8th Grade Homeschool Planning

We follow along with Ambleside Online' reading schedule for History, Geography, Economics, Literature, and Logic. We are currently working through the,  Year 7,8,9 in Two Years with Ambleside Online. We are on the first year of two, and plan to follow their weekly reading schedule. The historical time period our books are from this year is the Middles Ages, Renaissance.

Term 1: 800-1215; Term 2: 1216-1485; Term 3: 1450-1640

I just love how Ambleside uses a time period am thread that period through all the book suggestions. It is a rich experience indeed!

ENGLISH LANGUAGE ARTS

For English, I'm adding grammar and writing courses to the Ambleside literature suggestions. The writing course we are using is: Lost Tools of Writing Level 1 by the Circe Institute.

I plan on putting updates about this course and sharing some the twin's writings in the blog post --------

For Grammar we are using Daily Grammar with it's video component. That way the boys can work more independently from me, and still receive the grammar support they need. It's our first year using this program, and 🤞 fingers crossed it works. I'm hopeful and plan to use it all the way through High-school. Finding a good grammar program has been a thorn in my side. I'll report back on this. 

MATH & SCIENCE 

For Math and Science I am using the same company. DIVE by Dr. Sharmmon

The math level we are doing this year is Pre-Algebra We started this program last year and lived it! It is taught from a Christian Worldview and it is very thorough. 

The twins are taking their first High-school credit course, with science, this year. They are taking Earth Science with Honors I am going to run the course with the honors track. I know they can do it. 

SCHEDULING, RECORD KEEPING, REPORT CARDS, TRANSCRIPTS

For scheduling, record keeping, report cards, and transcripts, I use Homeschool Manager We have used this program in our homeschool for the last three years, and it is the best! I create the year and the weekly/daily schedule Then the children login and check each task off as they do them. Every time they mark a task complete it tracks their hours. I input the grades and it configures report cards and yearly transcripts. This is the 'secret sauce' to our homeschool

LEGAL

For our legal protection we use HSLDA Home School Legal Defense Association Our family is also involved in our State legislative process, by attending Capital Day through Homeschool Oklahoma

FREE RESOURCES 

I am including the document I created for copy work, and dictation along with the bookmark creation. The bookmarks I give to the twins for tracking their readings. 

Bookmarks for Year 7,8,9 Combined Y1

Copy Work - Dictation is basically the way in which I teach handwriting and spelling. On Monday, the children study the passage, that is taken from their weekly reading, and copy the first half. Tuesday, they copy the second half, while studying. The rest of the week, I dictate the passage to them. Then they correct any missed words and write missed spelling words five times each. Since some of the passages are taken from their reading, it helps the children with the pronunciation of words they are reading. 

Here are the weekly passages from our readings.

Copy Work - Dictation for Year 7,8,9 Combined Y1

I will continue to share the documents I create here. I have some Shakespeare cursive practice pages I'm working on and am happy to share them here. 

Happy homeschooling!