He's starting high school this year.
Using the Brave High School Record Keeping for Homeschoolers guide, I put a 4-year-plan together for the final leg of his homeschool journey. Here's what he'll be learning in 9th grade.
Since we only homeschool 4-days a week, you can assume that each of these subjects will only be covered four times each week unless otherwise indicated.
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Content-rich Subjects
As always, he'll do all of his content-rich subjects like Morning time/Bible, history, art, and creative writing with his other siblings. You can see those curriculum choices here>>>
Personal Devotions- every day
Language Arts
- One Year Adventure Novel- This is a writing program that will help him craft the bones of a novel by the end of the year. Although it does contain a gentle grammar component, it is not as solid in grammar skills as other programs. The emphasis is on writing, which I want to focus on for my son who already has excellent grammar skills and aspirations of being a novelist.
- Finish All About Spelling level 7.
- Read for pleasure. (every day) I will gather a list of titles including those on my High School Must Read list for him to choose from each month. (Vetting titles in bulk is a great way to provide a teen/tween some helpful discernment while still offering choice in their reading selection.)
Math
- Pre-Algebra video lessons from Abeka- Admittedly, this is an 8th-grade program. But as I don't homeschool with grade levels, and because math has been a struggle for him in recent years, I wanted him to have a chance to really shore up his foundational skills before moving on to higher level learning. Forward motion is the goal of true education. I've no desire to force my kids through a program just to reach the end. I'm aiming for retention and mastery.
Science
- Physical Science from BJU Press Distance Learning
Life Skills/Extra-Curricular Subjects
- Continue with his mechanic apprenticeship a couple of weeknights and/or Saturdays a month. (One of our house rules is that by the time you graduate, no matter what your future college/vocational plans might be, you will have had to learn a trade under a tradesman. Learning a trade will open doors of ministry, side-hustle income, and/or save them money when they can do a job themselves instead of hiring it out to someone else.
- Mow the lawn or shovel the snow as needed for an Airbnb in our neighborhood
- Clean his room and make his bed each day.
- Daily chores: sweep the kitchen, rinse the dinner dishes, sort the laundry in the laundry room
- Weekly Chores for his child-of-the-day privileges and responsibilities: help make lunch/dinner and do two loads of laundry (Tuesdays)
- Monthly Chores: three chores that he randomly selects from our chore jar one Saturday each month
Co-operative Learning
His first-semester co-op classes will be as follows:
- Human Anatomy with Weights and Exercise
- Career Exploration
Ninth grade is the beginning of the end of my son's homeschool journey. I've no doubt he'll launch into high school well and that the next nine months will prove to be a great training ground for his writing dreams.
Hi Jaime, Would you please consider giving us a review of the Adventure Novel course after your son finishes it? I'm interested to learn more because I see the course is quite an investment. As always, thanks for your input!
ReplyDeleteI will try and do that. So far, he's loving it and it is really helping him to craft the novel he's been working on for quite some time.
DeleteWill your son go to public school in 10th grade?
ReplyDeleteNope. We plan to homeschool all the way through just as we've done with our oldest two kids.
DeleteAre you using a certain curriculum for the human anatomy with weight lifting. A few moms in our co-op are hoping for a class like that but trying to figure out how to put it together. Thanks!
ReplyDeleteNo. The mother who is teaching the class has a background in that and has tailor made the course for our group.
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