C will have her 8th grade year completed by January or February, as usual, and I have already chosen part of her 9th grade curriculum. She has completed 76 lessons, and 18 tests in her Saxon pre-algebra. She has been averaging a B for math, although yesterday she got a C on her test. I took half off on 2 problems because she didn't fully reduce the answers, although she had the correct answers, which dropped her grade from a 90 to an 85.
She does 2 lessons per day in her Easy Grammar. They take her all of maybe 5 minutes, and are, frankly, a waste of her time to do, and my time to grade, but it covers the legal requirements for covering grammar. : )
She is doing very well with Apologia's Jump In writing. She doesn't LIKE it, but there will never be anything involving writing for this girl that she will like. We have completed the first 3 chapters, an opinion, a persuasive essay, and a cause-and-effect-persuasive paper. She actually wrote the persuasive paper twice. Once for school, and once in a different, very limited word count, to send in to the local paper's Letters to the Editor. Now we are taking a "break" and doing Jump In's writing plunges for a couple of weeks. You would think that would be easy, but for this child, it is like pulling teeth. Ironically, E was upset that SHE couldn't do writing plunges, so at her request, she is now writing on C's assigned topics, too. At least one of my children enjoys writing.
Social Studies....well, that is MY favorite subject of the year, maybe because we have spent 8 weeks studying the Holocaust. This year we are using something I stumbled into by accident, and that no one I've heard of uses: Perfection Learnings "Literature and Thought". (Sorry, if I knew how to insert links that actually worked into my blog I would, but they never work...google it if you're interested....I HIGHLY recommend this program.) Anyway, this program consists of short, 4-6 week studies of certain historical eras/events using actual literature from that period, letters, documents, personal narratives, newspaper articles, poems, etc. It combines History and Literature, and yes, more writing, into one subject. Yes, we could have gotten this done in the 4-6 weeks it is supposed to take, but because of how in-depth we have gone, we have spent longer. Each chaper, or "cluster" as they call it, has several short pieces of literature, with vocabulary words, and comprehension and analysis questions. But there is also one MAIN question that is to answered throughout the entire cluster, and at the end, instead of a test, she writes a paper to answer the overall question. There are also tons of suggested further reading (and funny, with my fascination with the Holocaust, I already own much of it, LOL), and websites for further research. C and I have spent hours watching videos of actual liberation footage, interviews with many of the victims and authors, and extra rabbit-trails. In addition to the topics in the book, we have had to learn about atomic bombs and the after-effects of nuclear war, due to Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Yesterday we were discussing other instances of genocide, and got on a roll gathering information about the UN. Which has an excellent website, for any of you interested. Who knew? LOL And of course, I happen to have numerous books on Rwanda and Darfur, too, you know, for anyone wanting to do further reading. Anyway, this program has been wonderful...everything I'd hoped for when I found it and more. We will finish up the Holocaust this week, and after a week or so break, we will be studying the Constitution. Not as fun, maybe, but I can't think of a better time in history to be studying and learning about the foundations our country was built on and supposed to be following.
Go figure...I just rambled so much about HISTORY that I am making this too long. That pretty much leaves science. This year, C is "unschooling" science. For those of you that aren't homeschoolers, this means she has no formal textbook, and follows her own interests. Considering we are a very sciencey family, and cover a variety of science topics in our day to day life, we aren't having a problem with this. As I've already posted, C took 6 enrichment classes over the summer at our local community college. 4 of them were science classes, and one was a babysitting/first aid class, which would constitute as a "Health" class. She is also helping E and I do Abeka's 5th grade science this year. (Which is my all time favorite science text ever, and I'm loving getting to do it again with a second child.) I'm amazed at how much C remembers of this book from when we did it 4 years ago. We are currently studying geology, which coincides perfectly with C's ongoing interest in rocks. I let both girls choose and order several items from Home Science Tools this year, and the first thing C chose was an entire kit about rocks.
Well, my original intention was to post a brief update on both girls' progress so far this year. I should have known I'd never keep it brief. Sorry, E, but I'll get to your school update at a later time. I WILL mention that E is FLYING through BJU Math 4 with, as always, straight A's. Her spelling, while no where close to perfect, has steadily been vastly imroving, too, and her cursive handwriting is gorgeous. She can't print worth a hoot, though, still looks like a first grader's printing. It's embarrassing, so we just stick to cursive. ; )
Hope all my readers are doing well, and hopefully next time I post I will be a GRANDMA....the baby is due in only 9 more days!
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