Oh, Dearest Mother, Sweetest Virgin of Altagracia, our Patroness. You are our Advocate and to you we recommend our needs. You are our Teacher and like disciples we come to learn from the example of your holy life. You are our Mother, and like children, we come to offer you all of the love of our hearts. Receive, dearest Mother, our offerings and listen attentively to our supplications. Amen.



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High School Years and Beyond
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Subject Topic: Pls. help me design 10th grade! Post ReplyPost New Topic
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time4tea
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Posted: May 06 2008 at 9:03am | IP Logged Quote time4tea

Hi All,

First of all, please tell me I can do this! I am so burned out from this past couple of years - my Dad has been very seriously ill, we just had a new baby at the beginning of the school year, lots of colds and flu over the Fall/Winter and into Spring - I am seriously burned out. I really don't want to put the dc back into ps (the schools here are awful - we've experienced them before), but at times I am so tired and worn out I cannot muster up the energy to "do school". My oldest, who will be in 10th next year, is my biggest challenge and always has been. He is difficult to keep a hold of, esp. with 4 younger siblings (one a nursing baby) to care for. If I don't watch him very carefully (which I often cannot due to the other dc), he will be off surfing the internet or listening to music downloads. He is an intelligent kid and not a discipline problem per se, other than that he easily gets off track and it becomes very hard to get him back on track with all the other activity going on here. What he needs is a list of what he absolutely needs to do, day-by-day. We were going to enroll him in MODG teacher-directed courses, but after adding up the costs for all of it found it to be too expensive. We have tried to follow MODG syllabi on our own in the past, but I have at times found them to be either not clear enough or not organized enough for us to use well. Any suggestions??

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Posted: May 06 2008 at 9:22am | IP Logged Quote TracyQ

If he likes to research on his own, via books or the internet (as per your guidance), a great curriculum which is excellent, and what our 10th grader is using all through high school is Trisms

Each year, they research, and create their own history book by the end of the year. It is very structured, yet is as flexible as you like. And there is a yahoogroup for people looking into and/or using Trisms. You can find that here: Trisms yahoo group

There is a lot of support for people using Trisms via their email list, and also on their website, and the website is designed so you can get a really good look at/idea of the program. If you have any questions too, please feel free to email or PM me.

This is just our experience with an independent minded son, who likes very much to work on his own, but likes to have much structure in spite of my inadequacies.    Hope this helps some anyway.

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Posted: May 06 2008 at 6:12pm | IP Logged Quote Bookswithtea

I don't use any teacher directed services, and I have a boy who is the same age, I believe??? He is more likely to drift to jamming on the guitar than to surfing the net, but thats not much different?

I make sure that courseload is extremely independent, and I do the syllabi for each course over the summer so that he can work even if I am swamped with the littles for 3 months straight. And I have to redirect and remind him regularly to stay on task, I'm afraid. I feel like a nag sometimes, but I suspect its just boys...

Do you have any coop options for high school courses? Thats something we are looking into for math and science next year. I think God intended for boys to be chopping firewood in these years and away from mom, not being stuck behind a book or a computer monitor. We try to keep him active and look for opportunities that are outside the home that don't require too much driving. And then we pray that God will cover the rest.

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Posted: May 06 2008 at 6:23pm | IP Logged Quote Barb.b

Well, my ds was the same way for a while. I discovered that teens are really older children. Don't quite get to be called young adults until college. Anyway, no computer in his room - he does his papers on the kitchen computer - very out in the open. I also got him out of his room to where the other 2 do school. He then earned my trust little by little back in his room. I had to face facts - he is a good kid - but human and the temptation when left to himself for long portions of time is too much. It also helped that he checks in to me befor/after every subject showing me what he has accomplished.
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Posted: May 06 2008 at 8:45pm | IP Logged Quote Erin

I'm really keen to hear the answers here, I have a daughter the same age as yours Tea and much the same situation, little ones etc although when I turn my back she has her head in books. I really could and nearly did write a similar post this week to yours.

I've also come to the realisation that she needs far more than I am giving her, she is bored with her work and I know has capabilities not even being tapped into. I spent early this week pouring over STAA and Kolbe and online courses such as Regina only to be either horrified at the cost or not interested in the course work as we have already covered it.

I would love someone who could look at what I require and brainstorm and help flesh out the weak areas. She has the discipline and is willing if only I could find something that could be tailor made to us.

Tracy, Trisms sounds intriguing I'll check it out.

Tea, I hope someone suggests a good fit for you.

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Posted: May 06 2008 at 11:05pm | IP Logged Quote mom3aut1not

Tea,

First of all, I made some of my own syllabi (you can see one if you want) for history and literature or religion with *day-by-day* assignments. That way I didn't have to do much planning during the year. I made a master weekly assignment list per child with each assignment for each day and then made a weekly list that got put into each girl''s notbook. After checking off what got done, I updated the list for the following week and put the old one into a binder as a record. It was *easy* after the initial work was done. I was able to use these syllabi with little change for all my big kids. I do have to admit that I made these syllabi with my oldest and extremely verbal dd in mind; they were challenging for my ASD dd's.Some other classes (English 9) were set up in the same way.

I did different things for science and math, depending. I also found that different approaches worked for each child. Each did a lot of reading with the religion and history/literature syllabi I made up, but worked on other subjects via online courses (relatively cheap for families enrolled in Clonlara-- then $90 for a year-long course in math or science or whatever with *no* text required) for my oldest dd, community college classes (double duty -- love it) for my second dd, and dvd courses or recommended materials from MacBeth's website for the third dd. (You might be able to get some of the Teaching Company courses from your local library.)

Anyway, I find doing high school draining, but these syllabi and weekly lists were extremely helpful and easier to set up than you might think.

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Deborah
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Posted: May 07 2008 at 10:40am | IP Logged Quote Bookswithtea

mom3aut1not wrote:
Tea,

First of all, I made some of my own syllabi (you can see one if you want) for history and literature or religion with *day-by-day* assignments. That way I didn't have to do much planning during the year. I made a master weekly assignment list per child with each assignment for each day and then made a weekly list that got put into each girl''s notbook. After checking off what got done, I updated the list for the following week and put the old one into a binder as a record. It was *easy* after the initial work was done...Anyway, I find doing high school draining, but these syllabi and weekly lists were extremely helpful and easier to set up than you might think.


What Deborah described here is almost exactly what I do. While the process of getting it all together is draining, it is sooooooooooo worth it once the schoolyear starts.

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Posted: May 07 2008 at 10:41am | IP Logged Quote Bookswithtea

Erin wrote:
I've also come to the realisation that she needs far more than I am giving her, she is bored with her work and I know has capabilities not even being tapped into. I spent early this week pouring over STAA and Kolbe and online courses such as Regina only to be either horrified at the cost or not interested in the course work as we have already covered it.

I would love someone who could look at what I require and brainstorm and help flesh out the weak areas. She has the discipline and is willing if only I could find something that could be tailor made to us.


Erin, do you want to describe for us what you did this year and what you think she needs? Maybe someone has just what you need in a syllabus format already on their computer.

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mom3aut1not
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Posted: May 07 2008 at 10:49am | IP Logged Quote mom3aut1not

Books et al.,

Maybe we could put together a resource somehow of syllabi that we have prepared? I have no idea how we could do such a thing, but it might help people either as a ready-made resource or as an example of what can be done.

In Christ,
Deborah
who is so glad that she is done with high school for several more years
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Willa
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Posted: May 07 2008 at 11:40am | IP Logged Quote Willa

mom3aut1not wrote:
Books et al.,

Maybe we could put together a resource somehow of syllabi that we have prepared? I have no idea how we could do such a thing, but it might help people either as a ready-made resource or as an example of what can be done.

In Christ,
Deborah
who is so glad that she is done with high school for several more years


Oh, I like that idea. Something like the file repository on Yahoo lists.

Next year I won't be doing high school either, for the first time in ten years. I will only have the one 7th grader and 2 first graders in the homeschool.   

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Posted: May 07 2008 at 1:45pm | IP Logged Quote SallyT

I don't know if this is the kind of thing you might be looking for, but for English/history I'm putting together an online class/classes for next year -- I'm doing this mainly for the benefit of the co-op students I'm teaching in real life right now, because we're moving, but I wanted to continue the four-year course I'd begun with them. My daughter is one of them, so I have some selfish motivation to want to continue!

I'm still organizing, as well as finishing out this year, but the deal will be that I'll use my English blog -- Abandon Hopefully -- as a kind of bulletin board/chalkboard, where I post lecture notes, links, assignments, etc; and then I'll make a yahoo group for class discussion, moderated by me. There will be plenty of writing and a term paper -- my kids from this year are still groaning over the ones they turned in three weeks ago. The class I'm doing for these rising 10th graders will be focused primarily on literature from Beowulf through Milton (probably -- definitely through Shakespeare), with suggested additional readings for history, kind of a la MODG, I guess. I also tend to "do" a lot of history via lectures -- I like for the kids to understand what they're reading in historical context -- so this could be an integrated "humanities" class that would cover, um . . . the humanities (literature, history, philosophy, theology, arts).

So the new course for next year is Beowulf-Milton; this year we covered ancient and classical literature, with some forays into poetry; we're currently taking our time over Julius Caesar and having a ball. I have a lot of this year's notes already archived and can repeat this course, which I'm thinking of as the 9th-grade year of the cycle, if anyone's interested (either in my local homeschool group or among my online friends), as well as doing the new course.

I hope this is making sense, by the way -- I just got home from teaching this very class, and I have a splitting headache, not caused by them! Hard to think straight! Anyway, I plan soon to go ahead and create a yahoo group and open up registration for the fall. I'm not charging anything -- that's the best part -- and the books we'll use as our main texts are all online as e-texts, though they'll also be readily available via Amazon for people who want to buy books. So it's an unbeatable deal, really.

I wish I could do math, science, etc, but English is my thing -- I figured I could make something of a ministry of it this way. I have fun both teaching the real-life class and keeping the blog, and my great hope is for it all to be a useful resource for more families than just mine.

So feel free to come check things out. A friend of mine will also be moderating a J.R.R. Tolkien yahoo-group seminar for adults, college students, and possibly interested high-school seniors -- he's something of a self-made Tolkien scholar, and I roped him in to do this with me!

HTH -- I'm interested in seeing everyone else's syllabi, too, as I'm trying to put together the REST of 10th grade.

Sally

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Posted: May 07 2008 at 2:58pm | IP Logged Quote Bookswithtea

Willa wrote:
Oh, I like that idea. Something like the file repository on Yahoo lists.   


I'm game. It seems like a waste for us to constantly reproduce the same information when we could just as easily tweak each other's work and save a ton of time and frustration. And even if 6 of us have history syllabi for high school, that's ok since kids learn differently.

Maybe a yahoo group specifically for this purpose?

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Posted: May 07 2008 at 8:22pm | IP Logged Quote Willa

Google Docs is another possibility.   You can "publish" your docs and simple spreadsheets, making them viewable by anyone who has the link to the page. If we did it that way we could start a thread just for sharing links to syllabi, or perhaps threads by grades?

But if someone wants to set up a yahoo group that certainly seems like a good approach too since yahoo has file repositories as well.


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Posted: May 08 2008 at 5:08pm | IP Logged Quote Erin

Bookswithtea wrote:

Erin, do you want to describe for us what you did this year and what you think she needs? Maybe someone has just what you need in a syllabus format already on their computer.


Tea
I'll start another thread if you think appropriate, but I thought this is probably still relevant to your situation, what do you think?

Books


Maths Chiara uses Singapore Maths and Mathematics.com.au as well, Mathematics.com.au is a teaching computer program based on the Australian curriculum. So no problems there.

English I'm using an old OOP Australian book called English for Australian schools by Ronald Ridout. It covers grammar and writing, I'm very happy with this. Although as its old it creates a few problems, I'd love to see it upgraded.

Something many are not aware of is our grammar is different to Americans we are based on the English model and our essay writing is different too. So that makes it difficult using an American program in this area.


FaithWell I really need help here as I haven't found anything either of us like. She is keen to know more has a beautiful faith and is willing but I don't want anything to text booky.

History Well I craft out own, for example at present we are studying the Early Church period 33AD- 329AD. My strength is finding living books, I've found some great ones (So if the yahoo group goes ahead, which sounds great I could help in this area) Chiara loves reading, thinks nothing of reading 3books plus a day. But my weak area is in assigning writing questions, deeper digging, projects. And then if I do following through and making her do them. She'd just rather read. I have this week told her she must read Christ the King Lord of History and she has agreed.

We have read Ancient History and are really wanting to concentrate on Modern and Asia but all the programs I have looked at focus on the Ancients.

GeographyIt sounds good to say it ties in with History, reality it doesn't really happen. So help is needed.

LiteratureWell she literally reads over 100 books a term (10 weeks)and many are of excellent quality. Her oral vocabulary reflects this, she really doesn't talk like mere mortals I am very partidular about what she reads. I have intentions to discuss her books but what with life and many children and the challenge to get her to open up it doesn't happen much I haven't required book reports or literature studies and I think it may be appropriate. Is it necessary? What do youy all think?

Science Well we haven't done any formal studies here before so I have her reading John Hudson Tiner's History of Medicine which is basic but a start. She reads and answers the questions. She is enjoying it so that is important. But when she finishes we will need something heavier.

Can you see we are rather lopsided and yet not even completed in those areas. And other areas we haven't even touched on. Economics for example, dh has been making comments that this area and geography need to be addressed.

So I just feel at sea Maybe this in normal for homeschool mums as they realise the years are roaring past with their eldest and there is so much to still address?

Books, do you know of anything to match?



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Posted: May 09 2008 at 6:40am | IP Logged Quote Bookswithtea

Erin wrote:

FaithWell I really need help here as I haven't found anything either of us like. She is keen to know more has a beautiful faith and is willing but I don't want anything to text booky.


Well, I've got one syllabus that uses Kreeft's You Can Understand the Scriptures that is writing intensive, and I'm currently working on a syllabus that uses several popular level apologetics works. So far, Kreeft's Catholic Christianity, Madrid's Surprised by Truth, A Philadelphia Catholic..., Welborn's Here. Now. are on my starting list, along with some articles from Envoy and some tape series as well. No texts. I'm still working out how ds will interact with the material, though. Let me know if you want either syllabus?

Erin wrote:
History Well I craft out own, for example at present we are studying the Early Church period 33AD- 329AD. My strength is finding living books, I've found some great ones (So if the yahoo group goes ahead, which sounds great I could help in this area) Chiara loves reading, thinks nothing of reading 3books plus a day. But my weak area is in assigning writing questions, deeper digging, projects. And then if I do following through and making her do them. She'd just rather read. I have this week told her she must read Christ the King Lord of History and she has agreed.

We have read Ancient History and are really wanting to concentrate on Modern and Asia but all the programs I have looked at focus on the Ancients.


Have you looked at Sonlight's Core 300? Its a modern history program that is written directly to the child that has all the ideas for interacting with the material right there. Also, I've seen the books and the spines are not textbooks. They are gorgeous. Also, how about Teaching Company? I think Elizabeth used one of their dvd's for modern history? I hear you about every program feeling like it focuses on the ancients! Its a frustration point for me as well...

Erin wrote:
GeographyIt sounds good to say it ties in with History, reality it doesn't really happen. So help is needed.


Well, to be honest with you, we fall into the "it goes along with history" category, too, but MODG sells a yearlong geography syllabus that uses the Ultimate Timeline and Geography Guide. I like that resource. I don't think its too textbooky.

Erin wrote:
LiteratureWell she literally reads over 100 books a term (10 weeks)and many are of excellent quality. Her oral vocabulary reflects this, she really doesn't talk like mere mortals I am very partidular about what she reads. I have intentions to discuss her books but what with life and many children and the challenge to get her to open up it doesn't happen much I haven't required book reports or literature studies and I think it may be appropriate. Is it necessary? What do youy all think?


It sounds like she just needs to interact with the material more to be challenged? Its hard with lots of other kids to do it, though. Fwiw, ds and I interact with books in the afternoon, after everyone else is done with school but before its time to start dinner. And most of the time I ask him to write because it takes less time for me to read his thoughts and comment than it does to have a full blown discussion on the book. I look for materials that have questions, essay ideas, and summaries of the books and then use that loosely to come up with CM type ways to interact.

My first thought, given how many books she is reading, was Sonlight's Core 530, which is a British Lit. course that again, talks to the student directly. I wouldn't do it alongside the history core above, though. Eek! Maybe you could tweak the MODG history syllabus that has 1 sem. of British history and 1 of Spanish history so that she could study British history alongside British Lit?

Teaching Company might also be a good resource for interacting with the books she reads? Also, I think Hillside Education has guides for Catholic novels. I have a few friends who have been using sparknotes (online and free) to guide their discussions and writing assignments for literature.

Erin wrote:
Science Well we haven't done any formal studies here before so I have her reading John Hudson Tiner's History of Medicine which is basic but a start. She reads and answers the questions. She is enjoying it so that is important. But when she finishes we will need something heavier.


We just finished MODG's Natural History syllabus. It was *very* CM and easy for ds to follow...involves lots of drawing and interacting with good books. No texts. I think ds even enjoyed the research project at the end.

Erin wrote:
Economics for example, dh has been making comments that this area and geography need to be addressed.


In the US, this usually isn't covered till the last year, so I'd say give yourself some time on this one. I'm still researching this topic myself.

It sounds like she is doing well, overall. I think I would just focus on finding some materials for you to help her to do something with the wonderful stuff she is reading already.

Does this help at all?

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Posted: May 09 2008 at 8:56am | IP Logged Quote time4tea

Books,

It's fine with me to continue this discussion on this thread! This is what I was hoping for!



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Posted: May 09 2008 at 6:52pm | IP Logged Quote Kristie 4

Wonderful discussion Taking mental notes (that I will need to get on paper!)

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Posted: May 09 2008 at 8:49pm | IP Logged Quote Erin

Thanks Tea

Were any of Books suggestions suitable for you? What about Trisms that Tracey suggested? I checked them out, it sounds intriguing but sight unseen its hard to know.

How are you going with organising your thoughts?


Books,

Bookswithtea wrote:
Well, I've got one syllabus that uses Kreeft's You Can Understand the Scriptures that is writing intensive, and I'm currently working on a syllabus that uses several popular level apologetics works. So far, Kreeft's Catholic Christianity, Madrid's Surprised by Truth, A Philadelphia Catholic..., Welborn's Here. Now. are on my starting list, along with some articles from Envoy and some tape series as well. No texts. I'm still working out how ds will interact with the material, though. Let me know if you want either syllabus?


For Faith it was you who suggested and shared your syllabus already with me for Peter Kreeft Actually Dh and dd were discussing You Can Understand the Scriptures just last night. Dh was reading it and saying it was very good, dd said it was but it was hard to write points about it. She never finished actually writing anything, just read, I realized that perhaps I need to hold her hand more in explaining how to write points. One of those lightbulb moments.


BooksWithTea wrote:
Have you looked at Sonlight's Core 300? Its a modern history program that is written directly to the child that has all the ideas for interacting with the material right there. Also, I've seen the books and the spines are not textbooks. They are gorgeous. Also, how about Teaching Company? I think Elizabeth used one of their dvd's for modern history? I hear you about every program feeling like it focuses on the ancients! Its a frustration point for me as well...


Funnily enough I have just written and asked Sonlight for their catalog. I have a friend who used Sonlight here, only yesterday I asked her why she no longer does, her problem was their Language Arts/Grammar, she couldn't work out what they wanted.
Your descriptions sounds promising. I wonder if there would be any conflict with Catholicism.

Teaching Textbooks are quite pricey aren't they?

Bookswithtea wrote:
Well, to be honest with you, we fall into the "it goes along with history" category, too, but MODG sells a yearlong geography syllabus that uses the Ultimate Timeline and Geography Guide.


Actually I already own The Ultimate Timeline and Geography Guide. So can you buy individual MODG syllabuses?

Bookswithtea wrote:
My first thought, given how many books she is reading, was Sonlight's Core 530, which is a British Lit. course that again, talks to the student directly. I wouldn't do it alongside the history core above, though. Eek! Maybe you could tweak the MODG history syllabus that has 1 sem. of British history and 1 of Spanish history so that she could study British history alongside British Lit?


Why wouldn't you do the Literature and History together?
I'd like to do British lit. we did mostly British ourselves at school.

Thanks for the heads up on sparknotes? I've wondered about the Hillside guides, whether they would be a good fit.

Bookswithtea wrote:
We just finished MODG's Natural History syllabus. It was *very* CM and easy for ds to follow...involves lots of drawing and interacting with good books.


Mmmm sounds intriguing, dd enjoys natural history and biology part of science. Was it specifically American Natural History?

Bookswithtea wrote:
Does this help at all?


Sure does You've no idea how much, you have breathed a gust of hope into me.



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Bookswithtea
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Posted: May 10 2008 at 7:05am | IP Logged Quote Bookswithtea

Erin wrote:

For Faith it was you who suggested and shared your syllabus already with me for Peter Kreeft Actually Dh and dd were discussing You Can Understand the Scriptures just last night. Dh was reading it and saying it was very good, dd said it was but it was hard to write points about it. She never finished actually writing anything, just read, I realized that perhaps I need to hold her hand more in explaining how to write points. One of those lightbulb moments.


Oops. I know I've shared it a few times but couldn't remember with whom. I had ds summarize each book of the bible. Often Kreeft covers more than one bible book in a chapter, so we sometimes spent more than a week on a chapter. In the beginning, he needed a *ton* of handholding. For the first month, we talked about the book and then outlined the chapter together (honestly, I did more of the outlining than he did). Then I started having him outline with me watching, and we moved from there. He had the hardest time understanding and outlining the epistles because they aren't historical, like a lot of the OT. If you'd like, I could send you a few examples of what ds did...both the ugly and the not to bad examples. lol


Erin wrote:
Funnily enough I have just written and asked Sonlight for their catalog. I have a friend who used Sonlight here, only yesterday I asked her why she no longer does, her problem was their Language Arts/Grammar, she couldn't work out what they wanted.
Your descriptions sounds promising. I wonder if there would be any conflict with Catholicism.

Teaching Textbooks are quite pricey aren't they?


Teaching textbooks are *very* expensive, but if you catch the program you want on sale, their sale prices are very affordable. Check on the website regularly to find out which programs are on sale.

I just bought the modern history/300 program, but the manual hasn't come yet. I'll let you know more about any Catholic issues later this summer if you remind me.



Erin wrote:
Actually I already own The Ultimate Timeline and Geography Guide. So can you buy individual MODG syllabuses?


Yup. Emmanuel Books carries them.

Erin wrote:
Why wouldn't you do the Literature and History together?
I'd like to do British lit. we did mostly British ourselves at school.


I wouldn't do core 300 (modern history) and core 530 (Britsh lit) together because it would just be way too much work. Sonlight offers more in a manual than any sane hsing family can do within a year. Its important to feel comfortable cutting the program or taking longer than a year to finish it. If I do core 530 (haven't decided yet), I will combine it with MODG's syllabus for British/Spanish history, but we won't do the Spanish history at all, and I would probably spread the 1 semester of British history over the year because of the intensity of the Sonlight workload.

Erin wrote:
Thanks for the heads up on sparknotes? I've wondered about the Hillside guides, whether they would be a good fit.


I've never seen one, so I don't really know too much, but I think others here have used them before.

Erin wrote:
Mmmm sounds intriguing, dd enjoys natural history and biology part of science. Was it specifically American Natural History?.


Nope. The student reads two books written by famous naturalists...one lives in Europe. I can't remember where the other one lived. The student draws daily from nature and sort of picks apart the naturalist's methods so that they learn to "do" naturalist science. Then they study a nature drawing book for awhile. Then they do a 12 week research report based on what they have learned about how to do research from the two naturalists. As an aside, we also liked that this syllabus is 32 weeks and 3 days a week, which made it very doable. I will say ds did not do a great job with the writing/questions involved with the two naturalist books. He was a year younger than the program is designed for, but he still learned a ton, so I don't regret it at all. We had a *horrible* 8th grade science year with Apologia, so we needed something very different.

I haven't seen any of SL's upper level language arts so I can't help much with that. If she needs some help with writing, maybe a program geared for middle school for a year would be a good idea? Something like hillside's Lingua Mater? I *love* this book and we use it for 7th and 8th grade. Actually, this book would mesh well with Kolbe's Jr. High Lit. program, which has tons of ideas for studying and writing for each book. I just wonder if she has read all the books on their list already? Some of the lit. in their program is very middle school level, but some of it is high school level too.

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time4tea
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Posted: May 17 2008 at 9:07am | IP Logged Quote time4tea

Thank you to everyone for your replies here. Our pc has been really acting up, and we just got a lap-top to finally replace it, so I apologize for not being able to respond sooner.

My biggest issue right now is feeling so conflicted with regard to curriculum and materials. Ds is mildly dyslexic and at times hard to motivate. I am severely burned out and was actually hoping to be able to enroll him with MODG so that he could do some of their TA/TD courses. He outright told dh and I that he doesn't care for the style of MODG (which is too roundabout for his tastes - he's a "just give me the facts" kind of guy....), and really would rather NOT do anything with MODG. This happened just before I placed the initial post, so I have been floundering around ever since, trying to once again re-adjust my expectations for next year to yet something else......

Thank you all again for your detailed responses!

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