The 2020/2021 school year is over for my teens, but it has been since May 11, 2021. That brings grade 8 and 10 to a close. I will be starting the 2021/2022 school year with a 9th and 11th grade teenager. It’s hard to believe that my oldest has just 2 years left of school. Because I’ve loosely planned out both of their 4 year highschool years I knew for the most part what area they would study in which grades. Choosing the actual curriculum is always a challenge though. However, I’m well on my way to completing the purchasing of their course of studies. Each year is different and this year is going to be very different as we use a publisher we’ve never used previously and sadly won’t be using one of our go-to mainstays. If you search through my previous posts you will find what texts we’ve used in the different grades and some reviews of them. Sometimes the curriculum just doesn’t work and other times it’s wonderful, but then also sometimes the curriculum is great, and my kids love it, but it’s not challenging enough for me as the parent supervisor, and so I am often then trying to add to the course. There is nothing at all wrong with doing that, and you should if something just isn’t getting deep enough. My kids are teenagers and I expect more from them than I did when there were in the elementary years. That being said, I am not focused on making it so overwhelming that they hate it. Unhappy kids don’t learn well. Overwhelmed kids also don’t learn well. On the flip side, you also don’t want them to not be challenged at all, especially if their future plans include furthering their education at, for example, college. So we had our state law required evaluation on June 3rd. That following week I got my affidavit notarized and mailed 5 pieces of paper to the school district. Those would be, my notarized affidavit for 2021-2022, 2 evaluation forms (for 2 kids), and 2 sets of secondary academic objectives. That same week I got my return receipt that the school got my packet. I don’t expect to hear from them, but they do send out confirmation letters eventually. If you are new to my blog, or to homeschooling in Pennsylvania, please see the resources link to find a link to the PA Homeschool Law and be sure to follow it, and ONLY it. Don’t give more than the law requires no matter who tells you to do it. We follow the law and the districts need to also. Evaluation letters are due by June 30th and your affidavit/objectives by August 1st. If you’re a new homeschooler you only need to file your affidavit prior to beginning homeschooling and then August 1st every year after.

So what do I have planned for my 9th and 11th grader this year? If you could only see my “desk” (which is my kitchen table) right now with the stacks of papers and catalogs from publishers as I try to sort it all out. On the way to me currently are a few things. For English my teens are going to focus on grammar and writing as we did an entire year of literature this past year which also had essay writing. If you’re a follower of my blog you know that no single program ever encompasses everything I’d like my kids to know/learn for a complete English course. I often piece together. I have never used Bob Jones Press products before but their “Writing and Grammar” seemed like it might be a good fit, and hopefully it will be. We are also going to do a book study on the Scarlet Letter and depending how long that takes or how well or not it goes, there’s a chance of doing another book study. History was hard because in the last 3 years we covered so much information and I didn’t just want to repeat what we already did. Again I chose a course from Bob Jones. It was literally because I needed to cover Geography as required by law and they were the only ones I could find that had a high school level course. On the way to me is “Cultural Geography“. It looked interesting and hopefully my teens aren’t totally bored. For science, we have been exclusively using Master Books, however after the past 2 years of what was supposed to be high school level curriculum I felt it was missing that level of work. My younger teen wanted to learn about the ocean and ocean animals in particular. Did you know that it’s nearly impossible to find such area of study for highschool? I searched and searched. I landed on Apologia Marine Biology. The only issue with it is that they say they need to have taken Biology first. Well, technically my kids had 2 years of anatomy/biology but in grades 5 and 7 and grades 6 and 8. Will it be too overwhelming for them, is my big question. I don’t know yet. I did order it but I don’t have it in my hands yet. I have been looking at this curriculum for months trying to decide. If after I get it looks too hard, I have a couple choices. I can either nix the stuff that is too hard, or rather, to above grade level, or I can save it for the next year and buy a biology course for this year. I did not buy the lab supplies yet as there will be a few dissections and I don’t want them to be expired before we use them. For Math I nearly positive we are going to stick to CTCMath. Most certainly for my 11th grader taking Algebra 2. My 9th grader has not used any online programs yet and doesn’t want to, but, after pre-algebra, Mom can no longer help and we need an online program. For Bible we have a 1/2 course to finish from Positive Action for Christ as well as another short study from the same publisher. I still have to choose another course to complete the year.

Electives have not been chosen yet. The 11th grader wants to study computer programming, again, with a focus on video game creation. It will need to be an online course but I’m just not sure what yet. The 9th grader wants to study cooking which she had some of in 7th grade. In 7th grade she did a sort-of homec course I put together where she focused 1/2 the year on cooking and 1/2 the year on sewing. She doesn’t want to do sewing at all but I’m leaning toward a more structured home economics course. Now that she is a freshman this would be a good time for her to really start learning budgeting and home finances. She covered some of this in the last part of her pre-algebra course in 8th grade. They will have room for some other area of study as we typically did art or music. I will give them the opportunity to pick what that is. If they don’t know but they don’t want to do art again (which will make me sad), then I guess it will be up to me decide and I haven’t got that far yet. People ask me about my 11th grader and dual enrollment courses with a college. Here’s my honest answer, if he isn’t planning on going to college than it’s not beneficial to him and it will just be a very costly waste of time. Then I am asked, “what are his plans?” Here is my answer, “I don’t know.” I know that he wants to focus on programming and in particular video games. He knows that’s a hard industry so he is open to and has been learning many different computer languages. Does he need a college degree for that? Maybe not. Does that mean he won’t attend some type of school? No it doesn’t. Here’s the thing, college isn’t for everyone, isn’t needed for everyone, and isn’t what makes someone successful. What it does, is make you in massive amounts of debt. Everything going on in the world right now has been very challenging for him to even get employed as a teenager. Why? Because of the “rules”. We are Christians first before anything else. Before any dreams or plans, Jesus is first. No amount of money, or grades is going to make my kids successful. Success is when they claim Jesus as their Savior and believe it and please him and not the world. So, is my 11th grader taking dual enrollment? No. I did look into it, many times. If he were to do such a thing, it would have to be with a college that shares our values, end of story. Am I going to have my children learn what so many secular colleges are teaching teenagers these days? No. Why would I do that? Of what benefit is that to them? A hard-working person doesn’t have to have gone to college. My teenagers are learning different values than what the world teaches them. Learning secular science or whatever they would teach about history would have no benefit at all. The only real options for him for dual enrollment would be math.

That’s it for today. Stay tuned for when my boxes of books arrive for my first impressions.