Anybody wanna talk high school plans?

Hi Jenn,

Like you, the Famous Men didn’t work for us (though I know of others that really like it).   We love the SCM history/geo/Bible  guides so much though and are simply exchanging that one title with something else.  if you tell me where you are in the rotation I may be able to give you some ideas to substitute with that one book as well.

Richele

Hi Jenn

I recommend the Notgrass history and their Government and Economics books we have used them with great success. I hasten to add we only used them for history credit and not the Bible and Literature credits they said you could have…we did other things for that – but the history is great. We supplemented with other history books like Paul Johnson’s History of the US and biographies and things like that but my daughters enjoy history so that was why we did that. We chose our literature and poetry and I had an Abeka textbook which was great for short stories, we did not use it as a textbook or do any of the exercises we just did the reading of the stories and narrated or wrote essays. We used Teaching Textbooks and MUS for math and MUS Stewwardship – Geography came from the HEO book suggestions and the history studies, plus board games. Art we used CM approach and for practical art we used Artistic Pursuits. We used the essay course from Epi Kardia and have the Research Paper course from them to use as well. We have used Tell Me More and now Rosetta Stone plus various books for German and for music we have studied composers, been to the symphony and watched numerous dvds of ballet, opera, musicals, and great classical works. We have done various things for PE mostly equestrian, gym, and swimming. Hope that gives you some ideas. Linda

For 9th grade (last year) we used My Father’s World Ancient History & Literature which covers Bible, history & literature.  I was very pleased with how our year went.  You can take a look at samples on their website http://www.mfwbooks.com/category/M50/50.  We also used Apologia Biology, Math-U-See Algebra I & 1 semester of Logic using the The Fallacy Detective & The Thinking Toobox.  We followed the SCM schedule for music study, picture study, and poetry.  I chose my own songs for hymn study. 

Don’t be afraid of high school.  Last year was our first year and it wasn’t as scary as I thought it would be.  This year I’ll have two in high school.  We will be adding foreign language this year & health for my 10th grader.  I like using MFW because I’m one of those people that need everything planned out and it’s written for the student to do independently.  But it can also be flexible where you need it to be. 

Hope this helps!

Susan

I have heard several people mention that they’ve used MFW for high school and really enjoyed it. It looks great — I am hesitant to use it because I so much enjoy having all my kids studying the same things and I hate to let go of that any earlier than I have to, I guess. I know I can’t hold on to them forever. But maybe for another year or two? 🙂

Jenn,

I know exactly what you mean.  I’ve taught my three children together for years and the thought of separating them was sad.  We still do our fine arts together like picture study & music study and we still do a morning read-aloud at the breakfast table.  So it wasn’t so bad after all.  Now I’ll have the two high schoolers working independently & a 7th grader doing MFW Rome to the Reformation.  I guess I feel like when they reach high school level it’s kind of tough to combine with a younger one.  I’m sure, though, there are many on this forum who’ve done it successfully.   MFW is a fit for our family so it works for us.  Hope you find peace about what to do.

Blessings,

Susan

We’ve done a variety of things–I involve my sons in planning a lot at this age, and if their plans seem reasonable, I think it’s good to work with them where possible!  We have just chosen a few really good books, ones we found here or at AO or recommended by someone or on blogs & periodicals I read.  My two high school age sons have some interesting perspectives so my oldest is designing a “libertarian American history” course for the rest of his American history credit.  He has chosen several books from some lists I’ve found. I’ll also be assigning him a big research paper to do in history.  He’ll need to do his own research and produce a paper arguing a thesis.   Last year he worked on thinking skills, using a Great Documents book and part of Critical Thinking’s American history series, and using them to do essays.  He hadn’t yet read through all of some of the typical books we use for history, so he read one or two Guerber books bolstered with lots of biographies, other books, and special interest books, since I don’t think Guerber alone to be enough for high school credit.  My next son used a Teaching Company video course–college lectures put on video–plus several additional books to cover the Middle Ages.  This year he is reading a stack of biographies and using the second book in the Notgrass World History course.  We aren’t doing the rest–the literature.  Just the history book.