This upcoming year is going to quite different—in a good way—as I'll have two in college and only one child that I'll be homeschooling.
Joely will be a 9th grader this year, and since she has plans to become a gerontological nurse, her special focus (beyond core curriculum) is going to be on nursing.
She will have completed both a nursing assistant and medical terminology curriculum in 8th grade, so we're going to continue with more nursing coursework this coming year, slowly getting a little deeper and deeper into the body of nursing knowledge. The plan for the next four years is for her to complete introductory curriculum in nursing fundamentals, pathophysiology, pharmacology, and medical microbiology. The curriculum won't be nearly as deep as she'll encounter in nursing school, but it should give her a great introduction to the topics so she won't be walking into her nursing classes as a completely blank slate.
Here is what Joely will be doing for 9th grade. As always, this list is subject to change.
9th Grade Homeschool Curriculum
English
- Lit 1: The Ancient World (through WaskoLit.com)
- Writing: Write Source, Grade 10. We've used Write Source materials in the past and really liked them. This updated curriculum appears to be extremely homeschool friendly and thorough.We'll likely be spreading this across 9th and 10th grade.(Sidenote: I happened to purchase the curriculum specifically for Texas, not because I live in Texas, but because it looked to be the only set of used Student/Teacher books that I could get in hardback from Amazon.)
- Grammar: We'll be using Michael Clay Thompson's Magic Lens III during the first semester of the school year.
- Vocabulary: We'll be using some online vocabulary resources like VocabSushi.com.
Math
- Chalk Dust Algebra 1: She'll actually be finishing this up over the summer and early fall since she started it halfway through 8th grade, and then she'll move on to Chalk Dust Geometry.
Science
Social Studies
- Government: We'll mainly be using the iCivics.org curriculum which looks very thorough and extremely practical! We've used Notgrass's Exlploring Government curriculum in the past, but my oldest two didn't enjoyed it, which of course has a negative effect on retention. (That being said, my 18-year-old son went through the Notgrass curriculum and is now thoroughly enthralled by the political process and government, so maybe Notgrass wasn't the wrong way to go for him after all.)
- Economics: Joely will be going through the same basic curriculum I put together for her older sister. This is what it includes:
- Whatever Happened to Penny Candy
- Lessons for the Young Economist (Both the textbook and the teacher's manual are free from the publisher)
- Free Market Economics: a Reader (You can download it for free from the publisher)
- Hillsdale College's Economics 101 course (This is a free online course with about 7 hours of video.)
- The Law, by Frederic Bastiat
- EconPop
- EconomicPrinciples.org
- A few videos from Khan Academy about fractional reserve banking
- Uncle Eric Talks About Personal, Career, and Financial Security
Foreign Language
- Spanish: Joely will continue working on her Spanish using Duolingo. We'll likely delve back into a standard Spanish 2 curriculum for her sophomore year.
Fine Arts
- Drums: She'll continue to play drums in her church youth band and also occasionally play auxiliary percussion in the adult band.
Physical Education
- Swing Dancing: Joely and her older sister go swing dancing twice a month with a local group. They have a 1-hour lesson each time and then dance for 2+ hours after that.
Electives
- Introductory Logic by James B. Nance
- Intro to Nursing using mainly Nursing Fundamentals DeMYSTiFieD
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