Our Curriculum Choice for 2014-2015
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I was a little scared about planning for this coming school year since it is a big one... NINTH GRADE and the beginning of HIGH SCHOOL. After I sat down and began planning our high school years, I realized how not so difficult it would be. I didn't use the word easy in that sentence, because it was truly not that easy to plan, but it wasn't that hard either. Once we decided on what to learn, I went from there to finding the different curricula.
PE/HEALTH: Since we just finished up a half a year of Abeka health, we are not using a curriculum this year. I will be incorporating information found at 7sistershomeschool. As for PE, Jamie will be working out for bull riding and steer wrestling along with helping out on a local farm when needed.
4-H: Jamie is working through several projects in 4-H; rabbit, small engine and is moving up to shotgun sports. If you have never looked into 4-H, I recommend you at least look into what they have to offer. Working through the 4-H program has its benefits for home educated children~credit for the work and life skills. It is not a program for just animal loving, country living children; you don't even have to like animals or live in the country to be apart of the program. Life skills are taught in every thing the children work on like photography, cooking, sewing, woodworking, small engine repair just to name a few.
It looks like a long daunting list, doesn't it?
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BIBLE: For Bible this year, we are going with Dynamic Christian Living by Positive Action for Christ. I bought the older edition and saved a good chunk of change. We are also going to finish up Christian Theology and Ancient Polytheism by Brimwood Press. ** I highly recommend this worldview book.
MATH: We are using Teaching Textbooks Algebra 1. I can't say enough about Teaching Textbooks. If it were not for TT, I would have thrown in the towel years ago or be sporting a bald head.
LANGUAGE ARTS: I was not planning on doing grammar this year, but after I foolishly changed my mind about switching back to Abeka English last year and many days leaving the table with a horrendous urge to pull my hair out; I am sticking to my guns and will be using Easy Grammar Ultimate Series Grade 9. We are doing one more year of grammar and then taking a break from it. We love using Wordly Wise 3000 for vocabulary. This is a program we have used for years and really like it. You can't go wrong with about fifteen words for twenty lessons. Spreading a lesson out over two weeks, makes learning vocabulary words a dream. ~at least for me! Writing/Composition is a hard subject for me to teach! You either have the natural love for writing and it comes easy to you or you don't. Well, I have a son who was not graced with the natural love for writing. Some days, he had rather have his finger nails pulled out one at a time than have to write. We started with
Jump In this year and we really like it. Since it is basically a two-year program we will continue to work through the book and go from there. If time allows, we will move on to Write Shop. I'm excited about Literature this year, I came across Lightning Literature and Composition by Hewitt Homeschooling Resourcing. We will be studying the American Mid to late 19th century pack.
WORLD GEOGRAPHY: I am a little reluctant about geography this year, I was hoping to use the new high school geography being released in July, but to make a long story short, I decided to go with Apologia Around the World in 180 Days Geography. When I was researching this geography program, I was a little disappointed to find that there are NO lesson plans included. I began searching the internet to see if any one created plans of their on; lo and behold, I found Susan Bower's lesson plans that she was sharing... for FREE!
SCIENCE: I'm keeping my fingers cross on Apologia Biology. When we tried to work through the General Science book, Jamie begged to fling it out the door and go with Abeka. To me, that is a little discouraging because I want Jamie to be SCIENCE READY and to at least like the subject if not love it. I have had several other moms tell me once you get past the one book, it gets better. After calculating the costs of different programs and their needed items, Apologia comes out on top.
LANGUAGE: We will be using American Sign Language University's website and videos along with Dr. Vicar's Fingerspelling Practice site. After I spent several hours watching videos from different websites. I feel we will benefit the most from ASLU and the Fingerspelling site.
FINE ARTS: Jamie will be expanding his learning of oil painting and possibly watercolors. He started oil painting about three years ago and really enjoyed it using Bob Ross dvds. This year we will be focusing on lessons from Jerry's Artarama.
WORLD GEOGRAPHY: I am a little reluctant about geography this year, I was hoping to use the new high school geography being released in July, but to make a long story short, I decided to go with Apologia Around the World in 180 Days Geography. When I was researching this geography program, I was a little disappointed to find that there are NO lesson plans included. I began searching the internet to see if any one created plans of their on; lo and behold, I found Susan Bower's lesson plans that she was sharing... for FREE!
SCIENCE: I'm keeping my fingers cross on Apologia Biology. When we tried to work through the General Science book, Jamie begged to fling it out the door and go with Abeka. To me, that is a little discouraging because I want Jamie to be SCIENCE READY and to at least like the subject if not love it. I have had several other moms tell me once you get past the one book, it gets better. After calculating the costs of different programs and their needed items, Apologia comes out on top.
LANGUAGE: We will be using American Sign Language University's website and videos along with Dr. Vicar's Fingerspelling Practice site. After I spent several hours watching videos from different websites. I feel we will benefit the most from ASLU and the Fingerspelling site.
FINE ARTS: Jamie will be expanding his learning of oil painting and possibly watercolors. He started oil painting about three years ago and really enjoyed it using Bob Ross dvds. This year we will be focusing on lessons from Jerry's Artarama.
PE/HEALTH: Since we just finished up a half a year of Abeka health, we are not using a curriculum this year. I will be incorporating information found at 7sistershomeschool. As for PE, Jamie will be working out for bull riding and steer wrestling along with helping out on a local farm when needed.
4-H: Jamie is working through several projects in 4-H; rabbit, small engine and is moving up to shotgun sports. If you have never looked into 4-H, I recommend you at least look into what they have to offer. Working through the 4-H program has its benefits for home educated children~credit for the work and life skills. It is not a program for just animal loving, country living children; you don't even have to like animals or live in the country to be apart of the program. Life skills are taught in every thing the children work on like photography, cooking, sewing, woodworking, small engine repair just to name a few.
It looks like a long daunting list, doesn't it?
