Thoughts – re Junior High / High School

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  • February 23, 2015 at 1:14 pm
    suzukimom
    Participant

    Ok, so I’m still struggling/burnt out using AO with 3 kids.  I suspect the general February blahs don’t help….  but I’ve been thinking through some changes.  As Delta is in ‘grade 6’ and moving up to ‘Junior High’ type of work soon – I’ve been spending time thinking through our general progression through to High School.   I haven’t got it all ‘fleshed out’ yet by any means – but here are my thoughts….  (This is also assuming I can

    General Plan for High School

    English

    • Literature – various AO selections, including Shakespeare etc.
    • Writing – ‘Write Foundations’ program – spread out level 2 and level 3 over 2 years each….
    • Other – All About Spelling, and the old SRA Reading Labs I’m using to remediate reading – only until not required anymore.

    Math

    • Still not sure on this one… RightStart recommends using VideoText courses but they are SO expensive.  I’ve been looking at various options and I’m SO confused.  (Especially as Canadian PS’s use a more integrated math method….

    Science

    • probably the Apologia books by Dr. Wile (using the Chemistry by Dr. Wile (ed 1 or 2) and not the new one by someone else (ed 3) – Biology in 9th, Chemistry in 10th, Physics in 11th, and Advanced whatever in 12th

    History

    • a 4 year cycle of world history – probably using Baur ‘History of…’ series.  (Assume the Modern one will be done by then…)
    • Canadian History – not sure what I’ll use…. and not sure if I’ll sync with the World History timeframe or do its own time sequence

    The rest will probably be electives.  Will probably require a Foreign Language (I think most universities here require it).  Will want to do some type of home financial program.  And I think I’ll require some type of music.

    So working back, that has in Junior High….

    Junior High

    English

    • Literature – various AO selections, including Shakespeare etc.
    • Writing – ‘Write Foundations’ program – grade 7 do entry level.  grade 8 do level 1
    • Other – All About Spelling, and the old SRA Reading Labs I’m using to remediate reading – only until not required anymore.

    Math

    • Grade 7 – RS Level E  (he is just finishing Level D now)
    • Grade 8 – not so sure…  Would like to get Hands-on-equations to introduce algebra concepts.  I think I’d like to do SCM Business Math….  and probably some type of pre-algebra course….

    Science

    • grade 7 – probably Apologia General Science
    • grade 8 – probably Apologia Physical Science

    History

    • grade 7 – do AO 5’s history?
    • grade 8 – do AO6’s history, and a Canadian Geography unit (as the next year will be ancient’s…. don’t want to do the AO6 ancient terms)?

    The rest will probably be electives.  a few thoughts….

    • typing – probably required to have a certain proficiency by end of grade 8….
    • art as an option – maybe artistic pursuits?
    • Latin?
    • other language?
    • musical instruments (from what we own and I can help on – so violin, recorder, organ, keyboard, guitar, flute…..)
    • other interest-based courses?  like something on photography, or learning about war machines in history (including building some) or whatever???

    So – thoughts???

     

     

    February 23, 2015 at 1:19 pm
    suzukimom
    Participant

    So thoughts on what I might want to change now if not doing AO in the future….

    Possibly drop the AO science we are doing – which my kids seem to ‘like’ but not really ‘love’ to do Dr. Wile’s elementary science series (which I already own the pilot versions)

    Possibly drop some of the other books – varying from child to child what to drop…?

    Possibly try Easy Peasy with Echo (who doesn’t seem to like school at all this year) and possibly also Foxtrot?  – haven’t decided if that would make things better or not….

    February 24, 2015 at 1:02 am
    suzukimom
    Participant

    No thoughts?

    February 24, 2015 at 5:41 am
    Tristan
    Participant

    I’m  not familiar with many of the courses you listed for high school, but having a plan in place has certainly helped me this year.  I think only you are going to be able to decide what to try, you know your kids best.

    Sometimes it’s hard to be the teaching parent!

    I am trying to look at Joseph and see how his middle school might play out.  He is a very different learner than Makayla so some of the things that were easy to her are not easy to him, and vice versa.  He’s heading into 5th this fall so I’m choosing one or two weaknesses to strengthen and then playing to his strengths for everything else.

     

    February 24, 2015 at 8:09 am
    HollyS
    Participant

    I’m in similar planning stages!  My oldest is in 7th and I’ve been working on basic high school plans as well.  I think we are set to finish through 8th.  High school will be very similar to what we are doing now, but with credits to figure out!  I compared our state requirements to a list of basic college requirements from Donnayoung.org.  The college one is a bit more than the state requires, so I’ll be focusing on it.

    We currently have them together for history and science and I think it will be easiest to separate her for high school.  I’ve been looking into a few options, but haven’t figured it out completely.

    7th/8th grade plans: MOH, AIG God’s Design science series, Wordsmith Apprentice, LLATL (6th and 7th grade levels), MUS (through pre-Algebra), CM extras and read-alouds as a family.

    High School plans:

    English (4 cr): LLATL, Our Mother Tongue, and Wordsmith/Wordsmith Craftsman

    Math (4cr): MUS Algebra, Geometry, Algebra II, and Stewardship

    Science (3+ cr): I’ve been looking into programs from Timberdoodle and New Leaf Publishing Group.

    Social Studies (3+ cr.):  I’ve been looking into Diana Waring’s History Revealed, New Leaf Publishing Group, or just sticking with MOH/SCM and figuring out the credits.  She’ll also need a government class.

    Foreign Language (2+ cr.):  Not sure here!

    Fine Arts, PE, and health are also required/recommended for us.

    Electives: Understanding the Times (humanities course from Summit Ministries), Skills for Rhetoric, The Fallacy Detective, the rest will be personalized by her when we get closer.

    I’m not sure if this helps you or not.  It looks like we have a similar plan so maybe I’m on the right track.  lol  I know after seeing it all planned out, I at least feel comfortable finishing her jr. high years!

    February 24, 2015 at 6:43 pm
    TX-Melissa
    Participant

    I’m glad to see that I’m not being obsessive in looking ahead to high school. I have laid out plans based on where ds is now in year 6 to see how far we’d get by year 12. I’ve determined we may possibly need an extra year, but that is not certain yet. My plans only include home study at this point. But we could always decided to use online courses, or dual credit courses at the Community College. Basically nothing is written in stone, but I feel pretty firm on things up to year 9. Due to dyslexia we still have much work to do on spelling and writing skills. I am very pleased with his progress with reading, though, this year. So there’s hope. 🙂

    Years 7-8: Finish up ABeCeDarian Level D, Writing Skills 1 & 2 (recommended in The Dyslexic Advantage), Spelling Smart, McGuffey’s 4th & 5th readers, Language Mechanic then Get Smart Grammar (I think) and audio literature selections for English. Life of Fred pre-algebra (Fractions through Pre-algebra books). We’ve been using Easy Peasy for history and science, and he’d like to study Latin and may do that with our local co-op. Year 8 I plan for him to take the Easy Peasy Highschool Foundations course.

    High School: year 9 English he’ll finish up the Writing Skills series with book 3, McGuffey’s 6th reader and The BraveWriter Arrow and Boomerang series I had seen recommended here for spelling and grammar, after all that I think he should be able to take high school English courses, possibly from Easy Peasy High School. I think I’d like to return to TruthQuest for History, Age of Revolution books, then Government/Economics at the last. I figure we’ll continue to use Easy Peasy courses for science and Life of Fred for math, and definitely a finance course somewhere in there. I have no idea about electives at this point. This kid will probably want something odd like German or Russian for foreign language (we live in TX, so I would consider Spanish to be the practical choice, LOL).

    I felt better laying it all out and realizing we could take an extra year if needed. But in the end he will be fine and I don’t need to worry or freak out. 🙂 Even if we change it all up from what I have now, it helped me realize that it will all work out.

    Gotta run.

    Melissa

    February 25, 2015 at 4:53 am
    Melanie32
    Participant

    Looks good to me! 🙂

    My daughter is in 7th this year and she is doing AO year 6. I plan on continuing with AO year 7 for 8th. We are using all of the history and most of the science selections. I did switch one of the science selections for AIG’s God’s Design for Chemistry. We only do that once a week but I feel like it’s giving her a bit of a feel for textbook learning.

    I should emphasize that we’ve chosen to do the AO lite years and we really only use the History and Science so far. We have continued doing Bible, composer study, geography, poetry and hymn study and Shakespeare on our own. We use SCM picture portfolios for picture study and we haven’t begun studying Plutarch or Church History. I am planning on adding in those last two next year. We’ll see how it works out. 🙂

    February 25, 2015 at 11:49 am
    suzukimom
    Participant

    Thanks for the feedback.   I realized I missed that I plan to have him do Smart Grammar in 7th.

    And in 9th-12th he will be doing Early Morning Seminary with our church so that will count too.

    February 26, 2015 at 5:41 pm
    TX-Melissa
    Participant

    I’m back with a bit more. I got cut short last time. I only listed the basics of our plan. There are a few more things we’ll be reading for health, economics, character… Each of our plans will be quite different as each of our kids are different, not to mention where we live. Mine may change as my kiddo begins to have a more outward focus and develops some goals. Right now he has no idea what he would go to college for other than playing football or hockey. 🙂 Overall I think yours looks good.

    You mentioned possibly using Easy Peasy for one student, and I saw you were still undecided on a math program. Have you looked at the Easy Peasy math courses? The pre-algebra is on the allinonehomeschool.com site and Algebra on up is on the allinonehighschool site. We were using mostly Easy Peasy for year 5. But after we realized we were dealing with dyslexia, I’ve been using different things for both English and math this year. But the other subjects have worked well for him. He has become more independent as he’s grown in using text to speech. I modify the writing assignments having him either just talk it over orally with me, creating a Power Point presentation or even drawing a couple of times for science. Its pretty flexible in how you use it. They have some very helpful groups on FaceBook if you’re on there.

    I hope my thoughts helped somewhat. I’ve only had one student, so my experience is pretty limited. But as I said before, I decided not to worry. We’re putting alot of thought into our kids’ education and they are really getting so much more than ps. Ultimately they will be OK. As they get older they will begin to take ownership of their education and develop their own goals, too. At least that’s what I keep telling myself. 🙂

    Take care,

    Melissa

    February 27, 2015 at 7:54 am
    kat.patrick
    Participant

    My view with multiple kids is simplify, simplify, simplify. We use CM’s methods to choose a set of really good books that I read aloud in the morning. Sure, the biography of Einstein by Big Ideas press is a bit over the head of my 7-year-old, but when he narrated today, he could tell me that Einstein revolutionised science when he proved that light was sometimes a particle and sometimes a wave.

    After reading through our liberal arts selection, I then turn them loose to their individual work of maths and copywork (plus dictation for the older two).

    We have lunch and the younger ones play. My older ones are enrolled in CM online courses (which, full disclosure, I run), and they are always doing work for these in their own time, such as reading, writing narrations, researching, or just hanging out with their fellow CM-ers in the secure online chat room. This is also when they practice instruments, work on projects like sewing, gardening, or Lego animations, go to the library, or read from our own extensive family library.

    The bottom line is that you can probably do more together (especially if you step away from grade-specific programs), then tack on extra (meaningful and stimulating) work with your older one after the others have finished for the day.

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