Do you teach literature that uses the "n" word? If so, how do you handle it? Also, any ideas for substitutes for Huck Finn and Uncle Tom's Cabin (for if I choose not to do them)?

We are starting 9th grade in three weeks and I am still up in the air with my plans! Ahhhh! ;) I was thinking I would do two years of combined world history and geography, and one year of combined US history, geography, and government. Now I am thinking it makes more sense to do three years of world history with US history and government woven in. Which way would you do it? And, whichever way you would do it, what time periods would you do for each year? Right now I am leaning towards three years of world history, looking something like this: 9th: Ancient - 1400ish 10th: 1400ish - 1900ish (US history, government, and constitution included) 11th: 1900ish - present (focus on the US role in world events) Thoughts? Thanks!

I went back and looked at the higher level books. They do look really good. I am happy with what we have for biology this year, but that might be something we tie in next year. This year we are using the biology located here: http://quarksandquirks.wordpress.com/biology-hs-level/ I am modifying it to fit with what I want to do. :)

Ohh that looks so cool, but I think we are past that age range. Bummer! I swear I find more cool things after my kiddo has grown past them than I ever do for his current age!

We are atheists and the group treats us and our crazy old earth beliefs very well, despite a majority having the opposite perspective. It's an easy subject to avoid - we just don't do science co-ops together very often! :)

My 9th grader will just not be allowed to play computer or Wii, or watch DVDs or anything until he has his schoolwork done. If it piles up over several days, he will not get to attend social events. So I am not making a schedule for him, but I am imposing consequences for slacking. :)

We are in Avondale! Fairly close to you guys. Do you have a homeschool group you like? :) We are a part of West Valley Christian Homeschoolers. :)

Looking for these ideas, also! :)

We are trying out something like what the high schools call block scheduling. We do a 4 day week. One day each of Social Studies, English, Science, and Philosophy/Other. Those are the subjects I feel the need to do a lot of really intensive together-work. Reading aloud, discussions, labs, projects, etc. My son will work daily and predominantly independently to complete all the bookish work for these and all the work for the other subjects. I work from home so I need several solid hours to get things done. I hope this strategy helps me find those hours! :)

I am planning on recording things where they make sense. I know that Alex will have 2 history credits over two years of world history. He will also have a geography credit and a world religions credit, but spread out over those two years. I might just put the world religions credit in his freshman year and the geography credit in his sophomore year to simplify things. Or, maybe quarter credits would work. It is a lot more complex when you aren't treating home education like school moved to home.

With something as nebulous as that I might try to find an exam that would show how far he had progressed and go from there.

Alex will be doing a literary terms workbook, NaNoWriMo, and will work through all the units of IEW. The assignments and source materials for IEW will mostly come out of history (including historical fiction) and philosophy. Since we have already done most of IEW more than once, we will get through the early stuff very quickly and spend a lot more time on essays and literature critiques. We will be using English from the Roots Up as an intro to Latin and Greek, which also works as a vocabulary program. As far as her balking at reading your choices, I think that is just so individual. Alex is a fantastic reader and really enjoys almost everything I ask him to read. I require him to read certain books for school but if he gets a chapter or two in and just hates it for some reason we drop it and try something else. There are so many selections, it's not the end of the world for him to opt into a different great book or even just to put off reading something while his brain and grasp of language improves. I think it is worth it to really search for the option that fits both the parent's idea of a great book and the student's idea of an enjoyable, engaging read.

Will do! I will get it up as soon as I am done! :)

SO AWESOME!!!! :D :thumbup: :thumbup1:

Hello from another Arizonian! :)

Good links, Seshet, thank you!

For the basic lessons, all the reading is done online, and/or you can get a text they created to go along with it. I haven't decided whether I want to buy that book or not, so I don't know what it's like. My plan is to use this as a starting point and guide, and to spread world history over two years. We will be reading other nonfiction history, biographies, historical fiction, information on world religions, information on art and music and science history, and doing geography. I will be building all of that. If there is interest, I will share the syllabus/plan I create. :)

I agree with this. Plus it looks kind of suspicious if you give them so many credits (even if they earn them) that they graduate with a lot more than the traditional highschooler. I think it can reduce credibility.

Bumping this back up as I worked through studying a lot of the suggestions and finally landed on using World History for Us All. I found CTT to be of very low quality IMO. I know some people like it, but I bought a couple of sections and was not at all happy with it. Several other curriculum I looked at looked good but were too expensive, or were audio focused, or had too much of a churchy feel, or I felt weren't rigerous enough. I was going to pretty much make it up and then I stumbled on World History for Us All and I think that is going to be a great fit. :) Many (very late) thanks for all the ideas offered up! :)

Thanks for the input! He has been writing for fun all summer and has asked me to try to NaNo this year. We'll see. The longest fiction I have ever written is about a page and a half!

My son loves NaNoWriMo and participates every year. Does anyone else participate? If so, do you "count" it for school? How does that work in your house?

My son came home from school behind in math and hating it and we spent years sifting through curriculum and crying and yelling (both of us!) over math. We have used LoF for two full years and had nothing but great results. We use it with a very small bit of supplementation from FreeRice.com and Khan Academy. Basically, FreeRice is to get faster with basic math facts and Khan is for a break when we have hit a conceptual wall in LoF and need some other ways of thinking about numbers before we return to it. We also do things like play mathy board games or watch mathy documentaries. But I would definitely say we use LoF as by far our primary source. We have seen improved attitude, better retention, higher tests scores, and we are very happy with it. I would probably not use it as a supplement. Using it as a review would work pretty well, because the charm of LoF is really in the story, and a lot of information comes up in that story. Unless you use it consistently and read all of it, you miss a lot of both the fun and the educational aspects of it. All that said, if your child learns best through lecture then LoF is probably only going to work if someone reads it aloud to her. I would call it a reading-based math program. My son excels in it because his strength lie in reading and language arts. Good luck finding just the right solution! :)

Watching this thread. We are doing biology this year and I only have a frog dissection laid out for me. The rest I will have to hunt down or create myself.

I tend to agree with all of the concerns regarding awarding credits for showing up once a week. We have been involved in many co-ops in the past that I just had to decide were not part of our curriculum and were a play time with some educational shine to them, or we quit them. This year I am putting together a 9th grade biology co-op, and one of the things I told the moms was that if we have any problems with extraneous mom drama, kids not participating, disruptive siblings, etc, that I will politely and firmly tell them to leave. My child deserves a good solid biology course with meetings with other invested kids to do labs. I will not shortchange him for the entertainment of others. Crossing my fingers!!! :) Oh, and I wouldn't award a credit for showing up once a week or every other week. We do several hours a week of work on each subject outside of any co-ops we are in. I think that is imperative to make it a "real" credit and to solidly cover the material.

I plan a four day week, and anything not done means make up on the weekend. Friday is our day to go play with all our friends at the park, and only if he is really slacking off does he lose that day. I feel it's ideal for us to work harder the rest of the week to stay on track and really have that whole Friday to enjoy friendship and be active at the park and all of that.