9th grade homeschool curriculum

I think I’ve made all of my decisions for our 9th-grade homeschool curriculum. I’m trying to balance increasing expectations to prepare them for college classes in a few years, and for life in general, and ensuring they still enjoy life. All in all, I think I’ve found a good balance with our 9th-grade homeschool curriculum. Most of our classes are being completed together, but there are some, where they will be splitting out who does what.

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9th Grade Homeschool Math

The boys will be continuing with Teaching Textbooks, which I’ve been really enjoying. They will be taking Algebra 2. I’m amused to learn that is now the plan to go straight into Algebra 2 because I took Algebra 2 after taking Geometry.

Princess will be using Life of Fred Math, I believe she’ll also be moving onto Algebra 2, but she might have to finish up her Algebra 1 book first. She started her book later and took a break for her life skills class.

I’m going to keep an eye on how the boys are doing, and I might have one of them switch to the life skills class in the spring to start them taking that class.

9th Grade homeschool reading and writing

We will be switching to WriteShop 1 for all of them. I want to shore up their writing skills, and I think they could use a good year of just writing papers. I also plan on having them do weekly 25-minute writing sessions to get them used to timed essays.

I’ve planned out our books to read for the year, and I’m very excited by it. At Great Homeschool Convention, I heard a suggestion to make your English classes specialized, so it’s not just English 1, but Speculative Fiction, or some other such craziness. With that in mind, our theme for this next year is Speculative Fiction. I’m planning lots of science-fiction and fantasy books, with a few dystopian thrown in for good measure.

• Phantom of the Opera (Phantom of the Opera book club, oh that’s not written yet))
• Hidden Figures (Hidden Figures book club)
• Miss Peregrine’s School for Peculiar Children
• 20,00 Leagues Under the Sea (20,000 Leagues Under the Sea book club)
• Frankenstein (Frankenstein book club)
• Hunger Games (Hunger Games book club)
• Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy book club)
• Sense and Sensibility (Sense and Sensibility book club)
• The Prince and the Pauper (Prince and the Pauper book club, also not written yet)

My plan for the last two is to then have them create a book proposal suggesting how they would adapt the book to a fantasy or science-fiction story. I’ll be curious to see what they do with that.

I will be using 7Sisters literature guides as they are available, otherwise, I’ll be looking around for them. I’ve found we get much more out of the books when we use them.

9th-grade science curriculum

Finding a high school science curriculum was my number one reason for going to the homeschool convention last month. I’d been frustrated with our 8th-grade science curriculum when 1. semester-long courses weren’t quite a semester-long 2. they ended up being too easy for the kids. They made big leaps over the summer, and what had been a perfect curriculum their spring 7th grade semester, turned into an unworkable plan for 8th-grade.

With that in mind, we are going to use Apologia Biology for our 9th grade science homeschool curriculum. I spent a lot of time talking with Dr. Wile and learning about the curriculum. I bought that as well as the test book but did not buy the notebook for it. My kids have tended to dislike the notebooks, no matter how much I enjoy them. I still need to pick up a  microscope. I intend to buy a digital microscope that I saw at the convention, but didn’t have the money to buy while there.

9th-grade history and geography curriculum

History plans

We will be studying the Renaissance and Reformation time period, roughly a 200-year time period in which a lot of changes happen, and that sets up the modern world we live in now.  I’ll loosely base it on Mystery of History 3, but plan to change it around to follow a unit structure that makes more sense to me. I will again be creating YouTube video playlists for the kids to use, and notebooking pages. Those were a big hit this year, and the kids enjoyed our homebrewed history. I’m thinking of using some of Dave Raymond’s Modernity or similar for some thoughts on how culture and worldview changed over the years.

I have quite a few lessons written from this time period, many the hands-on portion was done in other years, so here you go:

• Age of Exploration– this is 30 lessons for this time period
• Raphael artist study
• Titian artist study
• Michelangelo art history lesson
• Queen Elizabeth portrait lesson
• Protestant Reformation Unit– I only have part of the resources and lessons up for this one

Geography plans

For geography, I’m going to work through the Ultimate Geography book, and have the kids take turns leading us in studying a country each week. That’s the theory. We’ll see how it goes. I want to dramatically increase our rate of studying countries because otherwise, we will never study most of them.

These are the geography units I have written from 9th grade:

• Turkey Unit
• Estonia Unit
• Russia booklist
• Norway Unit
• Netherlands Unit
• Andorra Unit
• Bolivia Unit
• Slovakia Unit
• Iceland Unit

College-prep work for 9th-grade homeschool curriculum

One thing I learned from the many sessions I went to at the homeschool convention was the benefit of thinking ahead. This is also what I found from working through Homeschool High School by Design (I’m gonna start on her next high school class next month, Homeschool High school by Design review). With that in mind, we’re going to work through College Prep Genius classes once or twice, and review the study guide as we need to (College Prep Genius review).

9th-grade independent work: future programmer

Superman has figured out he wants to be a video game programmer. So, we’re working towards that. Towards that end he will continue working through 42 Electronics, because he’s been a total slacker and not consistent in working on it (and I’ve had a few other projects I’ve had him take a break to work on).

In additon, I found a website called SimplySTEM.com that teaches coding classes, with the goal of their graduates being able to offer their services on Fiver. I love that. So far, Superman has liked the classes I’ve set for him. Future Ticia 2023 wants to update we did not use this long-term.

9th-grade independent work: future chef

Batman is the tricky kid to figure out what to do. Last year we tried a bread-making course, but it did not work for us. Next, I suggested he work through his World of Warcraft cookbook and a Baking Bible I picked up for him. I think we will continue along those lines.

He’s cooked most of the recipes in the World of Warcraft cookbook. However, the Baking Bible still has most of the recipes to try, and I think I will pick up the Bread Bible for him to work through next.

There’s an AIMS pack, I might pick up for him that works through running a restaurant and planning out things like placements of tables, and other ideas. That could be helpful for him.

Future Ticia 2023, a few years after this he decided he did not want to be a chef, but he did enjoy this independent project.

9th-grade independent work: future author

Last year Princess worked through Cover Story, writing a slew of short stories and ideas to provide inspiration for her book. This year, she’s going to work through a One-Year Adventure Novel. I plan to work through it with her, and we’ll see what happens with it.

I’m super curious to see how this will go.

Future Ticia 2023, she did write a novel, I won’t link to it because she doesn’t like it now. But, this was a good plan.

That’s our 9th-grade homeschool curriculum plans, and I”‘m super looking forward to next year.  Here’s a peek at some former years of homeschooling

Our Previous Homeschool Curriculum Plans

• Kindergarten homeschool picks
• First-grade homeschool picks
• Second-grade homeschool picks
• Third-grade homeschool picks
• Fourth-grade homeschool picks, apparently, I never wrote about this
• Fifth-grade homeschool picks
• 6th-grade homeschool curriculum
• 7th-grade homeschool curriculum
• 8th-grade homeschool curriculum
• 9th-grade homeschool curriculum (you are here)
• 10th-grade homeschool curriculum
• 11th-grade homeschool curriculum
• 12th-grade homeschool curriculum (I never wrote this)

Check out my Homeschool Curriculum page to see all of the homeschool curricula I’ve reviewed over the years.