My youngest started high school on Monday. It is bittersweet. She has always been homeschooled; never attended public school like her sisters did. It is so exciting to see her start high school and set up her high school transcript this week! But, I am also sad knowing the homeschooling adventure for our family will end in May of 2029. This will be my last ninth grade year to coordinate.
For English Language Arts, we decided not to use The Good and the Beautiful as we did with her older sisters. Although I feel it is a solid ELA program for high school, I also agree with my youngest that it can be boring. I also sympathize with the fact that she used TGTB as her ELA curriculum for first through seventh grade and is still feeling a bit burned out. For eighth grade, we used Cover Story, and she loved it. At the end of the year, she used PowerPoint to create an adorable magazine about her favorite things, crochet and plushies. It was called “Stuffing”, and she really enjoyed putting the year’s work into a finished product.
I also added in literature studies for Animal Farm and Alice in Wonderland from TeachersPayTeachers. She did not enjoy the Animal Farm novel (the literature study was fine, she just found the book depressing), however since her theater club was performing Alice in Wonderland that spring, she did enjoy that novel.
After she tearfully requested multiple times not to go back TGTB for high school, I found two other curricula to use instead. We decided for literature and grammar, we would try Literary Adventures for Kids’ high school program for ninth grade: Poetry and a Movie. She liked the poetry study for a year, and I liked the online format that includes literary elements, poet backgrounds, and a flexible online format. For writing and grammar, we will be using WriteShop I, as I feel she needs more in depth writing instruction for essays that is provided with the poetry course. I used WriteShop Junior with her older sisters before we switched to TGTB, and enjoyed it greatly. It is one of the most engaging and complete writing programs that I have ever seen. WriteShop is a very teacher-intensive curriculum, whereas Literacy Adventures is more of a independent-student program. My plan is to alternate two weeks of each. We started with poetry, and she seems pleased with the program so far.
For math, we are continuing with Saxon Algebra 2. We also subscribe to Nicole the Math Lady. She watches instructional videos and does practice problems with Nicole, then works on her assignment in the book, inputting her answers into Nicole’s website. The website does the grading for me! I am around for questions and to help her with problems that she gets stuck on. I do insist that she tries the problem on her own first. Parents can set the number of tries for assignments, I set it to the max number of tries, 5. She usually asks me for help on her last attempt. We have stuck with Saxon and Nicole because the spiral approach of constant review and slowly building on concepts has worked well for all three of my kids. (My oldest went from Saxon Advanced Math straight into college calculus as a dual credit student at our local community college when she was a senior. My current senior had a health diagnosis last year that required surgery, post-surgery issues, and constant follow-up appointments, imaging, and lab work. She is now cancer free and catching up on lessons that did not sink in during the months that she was dealing with her diagnosis and following illness and care. I will post more about her current math plan in another post about what we are doing for 12th grade.)
We are also using Life of Fred on Fridays and to fill the remainder of the school year after she completes the lessons in the Saxon book.
For science, she is taking Biology. As a former classroom teacher, I was not crazy about the ever-popular Apologia Biology program. I felt too much time was spent on concepts that did not lead to a greater understanding of God’s wonderous creation of our genetic code, and how it allows for variation in populations to allow adaptation to long term changes in the environment. This is also called evolution, and is often left out completely or regarded as an inaccurate theory by many Christian curricula. This year, I participated in the online professional development to learn about the online interactive textbooks offered by CK-12.org. I love the depth and engagement of their Biology text and decided to build a complete, yet affordable, Homeschool Biology Curriculum for it. The online textbook has bold print vocabulary terms, diagrams, embedded videos, and online quizzes to check for concept understanding. We are currently using the curriculum and it is going very well; she especially likes the trivia games!
For social studies, we are using Guest Hollow Early American History. I learned last year with their geography curriculum not to go crazy and buy as many of the books as I could, as we ended up not using quite a few of them. I did purchase two of the main textbooks, A Patriot’s History of the United States, so we could read aloud together. I chose The World of William Penn, The Mayflower and the Pilgrims’ New World, Alamo All Stars, One Dead Spy, The United States Constitution, and Guts & Glory The American Civil War from the book list for her additional reading. We are also using the book Everything You Need to Ace American History. There are not a lot of hands on activities that I have seen so far, but the text and videos have been plenty. I am adding in a project on the Native Americans of Texas as the main text did not really go into Pre-Colombian inhabitants of North America prior to exploration.
For electives, we are doing a year of Spanish 1 using BJU Press Spanish 1 2nd Edition. I id create a four day per week lesson plan and made vocabulary flashcards, however the curriculum provides everything else we need. I also supplement with review games and activities to help with grammar and verb conjugation that I find on TeachersPayTeachers.
She is active in a theater club that meets for two hours weekly each semester and then provides multiple free public performances at the then end of the semester at nursing homes, assisted living facilities, and the public library. With the Shakespeare Under the Stars program and musical theater camp that she attended over the summer, I feel her learning experiences and performances net over the 120 hours to to meet the criteria of one full high school credit of theater.
Finally, she is taking PE this year. So far it has been a rocky start. I give priority to the core subjects and PE has fallen by the wayside this week due to poor time management planning on my part. We will have fewer appointments next week, however I feel that I need more structure for our PE class in order to make it work. At a minimum, we need three days of class a week so she can earn a half credit this year!
That is the schedule of classes and curricula that we are using for ninth grade this year! We are trying quite a few new things this year with ELA, biology, and history. I will keep you posted on how its going, and what we will be sticking with for next year.
North Star Homeschool Resources 