English Unit 1: Free Writing

English is divided into three parts each day: reading, writing and grammar. Reading is just for pleasure for 30 minutes at the start of every day. We are working our way through several workbooks for grammar, so that’s pretty straight forward. Writing is the real sticking point for English. Usually. But this year has been different.

 

My son has informational and analytical writing assignments integrated into every other subject. That means the writing portion of English can focus on narrative writing. The first four weeks of school were spent on increasing his writing fluency – the speed and ease that he gets his thoughts into sentences and onto paper. He’s always struggled with that. The goal for this unit was for him to get words on paper. I didn’t care how well he wrote or how long it took. Here were his assignments for those first weeks:

US History Unit 1: Pre-Colonial

We are studying the history of the United States of America this year. We began with a way too brief look at North America in the pre-colonial times. We watched the first five Crash Course US Histories, and read the textbook sections on reasons people came to North America. We finished with the first installment of America: The Story of US (Rebels). At the end of this unit, my son had to answer the following questions:

Algebra I Unit 2: Algebra Modeling and Unit Analysis

These lessons still had quite a bit of review from pre-algebra, but it turned out to be much needed review. We switched back and forth between the On Core book (all of chapter 1) and the super old Algebra book (chapter 2):

- Balancing one variable equations (one and two step solutions)
-  Simplifying expressions
-  Distributive property
-  Writing and modeling functions
-  Using dimensional analysis to check equations (here's an explanation)
-  Math lab: Hooke’s Law (results produce a straight line with the spring constant = to the slope)
-  Random reviews:  proportions, balancing equations with fractions, and converting between units

After this unit, my son was much more comfortable with fractions and dimensional analysis, both of which could have (and still may) caused trouble in future units.  This unit took the rest of September. Next we’ll finish tying up all the loose ends of linear equations and get set-up to start solving systems of equations.

Algebra I Unit 1: Review

This first unit took two weeks, or actually 9 days, since we took off for Labor Day. It was pretty straight forward:

- Graphing (plotting ordered pairs)

- Modeling relationships with variables (i.e. making up variable for real life situations)

- Order of operations

- Adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing positive and negative integers

- Real and rational numbers

- Experimental probability

This year, Friday’s math class is a Random Review. This is a worksheet that is extra practice for a skill. It could be something my son struggled with that week or may need to review for next week’s lessons. It is always timed, but only for the purpose of practicing for standardized tests. The reviews for this unit were math facts with larger numbers.

The lessons included the first chapter in the super old version of a Prentice Hall textbook.  The next unit is Algebra Modeling and Unit Analysis.

Science: Daily Lessons

This is the final post detailing our curriculum choices for this year. Next week, I’ll start sharing specific unit plans and how well they went (or spectacularly crashed, as the case may be).

We’re spending the first semester on Chemistry, complete with all the mixing and explosions that it may include. Middle school science can be very bookish, due to the logistics of setting up labs in limited space with limited time and unlimited middle school student energy. I wanted a different experience for my son. Fortunately, the American Chemical Society offers a free curriculum with a lab and videos for each lesson.  You'll need to purchase materials for some of the labs, but they are cheap and easy to obtain. In fact, we already had most of them.

Our Homeschool Room

We use the home office for most of the day. School spills into other rooms for watching documentaries, reading, and labs. But, everything else happens in here. There’s indirect sunlight all day long, making it a very pleasant place to spend several hours a day. And, with all the workspace, bookcases, and officey stuff already in there, it was also the least expensive room to convert.

Science: Basic Lab Supplies

Our home is filled with budding mad scientists, so a well stocked science lab is essential. I’ve spent more money on that than on all our other curriculum combined! We already owned a microscope and slide making equipment. If I was starting from scratch, I’d splurge for a higher end microscope with the ability to display to a laptop. My only really decadent lab purchase was a Physics kit from Quality Science Labs. It’s put together specifically for an AP course, but there are also cross references to most common homeschool curriculums. We did all of the labs during our physics unit last spring. This year, we are redoing some of the labs and using the data for practicing real applications in Algebra I.