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How Would You Plan Module 6 for a High Schooler?
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All of my children, including my 11th and 10th graders, are using Module 5 this year and I’m loving it. We plan to do 6 next year, when my oldest is a senior. My high schoolers listen to the scheduled spine readings along with their younger siblings and have never complained about it being too “young” for them — a living book is a living book! 🙂 We follow the guide pretty closely, and I feel like they’re all getting a great picture of this time period.
I schedule 2 or 3 “together” subjects at the beginning of our day, before a time of independent work, and then again right after lunch. Then they finish out the day with independent/guided subjects. Spreading it out like that seems to help people not get tired of listening to read-alouds. Our together subjects include Bible, history (spine), geography, Spanish, picture study, Shakespeare, art, nature study, PE, and some literature and poetry (not all of those are every day!). I hope this is helpful!
Thanks for sharing jotawatt! I really appreciate it. Thanks for sharing how you all do the together subjects and what subjects those are. It really helps!
The only suggestion I have is to look at a timeline and see if you’d like to add in books/documentaires for topics not covered in the module….for highschool, not the other grades.
All through the Ages, by Christine Miller is an excellent resource for this, or you migth look at the last level of TruthQuest, by Michelle Miller. IEW has a new resource called, Timeline of Classics, by Gail Ledbetter. It breaks the modern era into several categories. This might trigger subjects you could enter into the SCM Bookfinder for titles to add if needed…..BUT, read the recent thread “Prayer Request from Sonya,” first! It’s an excellent reminder to keep things simple.
hth,
Becca<><
Becca, thanks for the suggestions. And yes, the thread you mentioned, “Prayer Request from Sonya”, is a great reminder to keep things simple. As they say, oftentimes less is more. I have already drawn up a tentative plan for my high schooler’s last two years of high school for history using a BJU text. But I keep being drawn to the SCM guides. I like the simplicity and I like that some of the subjects are family studies. Our other daughter is kindergarten. We haven’t done family studies since there’s such a big gap in age. But recently, I decided to try doing a couple of studies together to see how it would work and it has gone so well.
If I went with SCM, I’m not for sure yet which route to go. With my original plan, for next year my high schooler would have her own history studies (modern history) and I was planning to go with SCM Module 1 with our kindergartner (who would be 1st grade when we start the module). If we wanted to do the SCM modules for both, I see a couple of options.
1) both do Module 6
2) have high school daughter do Module 6, then stick with Module 1 for my younger daughter but do the family studies of Module 1 together
I like the option of starting with Module 1 with my younger daughter because it means she starts out from the beginning and can work through the modules chronologically, taking a year in middle school to study state history and maybe also geography. Then start back with Module 1 in 8th grade and be able to go through all 6 modules again before she graduates.
Another aspect I like for option 2 is that, even though my high school daughter would be doing modern history, by doing the family studies together for module 1 it contributes to her study of ancient history which is what I had originally planned for her 12th grade year anyway. *IF* it didn’t overload the schedule, we could pick maybe one additional book from module 1 for the high school level per term (she would LOVE Unwrapping the Pharoahs!). Then she could pick up with Module 2 her 12th grade year – maybe even some of Module 3. (I’ve heard that some combine the modules on ancient history).
Anyway, those are just some of my thoughts as I’m working on our plan for next year. Any thoughts?
Ya know, looking back, I think if I’d had my older ones pursue assigned studies at their pace versus keeping the family on the same page/timeframe, they’d have covered more ground. Trying to keep the youngest on the same history/science as the oldest has just been a hard thing to do. Either I’m dragging it along too long for the older ones to wait on the younger siblings, or I feel like the younger ones don’t have time to grasp much of anything. My possibly controversial decision for next year is to keep the youngest working on 3Rs and CM fine arts while her older brother tackles all the subjects. She’ll have plenty of history/science for an 8 year old based on the books she chooses from our library. (I’ll be making baskets of them related to what her older brother is learning, but they will be completley “free read” and added into the CMO after the fact.)
Over and over again I tried to make certain our older four (three have graduated) were covering chronological history and topical sciences when they needed more time to build their foundation in reading, writing, and math. This meant having to come alongside them at much older ages than I’m willing to do with our youngest. I’m older, I’m dealing with physical challenges, and I want to equip her better to tackle those studies on her own in middle/highschool. She’ll be the only one homeschooling at our house in just four years. I’m going to use them to make certain she’s a solid reader, has a good understanding of spelling, can put her own thoughts down on paper (gradually becoming more proficient,) and possesses the confidence to pursue math and science head on.
I’m quite sure that if I’d focusses on the 3Rs and the beautiful extras of CM in the early years, the upper level courses wouldn’t have been as intimidating for our older children. I have done a better job with the fourth, but want to make certain our youngest reaps the benefits of my past regrets. Her older siblings all encourage her in her studies. The older three are the best cheer leaders for our 14yos, too. They enjoy challenging them to do more in these basic areas.
We will certainly continue history and science for her, but not at the expense of the others. I think that’s the one thing I’d add into Sonya’s “keeping things simple” workshop. If the basic tools are not put into place, the other planning and resources become a huge source of frustration, discouragement, and disappointment. Any of the plans/resources can work, but having the fundamental skills in place takes a huge amount of stress off mom and allows the best laid plans to actually be pursued. If they aren’t in place, the days are long and daunting.
I’m hoping I didn’t get this off track for you. It’s just a caution. If your youngest is a good reader and math and spelling are rolling right along, by all means, enjoy these studies (one, or both, in fact) together if they work well that way. If not, let your older tackle them on her own and beef up your younger daughter to prepare her to study easily down the road. It will make it easier on all of you.
I appreciate you sharing your thoughts and experience Becca. Our younger daughter is very advanced. She’s been reading well since she was three and can pretty much read anything. One day she was reading a 6th-7th grade level book and she understood/comprehended the material well. She’s advanced in math as well. So we’ve had the 3rs covered for quite awhile now. 🙂 We began formal kindergarten with her this Fall and she has breezed through a lot of the material already. She can definitely handle doing a SCM module and would love it. I also really feel like family studies will be good for my older daughter as well. With option 2 I listed above, my high schooler will have all of her independent studies. We would just share family studies together for the Module 1 which would be Bible, history, and geography, and maybe a family read-aloud literature book. Of course, we will continue doing artist and music study together as well. Plus the history family studies in Module 1 will contribute to her ancient history studies. So really, the more I think about it, the more I think that option 2 would work well. 🙂
Me too! The nice thing is, now I have two tentative plans that could work….my original plan using the BJU text and this plan using the SCM guides. Although, I think I like the SCM option the best! 🙂
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