Taking her where she is at ... 9th grade plan so far ...

[Luanne]

A Beka Pre-Algebra

English I

Rod and Staff English 6

Writing Strands 4

Vocabulary from Classical Roots A

Literature for English I

Artemis Fowl

At Her Majesty’s Request

Black Horses for the King

Bud, Not Buddy

Dealing with Dragons

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

The Hobbit

Madeleine Takes Command

The Mysterious Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

Nory Ryan's Song

Sarah Bishop

The Thief Lord

The Westing Game

A Wind in the Door

A Wrinkle in Time

World History I

Augustus Caesar’s World

Black Ships Before Troy

The Bronze Bow

D’Aulaire’s Book of Greek Myths

The Eagle of the Ninth

The Golden Goblet

In Freedom’s Cause

The Lantern Bearers

The Magna Charta

Mara, Daughter of the Nile

Outcast

Science in Ancient Egypt

Science in Ancient Greece

Science in Ancient Rome

The Silver Branch

Tales of the Greek Heroes

I haven't figured out science yet. Please keep in mind this is for my ADHD daughter who is not up to grade level in several areas. This doesn't seem complete though. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

[jelbe5]

Luanne,

 

I don't have any suggestions, but I appreciate your posting. My dd will also be 9th and she is also not on grade level in several areas. I will share my plans, too!

 

Bible - Rod and Staff 5 (Reading the actual Bible and completing workbook)

 

Math - Pre-Algebra type class . . . not sure what yet. She needs another year of practice before taking on Algebra

 

LA - Finish Rod and Staff 5, move on to 6. Jump In! for writing, Spelling Power, keeping a list of vocabulary books from reading, Latin and Greek roots

 

History - Taking Beautiful Feet Ancients and doing what we feel works for us. Reading whole books and excerpts from an older ABeka Literature book

 

Science - Apologia Physical Science

 

Fine Arts - Co-op and using things we have around the house (classical music CD's and art books we have never used

 

PE/Health - exercise and possibly an ABeka health book or books from the library

 

Drama with local children's community theatre group

 

Hopefully fitting in Whatever Happened to Penny Candy and Fallacy Detective

 

PS I really like your lit list! Thanks again for sharing!

[Nan in Mass]

Luanne - I have some suggestions but I am busy at the moment and I want to consider your lists for a bit. I am familiar with many of the things you listed and have comments or ideas about how to arrange it. I'll get back to you, ok? (PS - My three boys, even my non-reader, and I love Dealing with Dragons and the sequels. I'm not sure why, but we found them a very attractive set of books.)

[Jane Elliot]

We are leaving for vacation this morning, so this will be very quick, but I've been thinking about you.

 

Here are my few thoughts. If she could possibly do R&S 7, you would be able to finish off the R&S series in high school, since R&S only goes through 10. (So, 7 in 9th, 8 in 10th, 9 in 11th, 10 in 12th.) If she can do 6, she can probably do 7. But if you already feel like you're pushing her with 6, so be it, go with 6.

 

I would add a few meatier titles to the literature list. Get some good audio versions and follow along in a hard copy. Do this alongside her in short sessions. (Got this idea from Janie and it works like a charm.) I'm not saying revamp your whole literature list--the titles you've chosen look like good ones for sparking an interest in reading. I'm just saying you could add a few classics by using the audios.

[Nan in Mass]

How fast does your daughter read? Some of these books will go quickly (Fowle and Dealing with Dragons, for example) and some have a much higher reading level and are likely to go slowly (Mara of the Nile). I know that this list would probably have been hard for my middle son to complete unless I devoted a large amount of time to just reading. He read very slowly, though. My younger one, who reads at a more normal rate, would have been fine with this list.

 

Are you planning on reading any books aloud together? I found this was a great way to do great books because we could take turns reading and I could check constantly to make sure we knew what was happening. And I do mean "we" SIGH. Sometimes the children got the plot better than I did. Often, it was the youngest who set us straight because he had read the grammar and logic stage WTM lists and knew the plots already. I, on the other hand, being older, did better at pointing out the implications. So for example, my youngest could tell us that the character who had just been yelling at his son was the same one who had left earlier in the book and visited a neighboring kingdom. But I was the one who could say why the character was so upset and what the son must be feeling. The character was yelling because the son wanted to go traveling, and the father didn't want him to because he knew how much trouble it had caused when he had done the same thing. I could help with the pronounciation and meanings of the harder words, also, or at least insist that we stop and look them up in the dictionary.

 

How much time are you planning to devote to reading each day? That will determine how long your list is.

 

Do you have a history spine or history program to go with this? That might be what you feel is missing? If you don't, I suggest you look at Spielvogel's Human Odyssey. It is a heavily illustrated world history text that is much easier to understand than Spielvogel's Western Civ (much less writing and at a lower reading level). It is, however, mean for high school, so the content should be appropriate for your daughter's age. It is meant to be covered in a year, so it should be easy to do just part of it each year. If the focus of your homeschool is on reading whole books, it is important not to do anything that takes to much time for a history program. We liked Sophie's World as background history/philosophy reading, too. It is the story of a girl who receives a mysterious philosophy course in the mail. The philosophy course is included in the book. We found the philosophy helpful for understanding our great books reading.

 

Some suggestions:

I think difficult reading is for several reasons. It could be vocabulary or unusual word order (so doing vocab and grammar are a good idea). Or it could be complicated content. Or it could be content that refers to things you don't know about. Or is could be that the story moves so slowly that you lose track or it feels boring. This last is especially a problem for slower readers reading classics. One solution is to do some short stories. Another is to do 3 sorts of reading every day (my children like doing this). You do half an hour of a harder classic, something that goes slowly and feels boring. You do half an hour of easier literature (like Dealing with Dragons). You do half an hour of history reading (Mara, Daughter of the Nile). And you spend half an hour working on a discussion, or the writing or project for a book, or doing the background work or history program. This puts your literature/history at 2 hours a day, which is what TWTM recommends. And it doesn't make you slog through something difficult for two whole hours at a time.

 

Another way to divide up the work would be to assign the easier books to be read for homework and on weekends. That leaves you an hour to work on the harder works (possibly reading them aloud together). We were such slow readers that I also assigned summer reading. I pick the most fun and most interesting of the books and have the children read them over the summer.

 

Other ways to make the harder books easier is to get them on tape or CD from the library and listen to them instead of reading them. This makes a good bridge to reading them yourself. So each year, you can pick one much harder (for you) book and listen to it, a hard book or two and slog slowly through it a little each day (now you have three hard books!), some easier books and short stories to do independently, and some fun books to do over the summer or read before bed and weekends.

 

The Hobbit and Sherlock Holmes are a great place to start your classics. Another fairly easy one is the Odyssey. If you can find Ods Bodkins' retelling of it to listen to first, it would make it even easier. You could read D'Aulier's Greek Myths (or our library has the tapes) and then do the retelling, and then read the Fagles translation (easier). You could also find the story of the creation, Adam and Eve, and Noah and the Flood in the Bible and read those. Some short works that aren't any harder to read than The Hobbit (at least we didn't find them so) are A Christmas Carol (Dickens), Socrates' On His Condemnation to Death, The Gold Bug (Poe - but not gruesome), and The Ransom of Red Chief (O'Henry - really funny and short but beware - definately not politically correct - African Americans are refered to using oldfashioned and not nice terms - skip it if this is going to be hard for your daughter to understand). Some harder ones (harder because it was harder to follow the story) are The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (Irving) and The Importance of Being Ernest (Wilde - funny). Some longer works that weren't difficult were Plato's Republic (don't worry if you feel a little lost at the beginning - he's just setting up his story and that part isn't very important - when he begins making his point it gets easier to understand), The Scarlet Pimpernel (Baroness Emmuska Orczy - my son says this is a "ripping" good adventure story), Pride and Prejudice (Austen), Canterbury Tales (get an easy translation - go to the library and open and read a few and pick the one that uses modern language), and The Sword in the Stone (White - the story of how Merlin teaches the child King Arthur by turning him into various animals - this has pretty high reading level but is lots of fun).

 

If she likes Dealing with Dragons and Artimus Fowle, my son can probably recommend other books like that, ones that are easy to read because they suck you in. He's young enough that he still remembers which ones were easy to read and which ones harder. He is 14. She might like to try Agatha Christie mysteries, too. Those aren't too hard and move quickly, but are longer novels with lots of details. They aren't worth reading unless she likes them, though. They are just modern adult mystery novels.

 

I also think that you should watch a Shakespeare DVD or two, even if you find parts of them confusing. They don't take much time and are good practice with old fashioned language and ignoring confusing bits and just trying to understand the major plot. Often, it is the bits with the clown, the funny slapstick bits, that are confusing, and they don't matter to the main plot.

 

HTH

-Nan

[Julie in MN]

Do you have a history spine or history program to go with this? That might be what you feel is missing?

 

I agree with this. A kid may not even catch on to the historical threads if not guided in some way. If you don't want a "spine" book, you could just have her notebook historical information as she goes along (for the books you are using as history).

 

And for literature, as well, I would think a 9th grader needs some tool for taking it a step up and "evaluating" or "analyzing" what she is reading a bit. Some of those books would have study guides at various places.

[Mom22ns]

What about using SOTW for a spine? I know it is young for high school, but it is on level with the other books she is reading. We used it this past year and read many of the titles that your dd will be reading. She could do SOTW I and II.

 

My ds found Black Horses for the King tiresome, but loved the Dealing with Dragons series, The Hobbit and really enjoyed Mara which was the most romantic book he had read to date :001_smile:. I was trying to think of books to add, but I like your list.

 

What are you looking for in science? Have you considered using BJU 7th grade Life Science for a biology credit for example for her? She seems on a very similar level to my ds and that is where we are going this coming year. I have seen other people say they are going to use it as a high school text, but it would probably be approachable for her.

 

What about some logic? Fallacy Detective might be a good choice. I don't know if she has done logic before or not. We're doing the Dandylion series, even though it is for younger kids. Ds is autistic and logic is an area he is weak in.

 

Just some thought...

[Luanne]

Nan --

 

Thank you so much for your help! I'll try to answer your questions. I would say she is about average for reading, does need some help with comprehension and vocabulary. She does keep a dictionary next to her so she can look up words she doesn't know. I am planning on reading some of the books aloud (especially several of the history ones). For the actual reading of literature, I am aiming at an hour a day. She isn't quite up to that yet ... has a very short attention span. I do own Spilevogel's Western Civ, but not the other one and have no money to buy anything else. I am single and have a VERY limited income. History has always been her favorite subject and she seems to understand it very well. The only thing she doesn't like is American History. I am not sure how I will approach that in the future.

 

I do intend to put A Christmas Carol, The Importance of Being Earnest, The Scarlet Pimpernel, and Pride and Prejudice on later lists for reading.

[Luanne]

Debbie --

I have tried to get my daughter to read SOTW and she didn't care for it at all. I'll have to think some more about the spine situation for history.

I'll take a look at BJU Life Science and see what I think. She is very difficult when it comes to using textbooks for science or history. I know it is difficult to do high school science without using a textbook. There is a website I found that uses real books for high school science, but most of the books they have listed would be way over her head so ... hmmm ...

I do have Traditional Logic I and am going to try that with her. If it doesn't work, then I will try to figure something else out. Like I said in another response though, money is a big issue here since I am single and have very little income.

 

Thanks for your help! I truly appreciate it... EVERYONE's help actually.

[Nan in Mass]

I remember now. If she like history, I'd certainly, certainly let her try Western Civ. It is very nice. My not-yet-rhetoric-stage son did fine with it. When I tried to give him Human Odyssey, thinking it would be easier to read, he complained that it didn't teach him anything he hadn't learned from reading Kingfisher. That would explain why she doesn't like SOTW, also. It is written at too low a level. Western Civ might be just right. It is intersting, has tons of pictures and sidebars, and isn't hard to read. It just has more information. Unless she is having to look up more than one unknown word per paragraph, I should think she'd be fine. And a big plus, the series will last her through high school. You won't have to switch. You can just wait on the US history and see where she is at her junior year. Then you can go to your public library and try a few of the US History books there. I felt the same way in 9th grade, but last summer my son gobbled down quite a number of the US History logic stage books and a spine. If all else fails, you can have her choose from that logic stage list and read A Cartoon History of the US as a spine. It is rude, crude, and liberal, but it goes fast. I'm betting, though, that a few years from now she will be capable of going to the library and finding herself a history book, at least if her mother is anything to go by GRIN. Just a warning - my son had the same complained that Hakim's History of US was boring, also. The problem was that it was at too low a level. My children use "boring" to mean "this is too hard" or "this is hard work and I don't feel like working" or "this is too easy" or "so what- why do I have to read this- it doesn't have anything to do with me" or occasionally "boring". I have to figure out which sort of boring it is LOL.

 

Even I found it hard to read our great books for an hour at a time without a break, and I concentrate just fine and can normally read for hours on end. Breaks at the half hour point are a good goal.

 

-Nan

[Mom22ns]

Debbie --

I'll take a look at BJU Life Science and see what I think. She is very difficult when it comes to using textbooks for science or history. I know it is difficult to do high school science without using a textbook. There is a website I found that uses real books for high school science, but most of the books they have listed would be way over her head so ... hmmm ...

 

Just a thought on that since money is tight... BJU is expensive. They just went to a new 3rd edition on this last year. The second edition can be purchase used very reasonably and is widely available - if you find it might work for her. If she has trouble with textbooks, this may be a bad choice though. Try searching the K-8 board for middle school science and see what the other suggestions are and maybe you'll come up with something. Do the shorter Science Explorer books interest her? You can get the CD versions for less than $2.00/book :001_smile:

 

If you already have Speilvogel's Western Civ., you can definitely use that for a spine. Just break it into small enough chunks for her to digest. We're planning that for year after next and I thought it would be too much. I'm sure you can use a bit of extra planning to just pick and choose from it to make it work. That keeps you from buying another book and if she doesn't like the more narrative history of SOTW, it is probably a better fit :001_smile:.