More wonderful input, thank you. Klmama, do you have a curriculum or materials you plan to use for the 10th grade year of World History and Lit 1600-present, or will you put this together yourself? Thank you all, I'm gaining confidence reading your responses.

More wonderful input, thank you. Klmama, do you have a curriculum or materials you plan to use for the 10th grade year of World History and Lit 1600-present, or will you put this together yourself? Thank you all, I'm gaining confidence reading your responses.

Thanks so much, Ellie and Candid. I really appreciate your replies. Ellie, in one of the links you posted, I found this under NYS requirements: For grades 9 through 12: English (four units); social studies (four units), which includes one unit of American history, one-half unit in participation in government, and one- half unit of economics; mathematics (two units); science (two units); art and/or music (one unit); health education (one-half unit); physical education (two units); and three units of electives. The units required herein are cumulative requirements for grades 9 through 12. So it looks like I may have a bit more leeway in terms of our history course choices. You know, I came very close this year to declaring him a 9th grader as you suggest, and am still discussing it with him. He's been quite firm in that he'd like to continue as he's going, without skipping forward - partly because he loves his rowing team and doesn't want a year less to row, partly because he has a tight-knit group of friends, and partly because he loves to learn, wants time to work on his music, and says, "what's the rush?" He's seen from his older siblings that plenty awaits and I think he's in no hurry to get there. So much to consider! Thanks again for your valuable input.

Thanks so much, Ellie, and yes, that's what I thought about counting the credits, though someone recently told me otherwise. So, with where this boy is in the history cycle and academics, how might you think to meet those requirements and keep him on track with his history studies? Do we need to redo some world history even though we've just done ancients?

Our oldest homeschooler will be starting high schol next year, and I am a bit perplexed about how to count credits. We've been doing four-year history rotations, and just finished Ancients again, during his 8th grade year. I plan to do the MA and R&R time period next year, followed by two years bringing us to the present, and the required govmt and economics courses. However, I am thinking he's supposed to have two years of world history and two of American, and I'm not sure how that will work out with what we've already done. In addition, he's taken high school level classes this year and I'm not sure how those might count - or not. He's declared an 8th grader, but this year is completing Algebra 2 and Apologia Biology (Physical Science and Algebra 1 completed in 7th grade). He completed a 9th grade LL course and had a reading load for history and lit worthy of HS. So my questions are, can any of these courses count? Is he required to complete two full years of world history in high school, and two years of American? I'd love to hear how people worked these things out as I try to make a comprehensive plan for the next four years (I'd thought I had one!). Thank you for any insight!

I did hear there's a CD that helps, thank you. Chris, thanks for sharing your experience. Some of the essays in the sample are really long - are those all to be read in one day, and then the books on top of that? I'm just trying to get a feel for the workload. We have a fairly CM-style homeschool, heavy on reading and I'm not worried about lots of books but want to keep the schedule reasonable, challenging and yet still enjoyable. Why did you choose not to use the writing assignments? My guy is hoping to have something with writing scheduled in (he loves writing), I'd be interested in what you thought of what they assigned.

I posted this on the high school board, but realized people on this board may have experience with Omnibus. I'm considering using Omnibus II for my upcoming 9th grader's study of the Middle Ages and R&R. I can't tell from the website, however, how it's scheduled. The sample chapter is pretty lengthy, with lots of questions, reading assignments and discussion items, and I'm wondering how long a student is given to complete this work. If anyone's used Omnibus and can speak to this, I'd appreciate the input - and I'd love to hear what you think of the course altogether. Thanks so much.

I'm considering using Omnibus II for my upcoming 9th grader's study of the Middle Ages and R&R. I can't tell from the website, however, how it's scheduled. The sample chapter is pretty lengthy, with lots of questions, reading assignments and discussion items, and I'm wondering how long a student is given to complete this work. If anyone's used Omnibus and can speak to this, I'd appreciate the input - and I'd love to hear what you think of the course altogether. Thanks so much.

We're considering Ambleside Online's Year 7 for this time period for our 9th grader next year. While it says Year 7, the material is quite advanced, and I'm told all of the offerings from the House of Education, from Year 7 on up, are suitable for high school. We've used Biblioplan in the past, and they are coming out with a new version that schedules some great offerings for high schoolers; that should be available soon, and the folks who run the company were kind enough to let me know what materials were scheduled for the high school middle ages guide.

...Just wanted to pop back in to say, we did try MFW one year, loving the idea of combining everyone. At the end of the year (after a year of moaning about the workload and the readings), the younger kids of that group (who were on the lower end of the suggested age range) said, "It was ok mom, but we don't remember anything." Yikes. I split them up the next year!

I bought HOD's CTC this year for my two 11-year-olds, and had intended to use a different program for my fairly accelerated 14-year-old. We ended up not liking what I'd chosen for the older boy, and I combined him, using the enrichment materials, with the other boys' HOD program. It ended up being one of the best homeschooling years we've had yet. They loved the schedule, written mostly to them, that allowed them to work at their own pace and come to me with oral narrations, and we all really liked the book choices. I appreciated the short but meaty lessons that allowed a lot of learning and growth, and the fact that subjects I don't always get to, were regularly covered. While I love the idea of group learning and have presented history lessons orally for years, I found the learning increased dramatically when the kids were responsible for more of their own learning. We still did read-alouds together, as scheduled. I did change up some of the things - we used our own LA and math suggestions, and we didn't do the watercolor lessons scheduled with poetry - but we did much as written. I'm considering buying two programs for next year - one for the two who will be in 6th grade, while the high schooler moves into material a bit more advanced, and another for the 4th grader, who did his own thing this year. I realize we'd be doing different history studies, but I'm thinking this would work best, from what we've experienced here. Why? It seems the younger children often get shortchanged, if the materials are hard enough for the bigger kids, or it is the reverse situation. Here, it's often been the younger children sitting in being a bit bored, with material going above their heads. I'm thinking that the Bigger Hearts program would allow my youngest to have something tailored just for him, and we can still do poetry, picture study and composer study, as well as Bible time, together. It looks like you may have several age groups suitable for combining. I don't know if that helps, but that's where we've been and where we may be heading.

We have used Biblioplan without their extras, and if you added in the new resources they sell, that might meet your needs. It was a great course, though if you try to do everything, the way we did, it can be a bit much. In considering it for future years, I would cull down the fast and furious reading and read-aloud schedule and stretch those over a longer time. We are just now finished Heart of Dakota's Creation to Christ course, with two 11-year-olds and a fairly advanced 14-year-old who used the course with the enrichment addition and of course his own math, science, etc. I worried that it wouldn't be enough for him, but it was really a fantastic year for all of them, and we all loved every single read-aloud. Because many of the books are older, the language was very rich, and it didn't feel too young for an older child. It was a very full schedule, but not as intense as some we've used; just right. There was some mapping - not a ton, and it included notebooking pages. My boys found the spaces provided in the notebooking pages too small for comfortable writing, and they ended up using looseleaf paper in page protectors in their binders, along with the pages. If I were to use this course again (and likely will a few years down the road with my youngest), I'd buy a hardbacked notebook I saw at Michaels, that had blank pages on the left and lined on the right, and use that for the history notebooking; I'd choose a timeline from Simply Charlotte Mason and have them record things in that when the guide directed them too. In any case, you might want to check out the course, I can wholeheartedly recommend it.

We used MFW's Ex-1850 several years ago. It was really not an American History course, if I remember correctly, but more of a world history course with an American emphasis. At the end of the year, two of my boys, then 9, told me, it was good, but we don't remember anything. It did skip around a lot, and I think that's what confused them. Another child, 12 at the time, retained a lot more, but we didn't love the book choices - I don't remember any of the wonderful begging for more we've had with other courses. This year we used HOD's CTC, with our own LA and math and other changes to make it fit our Charlotte Mason type philosophy, but we left the history portion alone. It was a great year and we loved the books, and while I don't love the choices for next year's history spine (RTR), I really like the looks of the one you are considering! That may well be coming to our house in two years. :-) You might also want to consider Biblioplan for Families - check out their webpage and see what they use for spines. It's a super inexpensive guide that schedules history three days a week in four year cycles, and schedules spines, read-alouds, option enrichment, writing prompts, and readers for three age groups. We really enjoyed the years we used Biblioplan, but we did find the read-aloud and reader schedule to be somewhat fast and furious. In considering it for next year, I'm keeping in mind that I'd trim down the selections and leave a bit more time for those. Sorry I can't tell you more! Blessings, Aimee

Did any of you who've used A Child's Geography 1 like it - and did your kids like it? We learned some things from ACGII, but grew very weary of it by the end of the year, and I admit, haven't completely kept up with it. Please tell me something good about the one used for earth science?

We found the books to be extremely biased, with no apparent attempt at objectivity - quite revisionist. We didn't want to continue reading them for that reason - several opinion-based errors made us question the validity of the rest of the history, and since I don't have the knowledge to recognize all errors, I didn't feel I could trust the series.