Today I am going to attempt to give an update on how 9th and 11th grade is going in what is now our 5th year of homeschooling in Pennsylvania. My last post I gave my first impressions on our choices in curriculum. It’s been almost 2 weeks now using the courses. We cracked open the books on August 30, 2021. So far, so good. This is our first year not using anything from Master Books. I have nothing against the publisher. I really like Master Books, but they just didn’t have what my children were interested in doing this year or that I felt needed to be done this year to work on completing our course requirements set forth in by the PA homeschool law. As per my last post, we are using a writing and grammar course from Bob Jones Press, a Geography and culture course from Bob Jones, Marine Biology from Apologia, and CTC Math for Algebra 1 and 2. Those are the core subjects. Electives are Bible (which is required in my homeschool), Computer Programming (for my son), Home Ec (for my daughter), PE, and they are doing a literature book study (1 to start with) and possibly Art again. I do not use formal curriculum for PE or Art (though I have for Art).

(Fig. 1) First is my mini-review on the BJU Writing and Grammar course. This course is slated for 10th grade. I felt comfortable using this for both my 9th and 11th grader based on what they have learned previously and skill levels. There is a schedule to follow which I like because it is a lot less work for me and the teens know exactly what they need to do. There is extra material on the teacher cd if you wish to use it but you don’t need to. The work load is just right. My children do not like learning grammar concepts so it wouldn’t matter what publisher we chose for that. They do need to identify parts of speach with this curriculum, but we do not do “diagramming”. According to the teacher book, that’s an option if you wish to use it. The image in Fig.1 is what diagramming looks like. This is not included in most curriculums. My teens do have to underline parts of speach and sometimes they need to label above the word. If diagramming helps your kids, go for it but it’s not totally necessary. Just about each day they have a certain number of pages to read and some days they also have questions to answer. These sections are called Practice the skill or Review the skill. They have just completed chapter one today and today they were to review the chapter to which there is a worksheet for that. You can choose how you wish to give your kids grades but I grade all the work questions and I will obviously grade the chapter tests. There are no quizzes. The text book is a consumable workbook, meaning, they do all their work inside the text and teacher book is a copy of their book with the answers.

Second, is my mini-review of BJU Cultural Geography. I’m not 100% certain on what the reccommended grade level is for this course. It may be 9th grade, however, my teens have not focused solely on geography yet so that’s why this was chosen. They have had some geopgraphy when we used Lifepac History workbooks as it is included as an all in one course. The course load for this course is heavier than the english course but it’s still workable. There was only one day where they did not complete one activity with my okay. Again, there is a premade schedule that is easy to follow. There is a teacher cd inlcuded with exta material but I am not able to access this because the CD I got with my kit does not work and it was tried on multiple computers with different CD drives. It would seem, however, you do not need it anyway. Each day they have pages to read and/or activity sheets to do that are included in the student activity book. At the end of each section there are “section quizzes” in the text book (which we do not write in) of about 5 questions only. We use notebook paper for them to write their answers on. Unlike the english course, the text is not conumable, meaning, you don’t write in it, but, the student activity book is consumable. The teacher books (there are 2) are copies of the student text but with extra teaching passages and the answers to the quizzes. The chapter tests and test key are seperate and there is a seperate teacher guide for the student activity book. For some of the activities you many need access to the internet. There was one where they were asked to use Google Earth. None of the activities are required of course and you can choose what to do and what to skip or not even buy that part at all. Since there are no other worksheets for the chapter I prefer they do the activites and the student activity book also has the chapter review worksheets which I feel will be good for studying for the chapter tests. There is, however, chapter review questions in the text book but they are not the same sort of questions.

Last mini-review is Apologia Marine Biology. This is the one I was most excited for. This course can be done completely by the student on their own. You can be as involved as you want to be. You may need to help with labs and certainly with making sure they have the items needed for the labs. No science course ever requires you to do all the labs or any if you don’t want to. Labs though, are the best part for my teens and myself. Most of the labs in this course are done with household kitchen and grocery items. There are some labs we have skipped and probably more we will skip but we plan to do the majority. The one lab we skipped was due to a power outage in our home from a storm and we could not use the stove. We can go back and do that one later if we want to. The other one we skipped is one that required filling up the bath tub and floating a toy boat or cork and you needed a 4×4 piece of wood. I wasn’t going to buy wood just for one experiment and we have done this lab in the past. Buying things for these labs can get very costly so be sure to review them all and the list of materials well in advance and decide what you will do and won’t do. There is a lab that requires a live aquarium plant, for example, that you will need to plan ahead for if you choose to do that lab. There are also 3 marine life dissections which you can buy from Home Science Tools as well as the need for a microscope and certain slides. We already had a microscope so I did buy the needed slides. This is considered a 11-12th grade course and they should have had biology before. My teens did have biology before so we are prepared for this course even though my daughter is in 9th grade. This is considered advanced biology. We have used Apologia before for english and this is set similar. There are student work texts, text book, and seperate test sheets and answer key. The student book contains note-taking sheets, study guide questions, and summary questions which can be used to review for the chapter and quarterly tests. There is an easy to follow schedule included. The work load is just right.

All in all, I am enjoying what they are using and it’s working well for us. I didn’t include reviews of CTC Math, or electives this time. I have reviewed CTC Math before and I have of late been using Postitive Action for Christ curriculum for Bible; check them out. My daughter is using Lifepac for home-ec and my son is using a variety of courses for learning C++ computer programming until we find which one works best.

Did anyone ever ask you about socialization for your homeschooler? Rest assured that most homeschool kids have zero problems in that area as they are better socialized with kids of all ages as well as adults. My son is 16 and works part-time after school and weekends and both my teens attend church weekly and weekly youth group. They also see their friends when possible and did quite a lot over the summer months with friends and family. We haven’t yet connected with the local homeschool group this year, but looking to see what kinds of things may be organized with them. Never let anyone make you feel like public school is for socializing. It isn’t. There are many ways to get your children and teens to interact with other children and teens. Just being in the same room with kids their own ages for 8 hours a day is not socializing. Your children will do fine. Most people who question it, have no idea what homeschooling is. Do your kids like sports? You have options. What people really mean when they ask you about being around other kids is, won’t they miss all the “fun” things the school does? They mean things such as, dances, proms, assemblies, etc. No, my kids won’t miss those things. Those things have zero to do with school or their lives beyond highschool. My children have friends and they have education and they go to fun events. They are not deprived. I venture to guess that your children aren’t either. Enjoy your freedom to educate how you want and what you want them to learn and to choose what sort of events you want them to be part of.