fitting it all in

[Ame E.]

how do you do school conscientiously and not have an 8-10 hour day.

Here's what I am considering for next year: This is for ninth grade.

Henle I & II using Laura Berquist (children passed National Latin exam level summa cum laude) with supplementary readings using the second book of lingua latina (they used that in their school this year and my daughter likes to read in Latin). I would ideally like to sign them up for an online course, where they would be placed and working with a Latin teacher.

Physical Science or Earth Science using BJU or ABeka DVDs and books

Algebra I - using Saxon I for my daughter.. and maybe Jacobs, Foerester or chalkdust for my son (he is an oral learner and needs something really clear) or maybe teaching textbooks--not sure this is rigorous enough). Math in school this year was a disaster for my son, so I feel we need a really clear algebra textbook explaining all the concepts very clearly.

Here are my history and literature options:

History - American history using Notgrass
Literature - Using Notgrass.

History: American history using Notgrass
Literature: American Lit first and second semesters from Hewitt includes English grammar

History - Use Hewitt's state report history (a one-semester course)
Literature - Use American Lit class from Hewitt (includes grammar)

History - American history using Laura Berquist's Syllabus
Literature - using Laura Berquist's syllabus (no literary analysis however)
Grammar - using Laura Berquist's grammar course or use Rod & Staff 8

Literature - Using Seton's ninth grade reading class, includes vocabulary.
History- Notgrass or No history
Grammar - Use Seton or Use Rod & Staff 8 since it's not included in the literature class

Religion
Use Christ Our guide and goal with lesson plans from our lady of victory
or
use Laura Berquist 9th Grade religion syllabus using the Fr. Laux books

Writing (not sure that I really need this)
IEW--SWIC or SICCA
or outside writing class

Outside art class for daughter -- she is dying to do this.
violin for daughter--she loves this
orchestra for daughter
some form of sports (not sure what)

for son
drama (dying to do this)
outside private piano lessons
chamber music group
outside composition class
some form of sports (a lot of them)

My daughter also would like to learn French in addition to Latin, either by taking an outside class, or by doing it at home. I may have her drop Latin if she takes an outside class, but she loves languages..

How can I fit all this in? What do I drop? How long would this take? Do I try to do some of these over the summer?

Thanks

[Mad Jenny Flint]

I think you do have a lot on your plate, but that it should be do-able. The Henle is the only area I would question, only because the Berquist syllabus is pretty intensive, and getting through all of Henle's first year using her I and II syllabi would be a huge stretch for us, even if my son were older. Never mind with the addition of another foreign language. So, my suggestion would be to truncate the first year of Henle as per one of the recommendations of Berquist- inside the front of her syllabus she outlines various ways to structure it, and then move on to Second Year Henle. This may be what you had in mind all along.

It also may be beneficial to start in during the summer to determine what your pace will be, on both Latin and French, should you decide to include it.

I believe writing is essential at this stage.

Your day will be long- we are doing 8 hr. days most of the time, and my oldest is in 7th, so I know we are facing routine 8 hr. days in high school. My solution has always been to limit extracurricular activities (i.e. time away from home). This may change over time, but it has worked well so far.

*My disclaimer- I'm not there yet. YMMV. :D

[Anne/Ankara]

And don't forget your "secret weapon," that you don't have to only do 180 days of school each year! Many other countries routinely do many more days than in the US, and we find that if the subject matter is interesting, and there is enough time to relax and goof around, the student can still get in a good 230 days or so per year. For us, the learning is a yearlong endeavor, a lifestyle, so while there are vacations and weekend light schedules, we do many more "school" days than our local PS.

Just one suggestion, to lighten the load!

[FloridaLisa]

how do you do school conscientiously and not have an 8-10 hour day.

I don't know! My high schoolers' days were routinely 8 hours and my 10th grader usually studied a bit over the weekend. Everything just takes longer in the upper grades: math takes longer, the explanations and corrections take longer; writing takes longer; the readings are longer. My older dc have very full days.

Then, too, extracurricular sports and activities seem to be more demanding at the high school level. One key for us was to guard the morning hours for solid study. I have learned that it's not as easy to dart out for a doctor's appt in the morning and then get back on track with studies afterward. On most days, my oldest worked from 7:30 a.m. to about 3:00ish and then headed out for practice or a run. After dinner, he followed up with any extra reading.

HTH,
Lisa

[Karenciavo]

We usually have 8 + hour days here. My son is completing Latin I, AP Bio, Algebra I, History, English I with honors literature, along with government and philosophy electives. It's a full day.

[8FillTheHeart]

My high schoolers are doing 6-8 hrs per day (depends on the day)

I have looked into many of the options you have listed.

I personally think Seton English is weak. Only 3 novels in 9th grade if I remember correctly.
Notgrass is definitely biased against Catholicism. Several of the parts that I skimmed were definitely inaccurate.Based on your list of curriculum, I wonder if you are aware of that?
I think Hewitt looks very interesting and almost ordered it.
Foerster has very clear explanations.
I wouldn't purchase IEW unless your child needs remedial writing assistance.

I ended up enrolling my rising 9th grader in several of Regina Coeli's classes.

[betty]

If you compare to public school, they are in school 6.5 hours then they typically have 1-5 hours of homework. This varies daily and varies by how many honors, AP, and IB classes a student has. Most of the public schoolers I know have a minimum of 2 hours of homework daily. I will have a ninth grader next year, but this year he already has very long days because is already taking 3 high school level classes and I put together some heavy duty reading assigments for his literature and history.

I think if your child is college bound you won't be able to get out of a lot of study hours. The advantage of homeschool for my son is that with his adolescent sleep/wake schedule he can productively work late at night and I don't have to drag him out of bed to be at the high school at 7:10 am.

[Faithr]

I agree Seton is weak in English. I love the Lightning Lit and haven't found any anti-Catholic bias at all. I used the Brit. Lit stuff for Catholic high schoolers this year and am planning on using the American Lit stuff next year. Lightning Lit includes writing projects so I don't think you need to add in IEW.

I also agree on the Berquist Henle syllabus. It is hefty stuff so I don't know if you want to try to zoom through it. That will very, very time consuming.

As for using BJU, as a Catholic, they are well known for being anti-Catholic, so I would be reluctant to use any of their materials. A Beka to me is a bit better. We've used A Beka's Biology and Chemistry in a homeschool class. I'm not familiar with their Earth Science but do they tend to be Young Earth? Not sure what you think about that, but it is not necessarily a Catholic perspective or certainly would only present part of the Catholic view. You'd have to supplement with Catholic writings.

I used Berquist's Earth Science for my oldest who is not science oriented. It got her her credit, but I didn't really think too much of it. I have never thought Berquist's curriculum especially strong in science. She tends to see science as a vehicle for learning to write, but if you don't have a good and deep understanding of what you are writing about, what good are all those essays????

So I guess I"m no help at all when it comes to picking your science!!! Maybe Kolbe? But they don't have those nifty dvds courses like A Beka.

My teens also work anywhere from 6 to 8+ hours, but they do it in spurts and starts depending on what's going on. So that time really averages out over the whole week. They usually work in the morning either going to classes or studying; then hang out or study some more in the afternoon. They usually have some kind of study/homework going on in the evenings. They often do some (or a lot if a test or paper is due) over the weekend.

[Ame E.]

Thank you. I looked at Kolbe science, my friend uses them. I am intimidated because I'm not a science person.. It looks really hard. I am illiterate in physical science, so how can I teach it?

My kids have not had science in a year.. I don't want science for English majors, but I am afraid if I give them something too hard, they will be lost, and it will be a waste or money. I'd like something in between. A lot of places use Apologia.. seems to be for high school science what Saxon is for high school math.. this is self-teaching. I am not opposed to that option either.

The DVD option really appeals to me.. it's one thing less that I have to teach, and it's one subject I'm not particularly good at teaching. Thanks for the input..

I have a son who is almost a complete oral learner and a daughter who is totally visual.. Neither is particularly strong in Math or science.. So I want to help remediate these weak areas as we enter into high school.

In terms of history, every history book has got a bias of some sort.. The Notgrass book is a packaged thing, something I don't have to create.. which is a big load off my shoulders.. If I had homeschooled this year, I would have used All American History for eighth grade and would have started with Greeks, Romans, etc. next year.. but in their school they did ancient history this year.. If there were anti-Catholic or even anti-Christian bias in whatever they were reading, we could talk about what the bias was and discuss it. Again, though if my child is not even basically literate in American history, to start discussing bias and points of view etc. might be putting the cart before the horse.

Today I thought that maybe the ideal way to do history is to look at the subject from different view points, see what is left out, see what is emphasized, and see what is included.. I was thinking of using Christ and the Americas by Anne Carroll (for a Catholic view on history), Triumph of the American Nation by ???? (a 1990 era school textbook) as my main text and The Story of the US by Joy Halkim (for a contemporary viewpoint). Laura Berquist uses Christ and the Americas in the ninth grade as her main text. A friend used this, and said it was not enough. She liked the books Laura had them read. But laura combines literature and history.. and again I think I want to separate the two at this point... so they can get an "in depth" literature course as well as an "in depth history course." It's fine to read literature to supplement history.. I just would not count that literature as a literature course per se.

Because high school is more work than Junior high, my other thought was to have them do more lightweight history this year, like some kind of state report thing during the fall (and also do current events such as the Presidential election) and world geography in the spring.. Hewitt uses the state report thing in the fall, and health in the spring.. I think I'd rather do geography than health at this point..

Sorry to go on and on.

[Faithr]

Hi Ame E,

I always teach history and literature in conjunction with one another. I think you get a deeper understanding of the times when you are seeing things from an historical, factual point of view and from the social, philosophical and cultural views demonstrated in the works of literature. The local classical high school calls teaching this way 'humanities.' I have found after three years of teaching this way, that it is actually less work.

Next year I'm teaching my two teens plus several more (an informal class) American Literature and History. My plan right now is to use Joy Hakim's Story of US (syllabus from Hewitt) as the text; The Teaching Company's The American Identity as the visual component (I'm still previewing this to see if the series is suitable). I have my teens build timelines as we move through the history. They also write papers at certain intervals. This year I've had essay exams but I don't know if I'll do that too next year. Then I'm using mostly Lightning Lit for American history, supplemented by some Stobaugh and some other stuff that I'm going to cull from somewhere else (haven't gotten that far in my planning). So it more than just supplementing history but actually aids in understanding and analyzing. Actually it works both ways, understanding lit. helps with understanding the times in which they were written and vice versa. My kids read hefty classics. It isn't just reading historical fiction.

As for science, fortunately my non-science-y high schoolers have made it through Biology and Chemistry. My Junior next year is taking the year off from science and then might do Saxon physics. My Senior next year is the one that did the Berquist Earth Science in 9th. So she's got 3 science credits under her belt.

My 8th grader is science-y. I know what you mean about being intimidated by Kolbe's science. I was too. But now I've decided that since I'm going for a more Latin-Centered Curriculum, I'm just going to have my 8th grader read through the various John Hudson Tiner books (The World of Chemistry; The World of Physics; The History of Medicine) while watching the Teaching Co. Joy of Science. He'll also participate in the local homeschool science fair.

That doesn't help you though. If your kids aren't very science-oriented you might want to consider Berquist's 9th grade or maybe the natural history year she has. I have that syllabus and it does look like lots of fun. It is very project oriented and has the kids reading some classics in natural history.

I'm going to have my 8th grader use Christ and the Americas. That text bothers me a bit because it is rather too conservative for me (a joyfully practicing Catholic!). It is so very apparently biased that it bugs me! I'm supplementing it with some classic American fiction, some of which will be chosen from Kolbe's Jr High Lit course and others added in by me.

I have been interrupted so many times trying to write this. I hope it makes sense!