I'm homeschooling 3 children...Ben and Kendell are 16, juniors in high school. Julia is 11 and is in 6th grade, however I have skipped a lot of 6th grade curriculum.
Ben and Kendell:
Chemistry is Apologia at the co-op. Both of the kids find this class intense and difficult. It's a 3 hour class once a week but there is a lot of work assigned so they require at least 1 hour a day for homework.
Trig/PreCalc Saxon--this is Kendell's math class at the co-op. She likes math. She tells me it makes sense, there is always an answer. I had her take 2 math classes last year so she could get into this advanced math class this year. She really won't need to take another math class her senior year; although she'd probably willingly take another one because she likes it so much.
Alg 2 Saxon--this is Ben's class for math at the co-op. I'll push for him to take the Trig/PreCalc class next year.
History is PACES American History. We do this class daily (well, we have been known to miss it once in awhile). I like to read the material aloud with Kendell and Ben because I like to stay up on what they are doing. I realize they would prefer not to have me read with them. Just tell them what pages to complete and get on with it. I still press to read the material aloud because I want to have discussion with them about the topic. That is hit and miss; when you're 16 you really don't care about the Federalist Papers.
English, we kind of made up on our own. I never felt that my children were reading enough of the classics in their private school in Iowa so I was determined that this year with me homeschooling we would read read read. They both had had what I thought was excessive grammar though. So, we started off with reading Catcher In The Rye, then The Screwtape Letters, and To Kill A Mockingbird. We are currently reading a nonclassic :o) called The Fifth Seal which is a biblically accurate work of fiction about the birth of Jesus. Each day we discuss what they were assigned to read. I want to make sure that they are reading what I assign (because Kendell was famous for doing spark notes for what little assigned reading she had in private school) and I'm hoping that disucssion brings up some deep conversations. We always read the next chapter aloud as a group and then I assign the next two chapters for silent reading. I do not test at this point. I'm also going to start in January assigning some writing with Daily Warm-Ups by Walch. I just bought the SAT prep book of this series.
Vocab was a disaster from the start. I had purchased Classical Roots grade 11 for Ken and Ben. It is so ridiculously out of any 11th graders league that we all hate it. Honestly, if I was giving them grades for this class they would both have C's, it's just that awful. So, starting this week I threw the book out and am using an SAT word list I found online. Each week they get 15 words that I will test them over on Thursdays. During the week of study for that Thursday test they are going to be required to write sentences with those vocab words, orally quiz them over the spelling of those words and copy down the words and their meanings.
Bible class is something I've struggled with. I had bought the 11th grade Bible curric. from Landmark Freedom Baptist but it's not very meaty so we just dumped it. I bought a Bible study by Max Lucado but that was so fluffy I thought as well. I did come across a book in a series called Spiritual Discovery Series. The topic of this book is The Sanctity of Life. It covers the Bible's view on suicide, contraception, murder, abortion etc. Great topics that will lead to some meaningful discussions I hope. Each lesson is just long enough and has lots of Bible verses to support the author's points.
What I need for these two is push writing. I need to assign a couple of research papers.
For Miss Julia in 6th grade:
Math is Saxon 6/7 that she takes at the co-op. One day a week for a couple of hours but a lot of homework that is requing at least 1 hour a night of homework.
Science is BJU for 7th grade. Also taken at the co-op and also requiring at least 1 hour of homework each night.
History/Geo: When we left Iowa Julie was in private school studying BJU World History. I was going to keep on with that but then I changed my mind. I wanted to start homeschool off with a bang for Julie so she would immediately find it enjoyable. Julie loves to learn about other cultures and countries. I bought the BJU 9th grade Geography. It's not wonderful but I like how it is broken up. Right now we're on Europe. We read through the chapter in the book and then I required her to learn the first 24 countries from that chapter, learning all their capitals, their form of government and their primary religion. I am so proud of her memorizing all of those! I let her pick 1 country from that chapter (she chose United Kingdom) and she is doing a big project on it. We sat down and discussed what she wanted to learn about that country and she is now doing research on those topics to form a written report, create a visual board and she is also going to find a recipe to make a common food from that country. She will make her presentation next week to our family (when dad is home from work). Next she needs to memorize where each of those 24 countries are located on the world map...where exactly is Andorra? :o) Then we'll move on to Eastern Europe and do the same thing. This is Julie and I's favorite class and we both love the reading time we share with it.
Vocab was the same disaster with Julie. We are now using a word list from 8th grade and doing the same process as Kendell and Ben.
English is Rod & Staff 6th grade. We do a lesson every day except we place it on hold when she is doing a large research project like the one on the United Kingdon because in my opinion that includes all aspects of Language Arts.
I have brought Julie into Kendell and Ben's required reading for Literature class. She read To Kill A Mockingbird and is reading The Fifth Seal with us as well. She's doing really well and isn't afraid to ask questions if she doesn't understand something. I think we're going to do A Tale of Two Cities next.
Bible class is kind of on hold for Julie because I can't find what I need for her. She is faithful to do her devotions though every night so for now that is going to have to do.
I need to get Julie in a good writing curric. She loves to write stories so I want to embrace that. I found one at the homeschool store and I think I'll purchase that in the next week and get her moving on that starting the first of January.
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