Let me start by saying that after reading Elizabeth Foss's
post at her blog, I feel really hesitant to blog about high school curriculum or our experiences during these three years of high school home schooling. So make sure you stop by there to read her thoughts before continuing to read mine.
We have been on this home schooling journey for 13 years. Every year seems to be a little different from the one before. What is most strikingly different for me about home schooling high school is the very independent nature that the boys seem to work at. We have two high schoolers at this point, both have finished or basically finished 9th and 11th grade. When I say basically I mean that our 9th grader is finished and our 11th grader is finishing up. We have two accomplished high schoolers with two very different learning and working styles. I think the lesson here is that the learning style of the high school student will not miraculously change once 9th grade hits. So the same rule of thumb should apply to the high schooler. Fit the curriculum to the child!
Our two boys have very similar interests but there are definitely different strengths and weaknesses. One loves literature and if that was all he had to do, he would sail right through it. One loves math and science and if you gave him just Latin for the summer and nothing else he would sail right through that!
Both of these children have struggles and both have strengths. It is important to realize that they do not have to be good at everything. It is more about learning how to learn that is most important for the high schooler (and all children for that matter). It is my hope that our children will take away with them a passion to learn and to not hesitate to approach something they would like to learn!
Yes, I am hesitant to post our curriculum because every child is so different! We used a full fledged home schooling program at first and by quarter 2 I was tweaking and by quarter 4, there was almost nothing left of the curriculum we purchased! I don't think this is an uncommon occurrence with home schooling mothers. What ever you choose, know that it will all work out in the end. I have chosen things for our 11th grader in the past that I was not happy with and he is just fine. It has not effected his learning ability. He is not even traumatized! :)
This is our final list from 9th grade and in the next post I will reflect on what we will do for 10th grade (probably using a lot of what I used with our previous 10th grader). Again, this is just a list not something to be adhered to but just a little guide. I have linked some of the books we used for your convenience.
Grade 9:
Religion:
Holy Bible
Math-
Science-
Apologia Biology (with lots of sketching and outdoor exploration. I'm not big on lots of tests.)
Geography-
Used
"World of Where" computer geography game. We concentrated one continent at a time.
Time Magazine
Latin 2-
online Latin class with
Lone Pine Classical (This is his strength. My 13 and 9 year old will probably not take this path but continue French and use Latin Christiana very lightly for Latin and grammar.)
Composition-
Composition Workshop level blue by Sadlier- Oxford --- Not thrilled with this. The only thing I like and you can get this from any program is a focus on a paper in each catagory; a persuasion paper, a narrative (which we've done lots of) , an essay, a news article, and a research paper.
He wrote lots of poetry and lyrics. I also loved his religion papers and reflections. One certainly could take writing from Religion, History or Science.
In the future, I will probably drop the composition course above and combine it with literature, history or science!
Literature-
Lots of Ancient Greek Literature then moved on to C.S. Lewis and Dumas
Calling this course Literature 9. I combined this with our 11th grader for book discussions. We used some of the questions from
Novel Inquiries Volume 3 by Margot Davidson.
-Perelandra by Lewis
-Mythology by Hamilton
-Till We Have Faces by Lewis
-The Tragedy of Julius Caesar by Shakespeare
-The Odyssey - by Homer
-The Three Musketeers by Dumas
-The Count of Monte Cristo by Dumas
NOTE: The above list may seem like it was a lot. Our home schooling style is very "unschooly", so it was very doable. The homeschooling style is also a very important consideration when figuring out what your 9th grade booklist will look like. If you tend to follow everything by the book then this list above would or could have the possibility of being very taxing on the mother and child.
And if you need to keep track of any of these things, for example a paper trail, (our state requires this) then writing narratives and sketching are a perfect way to keep track of these courses.
Again, this is our outline, and when our 13 year old hits 9th grade it will change for him. Our family truly believes in adjusting the "curriculum" to fit each child. My hope is that this will help you and not confuse you. My rule of thumb is to choose what you, the mother or father and child would like to learn together!
Blessings,
Marianne