Thanks, @Shoeless. I'm trying to figure out if I want to use this or Oak Meadow Earth Science or Mr. Q Advanced Earth Science. I don't feel like Oak Meadow or Mr. Q is quite enough for high school but I'm combining my kids for science (for probably the last time 😢) and either Oak Meadow or Mr. Q would be just right for my 7th grader. I could add another living book for my older kid and some writing and/or a longer-term project than a lab to beef it up. Or, I could use what you are using, and I see online some Prentice Hall guided reading and study workbooks (here is a sample) I could correlate with the Tarbuck book (plus labs) to age down anything my 7th grader is struggling with. I'm not sure yet.

Is there a handy chart or guidelines somewhere for assigning reading amounts in a content subject for a 9th grader? I'd like to know what the average amount per term is or how many pages per year or something. I want to start in the middle of the average and adjust up or down after I see how my kid does. This is my first high schooler. Specifically, I'm looking at history but guidelines for other subjects would be welcome. We are doing 1900 CE to the current day. I have portions of three books I'd like to assign, one is a comprehensive world history, one is a comprehensive U.S. history, and one is a collection of speeches and primary documents. Altogether (and not including OTHER work in history such as writing, timelining, documentaries, or the field trips I've planned) the total load would be about 841 pages over the year, and the weekly average is about 28 pages (scheduled over 30 weeks because I'd still like to add in a couple of biographies). Thinking about the reading my kid did last year, he covered about that same amount last year, but these books are quite a bit meatier. He took about two hours a week to read history last year aside from check-ins with me. I'm guessing this year will take a bit longer though. He'll be reading about 900 pages in literature but some of the readings are a little easier. Science plus geography will work out to just about 750 pages. And I'm still fuzzy on the whole credit hour issue to figure out if I'm assigning him the number of things that qualify. If I'm going on the general guideline that ~150 hours is a course then about half of that should be reading, with other stuff making up the other half. So that would be about 2.5 hours of reading a week to make 75 hours (or half the course). Is this too much reading, too little, just right? I'm not sure. Am I thinking clearly about this?

Has anyone used Mr. Q's Advanced Earth Science for 9th grade? Link: https://eequalsmcq.com/AdvEarthChapterDwnld.htm I'm looking for an Earth Science curriculum, preferably with a lab component, that can either be used for a semester or for the whole year. If you've included a middle schooler in the mix (7th grade) I'd like to know that as well. One thing that's extremely important to me is not having too many hard-to-find lab materials so if you can comment on that I'd appreciate it. Thanks!

What are you going to use for Earth Science? I was just looking at Mr. Q's advanced Earth Science but I'm not sure. It's always getting equipment for labs that foil me.

Thanks for the advice. I'll track his hours for a bit and see how it goes. I think you're certainly correct about music. He takes two 30-minute lessons a week and one 30-minute composition tutorial. Then he practices for 30-45 minutes almost every day. So on a light week (no weekend practice), I'm guessing he'd get about four hours a week. That seems like almost a whole credit (144 hours over 36 weeks). For PE? It isn't organized or competitive swimming. He wears a tracker, I make him get his heart rate up, and every few weeks I make him switch up the order of strokes. I need to go look at the tracker but I think he's getting about 30 minutes three times a week. Bowling is 60-75 minutes once a week for eight weeks in the fall and eight weeks in the spring. So on a week with just swimming he'd get 90 minutes and a week with swimming and bowling would get him 2 and 1/2 hours. So, 16 weeks of 2 1/2 hours is 40, and 20 weeks of 1 1/2 hours is 30 hours so 70 total. Maybe I can assign something to read on fitness or health to get it up to a half credit? Maybe I can count on 6 and 1/2 credits?

Oooooh, thanks, I'll go check it out. I did get her a "learn Hangul" workbook and she is into it.

I think we've settled on an Outschool class. I'm considering this a "fun" thing for this year and if she likes it I'm going to take it more seriously in high school.

My younger daughter is a 7th grader. You're correct, she's already doing written narrations. I will create the next steps in composition thread, thanks.

This is my first 9th grader and I'm trying to figure stuff out. He's neurospicy and dyscalcic so we MAY call this an 8th/9th grade year depending on how I see his executive functioning skills develop. I'd love some feedback if it seems like I missed anything. Math - Continue Pre-Algebra with an online instructor who has worked with him and his dyscalculia for a few years. He makes slow but steady progress and may be able to start Algebra 1 before the year is out. Science - Mom curated with 7th-grade sister. Astronomy first semester and Oceanography second semester. It's not a lab science class but I will have some labs as I'm gearing up to put him in DE Biology next year. Astronomy is planned out and I'll plan Oceanography as we get closer to it. We'll primarily use the Great Courses as a spine with the course book, selected readings from Asimov's Guide to Earth and Space, and there is an active night sky group run by Widener University which is near us so we'll participate in some of their activities. The pseudo labs will come from the Observing with Nasa Youth Astronomy Apprentice program guide. History/Geography - He's doing modern history this year (1900-current). I've selected chapters from "History that Changed the World" and "These Truths" along with several documentaries, selected primary sources, and a YouTube compilation of speeches. The output will mostly be in composition and essay form. The geography portion will be reading "Prisoners of Geography" which I think goes well with modern history, along with corresponding mapwork and writing. Spanish - It's a heritage language in our family and he's had years of general conversation. I'm going to do targeted grammar work and get him reading and writing well. I'm using young adult fiction he knows well in English to start and lead him toward Spanish literature by the spring. ELA - Medieval Lit from Lightning Lit, spread out over the year, supplemented with a few other medieval lit selections and extra composition work from WriteShop 2. Finish Winston Grammar advanced (he got about halfway through last year), English from the Roots Up 2, and he's really interested in the development of language so I thought this would be a good time to do Excavating English from Ellen McHenry. Electives - (PE) He swims at the Y and is in a teen bowling league. (Music) He takes piano and is composing now. (Design) He's going to do a semester-long course in Computer Aided Drafting because he thinks he may want to become an architect. Do any areas seem like too much or not enough? I'm not sure. I get six credits from this right? 1 for each major subject, and 1/4 PE, 1/4 Piano, and 1/2 the CAD class?

Hi everyone. I'm trying to figure out what to do with my seventh grader this year. Maybe do mostly Wildwood for content subjects and MEP 7 for math. She wants to try Korean so maybe an Outschool class for that? For grammar maybe Winston Word Works. We had a great experience with the basic level of Winston grammar last year. Writing/Composition is a real issue. I haven't done any targeted essay writing or anything composition oriented. Mostly just written narrations. Maybe we can do Beyond the Book Report? I'm not sure what the right next step up is here.