2017-2018 Curriculum Picks - 10th Grade

This has been the hardest year to pick curriculum for.   I've waffled back and forth on a few things and then finally just had to order and hope for the best.   That's probably not the encouragement you're looking for, but I'm just being real with you.    After skipping 8th grade, Olivia will be 10th grade this year, and I've got grand plans for 11th and 12th, but we had to get through this year to get there.

Below are the topics, products and credits that will be assigned per class.   Most of the links shared take you to the Rainbow Resource website/description of the products.   This is not because I'm an affiliate, or will reap any benefit, but truly it's because it was easier to link it from my shopping cart there than to go to every single vendor's page.

American Literature:   We have used Learning Language Arts Through Literature for years, and will continue to do so this year.  Olivia will be working through the Gold-American Literature set.   This will allow us to tie literature and history together this year.    1 Credit

American History:  I asked Olivia for input about how she wanted to study history this year.  Surprisingly, she wanted to memorize dates, places and people, and I wanted her to understand the causes of certain events.   I've looked high and low and couldn't really find a high school class that met both her criteria and mine...so I'm improvising.    We'll be using The Story of the Thirteen Colonies and the Great Republic,  200 Questions About American History, and America's History (Explorers to 21st Century AD) timeline products from Home School in the Woods.   She'll also be doing a 6 week study of WWII using the American In World War II, Time Traveler's package.  We'll be adding lots of literature and field trips to enhance our study.  1 Credit

Math:  This subject caused me the most angst.   Since Horizons doesn't go past Algebra I, I had to switch vendors and also decide whether to go with Algebra II or Geometry this year.   I finally decided we'd go with  Fresh Approach Algebra II. 1 Credit

Biology: I wanted to give Olivia a strong understanding of biology, as her career path will most likely be animal science/veterinarian endeavors.   We really liked the flow/layout of this year's Life Science, so we decided to stay with the same vendor and use Science Shepherd Biology, the lab DVD's and the lab notebook/manual .  We'll also be using the dissection kit, which has more dissection labs than the other leading biology program.    1 Credit

Civics:  Land of Fair Play, including the student workbook and tests.   We'll also be supplementing this with some current even studies.   1/2 Credit

Economics:    This will be a one semester study.   We'll be using Economics for Everyone to make this typically dull topic as painless as possible.  1/2 Credit

Art:  Olivia has really started to blossom as an artist this year, and asked if she could add an art class to her course load for the year.   This year she'll be focusing on learning to used charcoal as she works through  Artistic Pursuits High School Book 1.    1 Credit

Co-op classes:

Botany:   Our new co-op will be offering a high school level botany class.   I'm hoping I don't live to regret having two sciences this year, but she's really does enjoy learning about the how's and whys of science, so we're going for it.   1 Credit

Creative Writing (IEW):  Olivia does really well with the IEW style of teaching writing.   This class will focus more on essay's and longer writing assignments.   I also like for her to have someone other than me checking her writing assignments, since it gives a different perspective.   1 Credit

She is still on the fence about the third co-op class, Advanced Sign Language.   She truly doesn't want to do the class, and I'm hoping another class is offered that is more suitable to her.   We'll see if that happens.  However, at the moment the whole co-op thing may not happen simply because we can't get teachers and students, so this may be dropped all together.

This plan of study will give her 8 credit classes in the upcoming year.   By the end of her sophomore year she will have a total of  18 credits (the typical 4 year high school only requires 22 for graduation) so I feel like she's way ahead of the game at this point.