Bulking SCM with AO, esp. Jr./Sr. High

First, take a breath. Then say these words, “Curriculum is my servant, not my master.”

Okay, now we’ can begin. First, what is a realistic picture of a day or week of work? How many pages per day/week in a subject? Then choose books. Check page counts. Realize you have chosen way too many. Cut the list of books down to the very best/most important/most interesting. Check your page count again. Cut again if needed.

Basically, I use places like SCM or AO or Sonlight or Beautiful Feet as my starting booklist and narrow things down from there. (I do not actually use any AO recommendations, but you get the idea.)

If my high schooler is comfortable reading 15 pages in a sitting of history, and we want to do history 4 days per week this year, then 4×15= 60 pages per week. If our planned school year is 32 weeks that is 1920 pages of history reading. I look at my book idea list, have my teen help me sort it by most important and most interesting to them, and when we reach 1900 pages we cut the rest of the books off the list. Done.

And please remember, your high schooler will be doing reading in a number of subjects, so don’t overload them.

And to do things totally out of order, here is a bit about me, so you know where I’m coming from. I’m a mom of 10 kids ages 17-1, who have always been homeschooled. My oldest is a senior, graduates in May, and will be going to Southern Virginia University in the fall (she applied to 6 colleges, was accepted to 5 of those, and had to pick where to go). Personally, I don’t like AO because with a large family, I don’t want to be teaching 10 different kids 10 different history time periods at once. We do history time periods as a family until you reach high school, then you get to choose your studies each year. (Ex: my son will be 9th next year and is planning a history of science course, while the rest of the family will be doing something else.)

You won’t find one curriculum that is exactly what you want, you will need to choose and adapt to fit your specific family and each specific child.

I cannot praise SCM enough. I have been homeschooling for thirteen years; and this past year was our first with SCM, and it has been our best year by far. It is March, and I am still looking forward to school every day!!!! I do not exaggerate when I say I truly believe SCM was a God-given gift to our family when I was despairing of how to do “all the things.”

I would respectfully disagree that SCM is “light” for a high-schooler. I have thirteen children, ages 17 down to 5 mos. Two of mine are high-schoolers and do the high-school work. They are busy until about 2-3 in the afternoon, beginning at about 8:30AM, with a short break for lunch. Often they still do work a little later than 2 if family “dynamics” (ahem, the Littles) dictate.

The narrations become more and more involved as they get older (and also, more fun, I think!). They take more thought and care. I have been very impressed with what my high-schoolers are learning and sharing. It is WAY more than I did in high school (and possibly even in college!). To write a poem in the style of Longfellow telling who Petrarch was? That is some very involved/advanced thinking, and NOT easy! (But so, so, so fun to read…)

Worldview is very important to us. My oldest read Nancy Pearcey’s Total Truth last year, and this year we subbed out some of the literature suggestions because my high-schoolers had already read them. We chose to sub in books that would expound on the whole worldview theme, so they have read 1984 and Brave New World and are just starting Neil Postman’s Amusing Ourselves to Death.

SCM is very easy for us to use yet challenges in all the right ways. I don’t mean the readings are easy or light; it is just easy for me to plan and to know that they are getting a very well-rounded education and a generous feast!

It is also easy to substitute other books if there are ones you would rather use. That would be my word of caution: I wouldn’t try to add any work, just substitute. There is plenty of work and real meat there as it is, and I think it could be very cumbersome to try to add more.

Just my .02.

<p style=”text-align: left;”>You would read the Family books and the books for 10th-12th grade.</p>
OP, you could use Ambleside but lighten the load by doing Shakespeare one term, Plutarch the next and alternating like that instead of one of Plutarch’s Lives AND 1 Shakespeare play each term.