Newbie here - Please review my 10th grade plan

[Juliegmom]

Our plans are still very tentative, but this is what we are looking at for 10th grade. I would love to hear your thoughts/suggestions. Is this well rounded, too much, on target, etc? A little background: My daughter was in a California public school for K-6, an international private Christian school for 7-8 and an online California charter school for 9th. This will be our first year planning curriculum and homeschooling independently for high school. My dd enjoys creative writing, but I feel that we may need to cover a bit of writing structure as well as a bit of grammar. She will probably attend a community college before going on to college, but I want to keep all the doors open for her to straight to a 4 year university if she chooses. At this point it doesn't appear that she will be a science major so I'm not too concerned about the science lab component.

 

World History - Notgrass

 

Geography - World History Map Activities by Marvin Scott for 1 semester

 

English Comp & Lit - using Notgrass as well as a couple PP lit guides, Easy Grammar Plus & possibly Jensen's Format Writing

 

Geometry - probably Teaching Textbooks

 

Biology - Apologia – probably without labs because of our overseas location

 

Spanish 2 - maybe Breaking the Barrier or Visual Link - still trying to figure out what to use after Rosetta Stone Spanish 1

 

Fine art- Guitar (my husband will teach and select a book)

 

PE - Aerobics and Volleyball

 

Bible 1/2 credit using Notgrass as is or adding extras for a full credit

[Musicmom]

Hi Julie, and welcome to the forums! :)

 

Overall, your 10th grade plan looks good to me.

 

My only suggestion would be to do your semester courses, geography and Bible, in opposite semesters so that you are only juggling 6 academic courses at one time, and also to keep them lighter and easy to do--not add a lot of extra work to them. I'm notorious for overscheduling and trying to do too much. My dc have often ended up with 7 academic courses going at once, in addition to their fine arts (violin & piano) and outside activities. That number of subjects is not only hard to keep track of, but it can get overwhelming and very stressful if some end up being really time-consuming. So I would definitely plan on keeping some of these minimal until you see how the workload for the "big" core subjects (math, science, English, history) is going to go for your dd. You can always add more if needed.

 

Best of luck to you! :)

[swimmermom3]

<snip> At this point it doesn't appear that she will be a science major so I'm not too concerned about the science lab component.

 

World History - Notgrass

 

Geography - World History Map Activities by Marvin Scott for 1 semester

 

English Comp & Lit - using Notgrass as well as a couple PP lit guides, Easy Grammar Plus & possibly Jensen's Format Writing

 

Geometry - probably Teaching Textbooks

 

Biology - Apologia – probably without labs because of our overseas location

 

Spanish 2 - maybe Breaking the Barrier or Visual Link - still trying to figure out what to use after Rosetta Stone Spanish 1

 

Fine art- Guitar (my husband will teach and select a book)

 

PE - Aerobics and Volleyball

 

Bible 1/2 credit using Notgrass as is or adding extras for a full credit

 

 

Julie, this looks like a standard tenth grade schedule for the most part; however, I would caution you on the science situation. Many universities do require science courses with labs as part of their admissions requirements. I realize that you are overseas and that labs can be problematic, but many experiments can be done with household items and virtual labs, while not as good as the real thing, are usually counted as the real thing. A virtual lab is better by far, in my opinion, than no lab at all.

 

Labs aren't simply about dissecting a frog or doing titration. They are about teaching a method of organization, of analysis. In part, labs are about thinking and teach skills that can be handy across several disciplines. For years it has been a part of our labs to discuss in detail what went wrong and why it went wrong. In science errors are often caused by small oversights and lab work strengthens cause-and-effect analysis skills.

 

Also, never say "never" when it comes to what your child might decide to do.

[Juliegmom]

Thank you Musicmom and Lisa! Is there a particular biology text that offers virtual lab that you would recommend? Cost and location is a factor, but I'd love to include lab if we can.

[mumto2]

We have been able to google and use youtube for many of the Apologia labs this year. The dissection ones are pretty much all out there. I think we liked the ones with MacOrganisms2 the best. We would get something similar from the butcher/fishmonger and have a good go ourselves then watch the video. We were also able to eventually get the rubbing alcohol and iodine from a chemical supply place--not regulated just not sold in stores. Vodka also worked in the dna experiment. We googled and did several versions to make sure one would work. Once again it can be watched on youtube so even if it doesn't work at your house you can see it. Apologia does have a master supply list that you might want to look at. We have managed a majority of the labs -- the ones we skipped were be choice generally because we had done them before.

[Juliegmom]

Thank you Mumto2! I will check into that. Would this be enough to count as lab even if we had to skip a couple as you have done? We live in Albania and finding some of the supplies may be a challenge. Did you need a microscope or anything along that line?

[bobbeym]

Another option for video-based science is DIVE. They offer both CDs or online courses, and have a syllabus that aligns with Apologia.

[Musicmom]

Actually, you might be able to get most of what you'd need to do the Apologia labs through Sonlight (www.sonlight.com, then click the tab for high school, then the tab for science and you should find it.) The Sonlight curriculum was designed with the needs of overseas missionary families in mind, so they have put together supply kits for all their recommended science curricula. Apologia Biology is their high school recommendation for bio, and they have supply kits--one with a microscope and one without--for it. They would also know a lot about shipping what you need to your location. They have online advisors who can help as well, and could maybe help you determine in detail how feasible the bio labs would be in your location, with their supplies.

 

We live in the States but I still bought all our Apologia curriculum through Sonlight and got their supply kits to make things easier! Very nice to just open a box and look for something instead of shopping all over town for it. I think there may still be some items you'd need to buy locally, but if you couldn't find them or a suitable substitute, it's certainly okay to skip a lab or two.

 

Also, the Apologia supplementary CD-ROM is a good thing to have--it has a wealth of information and demonstrations of some things you simply cannot do in a home lab.

 

Hope this helps!

[Juliegmom]

Thank you for all your suggestions! Do students do the labs along with the DIVE video or just watch them? Would this be considered lab?

[FloridaLisa]

Julie,

 

Your plans look great! Regarding the labs, colleges typically want to see labs but for two or more classes. So you could plan on doing chemistry with labs (might be easier to garner household chemicals) and later physics with a lab. Nearly the first half of the Apologia labs involve slides and microscopes. I think a google search would turn up hundreds of great images of monera, protista, animal and plant cells, bacteria. Your dd could study them, draw them with colored pencils and keep them in the lab notebook.

 

Fungi can be easily seen -- from the blue in blue cheese to bread mold to mushrooms. Here is an experiment you could do with normal household bread and food. I've coordinated labs for Apologia biology for my oldest 4 and I like to have eat our science for the fungus lab! Another fun experiment with fungus and bacteria is this experiment using the leftover Halloween pumpkins. Don't know if you have those in Albania or access to something similar (melon maybe?).

 

There is a chapter on evolution and a good DVD fits here. Perhaps Youtube has something? Or Godtube? I haven't looked and it's not necessary, just throwing out some options. There is a chapter on ecology and habitat and we usually like to walk through a local habitat, turning over logs and looking for specimens, critters, homes and habitat. Another fun hands-on activity would be to observe a square foot in the backyard and record in the notebook all of the insects and whatnot of the square foot. A quick search turned this up, but if you search *backyard quadrat study* you will find more resources. There are also a couple of chapters on genetics. There are punnet activities in the book and I *think* there is a neat study on the trait of rolling the tongue and earlobes that can be done within a family. One of the coolest labs in my opinion is the one in which you extract DNA strands from dried peas. We used store-bought split green peas, store-bought meat tenderizer and a blender. There are a few more steps, but , ah, here it is! And

is a youtube video of DNA extraction.

 

The final labs for Apologia are dissections. You may well be able to dissect a local fish, local earthworm (a BIG one) and a local frog. Or you could google these and find lots of virtual dissections.

 

So, I think you could do this at home without a microscope and still have enough resources through the world wide web to create a wonderful notebook. Mixed with hands-on activities and experiments, I think you could easily call all of it a lab. I hope some of this helps!

 

Lisa

[Juliegmom]

Wow, that looks great (and doable), Lisa! Thank you!!!

[mumto2]

We do have a microscope and use it frequently for fun. The reality is for the labs the images I call up on the computer are so superior we generally do not use our own slides. We might compare to see if we managed the sample properly but we use the internet for the actual drawing.

 

For the DNA we did strawberry and kiwi too. I was really nervous about getting something to work. ;) There is quite a bit availiable on the internet reference wise. I wouldn't worry about skipping some labs if you cannot get the resources. It is learning the process not doing every lab. Frequently you can watch similar.

 

I would have a go at the experiments. I have a feeling more will be completed then you expect. Sonlight is wonderful. I am sure they will know what they can ship in.

[funathome]

Thank you Mumto2! I will check into that. Would this be enough to count as lab even if we had to skip a couple as you have done? We live in Albania and finding some of the supplies may be a challenge. Did you need a microscope or anything along that line?

 

We have used Apologia for many years, since the elementary level. We get the kits for Apologia from Home Science Tools at hometrainingtools.com. We have ordered from them for over 10 years with NO problems. Many years ago Sonlight didn't use Apologia but I loved it and wanted to use it, so I had to go to an outside source and have used hometrainingtools.

With Apologia, many things are in your home. It is not a fancy, difficult hard to find items for the experiments.

enjoy!

Amy