2017-2018 School Year

Plans for Rabbit
Rabbit is enrolled at the local community college to take English Composition 1, College Algebra, and Music Theory 1 with Lab. She will take Spanish through our co-op. This will be a totally hands off semester for me, except for any help she needs with math or English. She is also a company dancer and dancing in competitions this year for her dance studio. I hope she can keep up with it all. In the spring, she will be starting at a local university.

Plans for Pooh and Tigger
This year we are repeating 1850 to Modern Times from My Father's World. Last time through they were third graders, so they just did the 2nd/3rd grade supplement. This time a lot of the information will be new. We will not be doing the Bible memory, as the boys participate in Awana. We will read the other books under the Bible section though, as those are good. They will also be doing Apologia's physical science curriculum with labs at co-op, rather than the science in 1850 to Modern Times.

Language Arts will be looking a bit different this year. I am adding in vocabulary, using Vocabulary Cartoons. We'll just do one word a day, 4 days a week. There is a quiz in the book after every 10 words, so we'll even do the quizzes. It will probably take us 2 years to get through a book, and I do plan on continuing them through high school. I feel like the boys are lacking in vocabulary. They don't like to read as much as Rabbit and it shows in the words they choose when speaking and writing. We are doing Easy Grammar as recommended by My Father's World, and continuing in Sequential Spelling as Pooh needs more spelling. Pooh will continue in Writing With Skill 1 this year, but Tigger will be taking a middle school writing class at co-op. I think it will be very good for him.

I'm going to continue with VideoText Interactive for the boys for Algebra 1 this year. Rabbit has done really well with it, and I like the way they teach it. I did briefly consider Shoremann math, but I think I like to be more involved with math, especially with Pooh's dysgraphia. This will allow me to keep up with what they are doing and not hand off a topic completely.

Apologia's Exploring Creation with Physical Science is recommended for 8th grade, so we are doing that. Our co-op has a teacher that offer's labs to go along with this text. I've already talked to her about Pooh's dysgraphia and how to go about handling that. The teacher really loves science, so I think this will be good for the boys.

For Foreign Langauge we are going to try a Spanish curriculum I picked up for $5 from the Build Your Bundle sale (if you consider I bought 5 things for $25, it was $5). I had OfficeDepot print out 2 copies and spiral bind them. It is written as a one semester course, but we will spread over the school year. Mostly I want to expose them to it before taking Spanish at the co-op in 9th grade. I might also add a little DuoLingo to it as well.

Art and Music we'll continue as part of the 1850 to Modern Times curriculum. We usually don't do the art projects. We read the art history and technique, but the boys aren't really interested in doing the art projects, so I let it go. We've got enough on our plates already.

There are also some really good read alouds this year that the boys didn't listen to last time. I'm looking forward to reading those with the boys. The books have longer chapters, so I don't know if I'll be doing those during lunch. Hopefully I can find some audio to go with the books so I don't have to do all of the reading myself. I did manage to get audio for Sargent York last time, though I ended up reading it because the audio seemed slow with the southern drawl. I know I got Across Five Aprils audio from the library last time, and that was helpful. 

Tigger is also taking acting again at our co-op. Both boys take music lessons. And Tigger is planning on hip-hop, flag football, and basketball this next school year. Oh, and we'll be doing P.E. classes as usual. I suspect our days will be much longer. History will take more time due to outlining each chapter (but that will be good for them). And I suspect science will take longer, as the co-op teacher said part of the homework is not only writing up the lab, but watching related videos and such. And, math too. But, I like to use a timer, and when we hit a maximum time for a subject, we stop for the day.

Preparation

So, I've read through the introduction section of the teacher's manual a couple of times. I went shopping for a few items we need. I've printed the first few weeks of the Student Activity pages (bought the PDF this time) that we'll need and the timeline pieces. I cleaned out their history notebooks from last year, bought new binders, and put all the page protectors in the new binders. I've also put lesson plans for physical science, vocabulary, the Progeny Press guides we're doing this year, and Easy Grammar into my Homeschool Tracker Plus database. 

What's left? A little more organizing the bookshelves, ripping the CD's for music to my phone (because the cars no longer have CD players, and I plan on listening to the music in the car on the way to co-op), reserving books from the library (that needs to wait until closer to our start date), and finishing lesson plans to go along with our Awana program this year. We start in a month, so hopefully I can get it all done.

Successful Homeschooling

So, my oldest completed her junior year. This fall she will be taking classes at the local community college, I will graduate her in December, and in January 2018 she will start as a freshman at a local university.

What We Did in Elementary School

We have used My Father's World since she was in 3rd grade. And, we used all their recommendations except for Spelling and Writing in the elementary years. (For spelling she used All About Spelling. For Writing, we started with Writing Strands and then used Essentials in Writing for 7th and 8th - this was before My Father's World started recommending Writing with Skill 1 for 7th and 8th). Singapore math was very good for her. 

What We Did in 9th Grade

For 9th grade, we used My Father's World Ancient History and Literature, as written. I did have a friend who was willing to help me with improving and grading her writing. That was very helpful. For Math, we used Saxon Algebra 1. Science was Apologia's Biology, doing labs at a co-op. For Foreign Language we used My Father's World lesson plans for Rosetta Stone. This included writing  a report about a Spanish speaking country, watching videos with Spanish language and subtitles turned on, and reading children's books in Spanish. We also did the Logic books and she had dance classes approximately 7 hours a week. Since our local high schools have "Performing Arts" classes with credit, I gave her credit for that. She also volunteered every week at our Awana program and helped set up and tear down at church on a 2 week on, 4 week off rotation. She also did the Awana Journey program, which I used for her memorization, rather than any memorization in My Father's World Bible component.

What We Did in 10th Grade

For 10th grade, we used My Father's World World History and Literature. For Math we used Math-U-See's Geometry. Since she did Apologia's Chemistry this year, I needed to make sure the math program was not too hard. For Chemistry, we were able to take labs at our co-op, and those took her 3 to 5 hours a week to do, much of the time due to her struggles with math (related to her dyslexia). Our co-op began offering Spanish 1 classes this year, so she did that, while doing Rosetta Stone level 2. The combination really helped. She also did the Health program sold by My Father's World. I did have her read Boundaries in Dating, as I disagree with the premise behind the I Kissed Dating Goodbye book. Add in her dancing, Awana, volunteering, and church volunteering and you have a full year.

What We Did in 11th Grade

Again, we used My Father's World US History to 1877 program. She did like the BJU textbook over the Notgrass from previous years. The section quizzes and tests take it up a notch. We switched to using VideoText Interactive for Math. She has worked hard to complete all the videos. And, we did Apologia's Advanced Biology for science, as I didn't feel she could handle the math for Physics. We have a microscope, so she just did the microscope labs (no dissections, but she did those in Biology). I let her take pictures through the microscope with her phone rather than hand drawing what she saw. At co-op, she took an ACT/SAT prep class that uses John Baylor Test Prep to prepare for taking her ACT and SAT, and Spanish 2 (which was really Spanish 3 on her transcript). We dropped the Personal Finance class, as it was too much with the ACT/SAT prep, and I felt it was more important. This year she did a one week missions trip to Honduras, as well as her usual Awana, volunteering, and dance. We did have occasional tears and had to adjust schedules and expectations.

At the end of the school year, she took her ACT and SAT. She had above average scores, but not super high scores, which I expected based on her dyslexia and math challenges. I had her take the Accuplacer test at the local community college, and she placed into Freshman Composition 1 and College Algebra. Those are the only two classes she actually needs to meet the minimum admissions requirements to get into the university. So, she will be taking those, and a Music Theory 1 class with lab. 

She is actually studying to take the College Composition CLEP, and if she passes, she will take Freshman Composition 2 instead, since the target university accepts the CLEP and we have guaranteed transfer on the Composition and Math classes. She is also studying for the US History 1 CLEP, which makes sense after studying that time period. Other CLEPs are on the horizon.

What We Might Do Differently

So, now that I've done this once, I have twin boys to follow (they will be 8th graders this fall). Here are some things I might do differently the next time through.

Since the boys do Awana, and worldview is in the program, I'm seriously considering *not* doing the Bible part of the 11th grade year. We might do something like watch The Truth Project once a week just to cover it, but not have it be part of our homeschool classes. I have one boy who is more of a STEM kid, and would like to open up a slot for programming or extra science. He also is dyslexic, so I don't want to overload him. Also, the other boy likes music and acting and sports, so I want to have room in his daily schedule for him to do those things.

We've already started and completed VideoText Interactive Module A, which is pre-algebra. We will do it for our school the next 2 years. I have their Geometry program, too.

I want to do more PSAT/SAT/ACT prep earlier. Maybe just a little each week using a book or something. So again, I need to make sure we don't overload. Mostly this is because the schools my boys are thinking of attending will cost more than the one my oldest is attending and will need scholarships. Good test scores help with scholarships.

I'm also thinking of doing the Accuplacer at the end of 10th grade. If they place into Freshman Composition 1, then we will direct more of our English time onto CLEP preparation. I am also considering how to use Writing with Skill 2 (and maybe 3) in conjunction with the My Father's World writing. I really like the way Writing with Skill breaks things down.

I'm sure there are other ideas tumbling around in my head, but these will get me started.