of Saxon Calculus, which would have been the next step for him. We talked about a business math type course or statistics but then I had the brilliant idea that we could use this year to do a math overview/review using Life of Fred. We'll try to get through Beginning Algebra, Advanced Algebra, and Geometry very quickly and then slow down and work through as many of the remaining high school level and college level books as he can.

English/Bible/History/Geography: My Father's World - U.S. History to 1877 and American Literature
Just like last year, we're staying with MFW. The biblical worldview is integrated extremely well; the literature selections are thought-provoking without being controversial or edgy; the composition instruction is thorough; and the overall package is put together very well.
He's not really excited about reading The Scarlet Letter, but seriously after reading Silas Marner last year, how bad could it really be?? ;)

I've also assigned him a required literature list with about four pages of titles (some that were left-over from last year). I let him pick at least 20 books from the list...just for exposure to other styles of lit or classic lit titles that he probably wouldn't choose on his own. (Um, especially considering he just pulled out some Garfield cartoon books this week. lol)

Science: Compass Classroom Devotional Biology
I saw a great pre-sale offer for the DVD set, and it really caught my eye. I've just never jumped on the Apologia bandwagon and was on the hunt for something that Tenor and Soprano could do together this year. Devotional Biology has a great premise for teaching attributes of God as they teach aspects of biology. It also includes a full lab program that we'll be using.

Foreign Language: Nothin'. :) Tenor finished his requirements for foreign language last year and chose to not continue with it.

Music/Art: Harmony Fine Arts 11th and 12th grade plans
In order to finish up his fine arts credit, he's doubling up this year. Since his other electives aren't full year, I don't think his schedule will be too overloaded with it.

I'm also adding in a hymn study this year. Once a week, I'll read a chapter from one of the Mr. Pipes books and together, we'll learn and sing the hymns. Next year, I'd love to continue the hymn study...maybe adding in one of the books about some of our modern hymns or worship songs. Music geek alert. :)

Electives:
Auto Maintenance and Repair
Since Tenor got his learner's permit earlier this summer, we're using Auto Upkeep as an elective and a much-needed life skills type class.

Practical Drafting
His future career path will probably include at least reading technical plans, if not creating them either by hand or with CAD. This used to be a recommended MFW elective, but they don't carry it anymore. I happened to find it used for only $10, and Tenor is pretty excited about it.
A friend who has been a drafter (or whatever his title actually is) for years recommended DraftSight as a free CAD program that we can use too. He said that his company has actually been considering dropping their paid CAD subscription and switching to DraftSight. That was enough recommendation for us.

Health (with Phys. Ed. and Driver's Ed.)
For graduation in our state, we have to teach health at some point in the secondary years (7th-12th grades). A friend gave me a box of old curricula to sell or dispose of for her, and Abeka high school health happened to be in there. I looked into some other publishers but free seemed to be the right choice. He'll finish up the Abeka health before Christmas and then I'll have him read a few books on relationships and dating. Pending my reading them, I've got When God Writes Your Love Story, Holding Hands Holding Hearts, New Rules for Love Sex and Dating, and Boundaries in Dating planned. We were also given Driver's Ed in a Box for free so we'll be using that too. I added it as a resource to our health elective even though it's an automobile thing. :)

Lots of books, y'all! :D