homeschooling 'R us

School days, school days....
I have been going to post about our everyday weekday routine...that is the boys’ everyday routine. This year they are once again doing mostly the same classes, as it is easier to coordinate- we need less materials that way. Homeschooling was a big change for the guys- mostly what they miss is school sports.
They do not mind Mom as director. Last year we used SOS (Just like the Duggars- is an advertising slogan- from the TV show 18 kids and counting) which was recommended by the Manitoba homeschool coordinator as easy for packing for foreign travel- as long as you don’t mind Christian material.(funny-I am sure I mentioned we were going on the mission field to him) It runs off CD’s, and mostly grades itself- well the multiple-choice fill in the blanks part anyway, cutting down on teacher time. They just work their way through the lessons- it puts them in a schedule for them to get done on time (you set the schedule at the beginning of the year) The only problem I have had is I need to review all the quizzes and test wrong answers –not just the essay questions I am supposed to grade, and give them partial credit (90%) for correct but misspelled so that the program doesn’t recognize it – it gives them 5% off for misspellings.
Last year we bought the grade 9 curriculum so they could both work on it. I had tested the boys for Saxon Math before we bought it and they were disappointed to test out a year behind the year they were in- I told them not to worry, as they are good math students, it was just what they had been taught so far. So Seth was going to use this math, and I bought Jonah the Saxon pre-Algebra book. The rest of the SOS was fine- but we tossed the Algebra course and got workbooks that Seth had to hurry through with Garry’s help after we came home at Christmas time. The problem was that is hard to learn math with multiple choice answers!
So this year we ordered the SOS English 2 (grade 10) program, Health and Old Testament (Jonah enjoyed learning something new with the New Testament program last year- he’d never studied Bible before) For history we are reading from a number of books and textbooks for Canadian History, with once a week discussions and monthly projects. Our favourite class last year was biology with the Apologia book we got from Garry’s sister Maryann (she used to homeschool her kids- they have graduated now) We even bought a microscope and did the dissections, the boys loved it, and it was through (with a creation bias of course- but taught everything I remember from college biology-that's university for you Canadians!) So we ordered Advanced Biology- The Human Body and Chemistry for this year on CD from them, so it was lighter to pack- although Seth says he really preferred the book form. I did get some reference books for Anatomy, and we print stuff out. We decided after the first month to focus on biology first and do Chemistry the second half of the year.
Math is going well, both boys are doing Saxon this year- I bought the teaching CD for Algebra 2 for Seth, which is working well for him, it teaches lessons on the computer with a whiteboard-voice format, and then he does the questions in the book, I correct it and then he can go over the incorrect ne with the CD to figure out what went wrong. It is working great. Seth fills his exercise books with all his show your work precision. Jonah is envious because I did not spend the 50 bucks on one for Algebra 1, so he has to read and figure it out with the text. Do not feel too sorry for him as he is the biggest reader in the family- and get his math done in half the time- no work showing for him- maybe some scribbles in the corner of the page- numbered one to 30 with answers- mostly figured out in his head. If he starts having problems I will make him do it like the rest of the students in Manitoba and show his work.
The boys spend a couple hours on the computers in the morning, then work on math, experiments together in the afternoons, we have regular Biology chapter reviews with Mom and tests for biology and math once a week. You can see the boys taking their last biology test in the photos.