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This is the second year in a row that we are homeschooling eighth grade. My oldest daughter is in ninth this year. We kept most of what we used with her to use with our middle daughter this year.
For English Language Arts, we kept using The Good and the Beautiful Level 7. I really appreciate the quality and completeness of this curriculum for ELA, as well as the fact that art and geography is included. If she finishes early, we will add in the book study like we did with her older sister. I did decide to use a different source for poetry memorization, though.
For Math, we stuck with Saxon. She is using the Algebra 1 book this year along with something new to us, Nicole the Math Lady, https://nicolethemathlady.com/, online math lessons. The videos have helped my auditory and social learner so much! She loves the independence of it, the “Corny Brain Break” segments, and Nicole’s teaching style. I feel the lessons are very thorough and plan to keep using Nicole’s website for future years!
For History, we kept going with The Good and the Beautiful History. We are in Year 3 this year. I did add a few things to make it more complete for my high school student. We added in YouTube videos from Crash Course History and Homeschool on the Range. I also am assigning projects for each unit, and have the sets of those for TG & TB History Year 1, Year 2, and Year 3 available in my TeachersPayTeachers store. We do two lessons per week with one day of videos, and use the extra class time after we finish the unit’s lessons for the kids to work on their projects until the end of the quarter (8-9 weeks this year).
For Science, we are using a new-to-us curriculum, Apologia Biology, four days a week. My eighth grader is really interested in Biology and was not at all interested in the Apologia Physical Science book that is normally used in her grade. Since my ninth grader is taking Biology, we just decided to have them do it together! It has worked out well so far. I am also adding in a few extra labs and activities from back in my teaching days as well as videos with accompanying worksheets from the Amoeba Sisters on YouTube. My goal with the extra labs, activities, and videos is to make it an honors level course and prep them for attempting the CLEP Biology exam. Since we are using the older version of the book, I purchased the Student Notebook through TeachersPayTeachers. It did not come with a lesson plan, so I created one for four days a week. The basic lesson plan that we are following, without the extras, is available in my TeachersPayTeachers store.
For electives, all three girls are doing PE together three days a week, and for Bible they are using “The Story” and its accompanying videos on YouTube two days a week. My eighth grader is using “Getting Started with Spanish” this year to prepare her for Spanish 1 in high school next year.
It may seem like a lot, but she’s been handling the load well. We start at 8:30am, and she usually finishes by 2:30pm or so, including an hour break for lunch. I feel like this is preparing her for ninth grade, where she will continue with TG&TB High School Level 1 ELA, Saxon Algebra 2, TG&TB History Year 4, Apologia Chemistry, and BJU Press Spanish 1.
Hill County Homeschooler 