We finally completed our curriculum shopping for this coming school year. It took hours and hours of research, letting my kids preview and give their input and then running the financial cost options past my hubby.
Here are our choices for the year (9th and 7th grades):
Language Arts: a mix of writing lessons (essays, research papers, story writing) and literature studies from 7sistershomeschool.com, along with grammar/vocab/dication using the McGuffey readers.
Math: CTCmath.com, found a decent deal online at homeschoolbuyersco-op.com We're at the pre-algebra level, but they will have the kids each take an assessment test and then tell them which lessons they need to start with. We'll have access to all math lessons from K-12 grades, so they can move along at their own pace and skill level.
History: American History. We'll be doing an eclectic mix of living books and lessons from the America's Story 3 (masterbooks.com) and the free online program at allinonehomeschool.com. We've already covered early American history, so this year we're focusing on WW2 to present day.
Science: High school courses are expensive, can you say sticker shock?! Especially since many require microscopes and lab supplies. We decided to go with Devotional Biology DVDs from compassclassroom.com, which comes with videos of all the labs, so that we can view labs without purchasing a microscope. Then we'll assess if they need more hands-on experiences and might purchase the pricey lab kit later. This particular biology course comes from a creation standpoint and teaches how God has displayed his character in his creation. Both kids loved the sample lesson and said the instructor was both funny and very interesting.
Foreign Language: Duolingo. (free!) We've been doing this program for a couple years now. One kiddo is learning French and the other is learning Spanish. Side note: It is a secular program and has some influences there such as translating sentences that talk about "Her wife".
Electives: My freshman is interested in possibly getting into veterinary medicine after high school so she'll be taking Apologia's Health and Nutrition course. It has beautiful pictures and to-the-point chapters. She's super excited about this class. It was a splurge for us, but looks to be a quality program with lots of good reviews.
She's also doing a unit study from 7sistershomeschool.com called "Career Exploration". It guides kids in how to explore careers they are interested in and what to do to learn more about those careers. She specifically asked to learn about careers in high school, so I was thrilled to get this one at 50% discount!
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