Joy is going to be an eighth grader this fall. That sprang up on me. She is excited and looking forward to it. I'm reminding myself to enjoy this last year of being footloose with her before high school transcripts and requirements kick-in. Here's the curricula she'll use.
- Grammar - Rod and Staff's English 8
- Vocabulary - attached to literature
- Composition - Jump In from Apologia - We were headed to Lost Tools of Writing, with DVD instructions that blended into writing they were already doing in other subjects. She really wanted something she could just open and do what's next, and something that she could do mostly independently. That led us to comparing Kilgallon's middle school books and Jump In. She liked Jump In.
- Literature - homemade study based on The Annotated Hobbit - I already invented this wheel for Justice this year, so I'll just have to tweak it to suit Joy. (*SO* thankful I saved all those extra readings and took notes on nearly everything Justice and I did. That Hobbit binder is bursting at the seams.) This will include whole works such as Wind in the Willows, Princess and the Goblin, parts of Silmarillion, Walking with Bilbo, Tolkien: Man and Myth A Literary Life, Bilbo's Journey, On the Shoulders of Hobbits, Dangerous Journey, and many more. Lectures from Mythgard Institute. Literary elements. Writing assignments. Drawing.
- Latin - continue with Latin Alive at her own pace
- Math - Algebra 1 by Foerster and then Geometry, by .......somebody (I should research that now aye?)
- Science - .5 credit architecture with Honor (I'll add extra reading for her), and .5 credit astronomy, using Astronomy in the 21st Century, an introductory, one semester college text, as her spine
- History - Beautiful Feet's Ancient History Through Literature for high school - She'd already read several of the grades 5-8 selections, and none of the 9-12 books looked out of her grasp. We bought all the 9-12 books and added a couple of the 5-8 books that were architecture based (Pyramid, Grand Constructions)
- Poetry - second half of Art of Poetry
- Bible - To start with she's going through Training Hearts Teaching Minds on her own, covering a catechism question in two days, and she's reading a couple chapters of the Old Testament daily
***Mid-year assessment notes***
- Rod and Staff English - *She* is feeling done with grammar as a subject. We went through the table of contents together, and I pointed out which chapters I considered vital and why. The rest can be grazed or skipped. She is much more content with this.
- Jump In! writing - Fabulous fit. She loves it! I'm more than happy with the progress I've seen.
- Annotated Hobbit study - I was almost expecting a bad review here, but she is very happy with the course content. She would like a better schedule made for it. I can do that. Some of it was thrown together as Justice and I made this course and it shows.
- Latin Alive - Another fabulous fit. She loves the dvd instruction and gets good grades.
- Foerster algebra 1 - Yes, another fabulous fit. She is nearly completely independent in this course, and her lowest grade on a review so far has been an 86%.
- homemade architecture course - She has had a ton of fun with this, and absorbed gobs of physics. She and Honor really enjoy doing this together. Win-win!
- Astronomy in the 21st Century - She's enjoyed this, but had some yawning comments at assessment time. The chapter she was in didn't interest her. We went through the table of contents and wiped out chapters she didn't have interest in and I didn't consider vital. That wiped out about half of what's left. Considering this is an introductory college text and she's an 8th grader working on a half credit, this sounds about right.
- Ancient History Through Literature - She loves all the reading, likes the simplicity of the guide book, but she's very sure she doesn't want to stay with Beautiful Feet for next year. Okay. That works.
- Art of Poetry - pushed to summer
- Bible - She dropped the catechism book and increased her daily reading.
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