His older brother will mostly be doing dual-enrollment classes through an online Christian university, so my ninth grader will be my only full-time homeschooler. Since we only homeschool 4 days a week, you can assume that each subject will be covered only 4 times per week unless otherwise indicated. An asterisk signifies a new-to-him or new-to-me resource.
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Content-rich Subjects
As always, he'll cover some of his content-rich subjects, such as morning time/Bible, financial literacy, and art with his older siblings. You can see those curriculum choices here>>>
Personal Devotions- every day
Language
- Language Lessons for a Living Education* from Masterbooks
- The Journey Journal from Masterbooks
- Little Pilgrims Progress- He will be doing a year-long, deep dive into John Bunyan's classic Pilgrim's Progress in order to learn literary analysis, vocab, and extemporaneous writing. That said, even as a grown adult, I find Bunyan's original book laborious. The archaic language weighs down the story and makes the reading experience less than enjoyable. For that reason, my son will read this abridged version. Since the chapters are not a page-by-page match to the original, I have reworked the reading guide in the lesson plans to match the youth edition he'll be reading.
- Movies as Literature* (1x a week)--We will do this one night a week alongside another 9th-grade homeschooler and his mom.
- Read for pleasure. (every day)
Math
- Algebra 1 video lessons from Dennison Math*
Science
- Integrated Science: Chemistry & Physics Live Class from Excelsior
History- 2x a week
History should never be studied using a dry-as-dust textbook, in my opinion. It should always be learned through living literature, field trips, videos, and conversations with the real, flesh-and-bone people who lived it. This year, like most of the last 19 years, we will be using Truth Quest guides to create homespun history units for our look at the Middle Ages.
I'll also use the following resources to show my son what was happening in other parts of the world during the same time as an event we're learning about in Ancient Egyptian History:
- our family timeline
Art History- 2x a week
- A Classical History of Art* - This is a program that he will learn in tandem with his regular history. I will also be taking content from it to teach a middle school Art Through the Ages class at our co-op.
Extra-Curricular Subjects
Cooking
- Culinary School episodes (1x a week)- He'll watch these in the first few weeks of school.
- Taste of Home Cooking School (1x a week)- After reading all of the front matter of the book, he'll then select a rotation of recipes based on the categories in the book.
Foreign Language
- Rosetta Stone Spanish (2x a week)--I am not expecting him to become proficient, as I know twice-a-week language practice will only go so far. I mostly want him to learn some of the basics.
Typesy
- Typesy (2x a week)--for typing practice
Baseball
- Try out for a high school junior varsity team.
- Play for the local club/traveling league in the late spring and summer months.
Life Skills
- Mow the lawn or shovel the snow as needed with his siblings.
- Volunteer in the church nursery. (2x a month)
- Volunteer at the local soup kitchen with the rest of the family. (1x a month)
- Enjoy some downhill skiing with his dad and older brothers this winter. (1x a week through the winter months)
- Clean his room and make his bed each day.
- Daily chores: sweep/vacuum the living room, empty all the trash cans, sweep the kitchen
- Weekly Chores for his child-of-the-day privileges and responsibilities: help make lunch/dinner and do two loads of laundry (Tuesdays)
- Monthly Chores: dust the main floor with his siblings, mop the kitchen, mop/vacuum the living room, mop his room, randomly select one additional chore from our chore jar one Saturday each month
2026-2027 will be my last first year of high school. I have no doubt my youngest son will make it a year to remember for him and for me!
Thank you for sharing your curriculum choices for so many years! I am inspired by mamas who homeschool even in the high school years. I’m curious, why are you not using Learning Language Arts Through Literature?
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