Weekly wrap up 8/9/19 -- Curriculum Choices for 10th and 12th grade

2019-2020 Curriculum Choices 

I have finally gotten our fall plans figured out for this upcoming year.  I have been printing things out like crazy and setting up my new notebooks.  I am also trying to reorganize my school room and get rid of things that we no longer need.

I am down to just one child who is full time homeschooled.  MarioFan is going into 10th grade and will go to Co-op once a week.  Firedrake is dual enrolled in the local community college (she only needs 4 classes) for her Senior year in High school.  She will only be doing piano and Japanese both are with a private tutors at home.  So here is the breakdown for our school year.

MarioFan 10th Grade -- 7 credits total

English -- 1 credit which includes the following:

grammar-- We are going to use Easy Grammar 10th grade

We are trying this for the first year this year and will see how MarioFan likes it 

vocabulary--Worldly Wise 10th grade
still waiting for this book to come in

American Lightning Literature and Composition

Biology II with lab -- 1 credit
We are doing the second half of E.O. Wilson's Life on Earth which is free on iBooks.  My husband has already created a syllabus and questions for each chapter along with tests.  He will be teaching this class while I will be creating some labs to go with the chapters.

We did books 1, 2 and 3 last year and called it biology I.  We plan to complete books 4, 5, 6 and  part of 7 this year for biology II.

American History  -- 1 credit
I am going to use a mixture of US history Crash course curriculum and other resources as needed.  History is one area where I do not follow a traditional school program.  I do not test in this area as I believe knowing The Who, What, and Why of history, from all sides and point of views, is far more important than memorizing dates.

I printed out the teacher guide and only the student worksheets and placed them all in a binder

I will be choosing which additional research and projects we will do as we go along.

Math -- 1 credit
Geometry -- Teaching Textbooks

I have an older version which someone gave to me.  I may need to get the upgrade one as MarioFan does like to have access to the solutions on the same CD's.  We will see how this works out for us this year

Robotics and Python programing -- 1 credit
42 Electronics continues with more advance electronics and introducing Python programming.  We hope to complete book B, C and D this year in order to earn a full credit

Packet C is being released this month and Packet D is supposed to be released by December.

MarioFan enjoyed book A last year which concentrated a little more on electronics and a intro to coding

the next few books continues with electronics and a lot more python coding

Music History -- .5 credit Co-op class
We are doing this with a friend and we plan to use two Great courses to help design the class.

We will be also be attending a few musical performances this year though our coop and the symphony school performances which are held every year.

 I will also be introducing Bucket drumming to the boys as both boys play the piano, we thought they might enjoy learning a little drumming but without the expense of buying a drum kit!  I am looking at a couple of sites to see which one we will subscribe too.  Here are two of the sites I am looking at possibly trying this year.
https://bucketdrumming.net/join/
https://www.bucketdrumming101.com/hey-beginning-bucket-drummers

I have already bought the bucket and the drum sticks, just need to research it a bit more before school starts.:) Best of all the entire kit was under $10!!  Although the subscription to above programs will cost a bit.

I am kind of excited about trying this, hoping the two boys will enjoy it too:)

Piano/theory -- .5 credit private tutor weekly along with additional piano performance throughout the year.

Spanish 2 -- 1 credit Co-op class

Kung Fu -- .5 credit Co-op class


Firedrake 12th grade -- total of 5.5 credits

First semester college classes chosen are, she will be attending college on Tuesday and Thursdays and will be working a minimum of 15-20 a week.  We are excited to find out that Firedrake has already earned 6 college credits in her Junior year of high school.

Intermediate Algebra This is the one area we are slightly behind in in our homeschool program so she needs to complete this course before she can move on to College Algebra next semester.  I am told this is really high school level Algebra II just not called that at the college.  Unfortunately this class credits will not transfer to college of her choice but it is the price we pay for falling behind in this area:(

English Composition II-- since she scored so high on the ACT she was able to skip English Comp I class

Piano -- private tutor weekly

Japanese -- private tutor weekly

The goal for the Second semester is to take College Algebra and possibly sociology

If all goes to plan Firedrake will be graduating in May with a total of approx 28 credits (with 15 being of college credit, whoo hoo)  and we hope to have her attend the Homeschool High School graduation in May!

That is our school schedule for the 2019-2020 calendar year.  I always post a mid term update on how we are progressing around January:)