College Prep Homeschooling: 8th grade science

notes:

Most colleges require a student to have studied at least biology and chemistry and two other lab-based sciences. I also like to get a jump on these requirements in 8th grade.
This is also a chance to get your child more interested in science and to build a positive attitude around it. Note: don’t jump into chemistry until you have done the math to support it, preferably Algebra 2. Likewise, I prefer calculus happen before physics. For 8th grade, you don’t NEED a lab science, but you can use this opportunity to introduce your student to lab work. Still, your options for high school science are numerous. I like this college course from MIT called Kitchen Chemistry. It allows chemistry to happen at home with a manageable mess and no danger of explosions. https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/experimen... My child followed this curriculum. It was not too difficult for her at 14, and we did her lab work on Wednesday, just in time for dinner. Yum. If you are not too keen on doing labs in your home, most communities have science groups, classes, and the like where your child will have more than a full year’s curriculum. Robotics clubs Astrology at the local planetarium Virtual dissections online Science labs are available at science museums in every major city.

College Prep Homeschooling: 8th grade History and Language Arts

The series continues- College Prep Homeschooling: 8th-grade history and language arts.

I teach these two subjects as one cohesive unit.  Find out how. Find out why.



 Here are the notes from the video

White paper on weaving literature into social studies; https://britannicalearn.com/wp-conten... Book lists for novels set in other countries for children and teens. https://ccbc.education.wisc.edu/books... In addition to reading for Language Arts, students should be using a grammar/writing workbook. Here are some good options. Editor in Chief, Critical Thinking Company https://amzn.to/2y1AeFT SAT Reading and Writing Prep https://amzn.to/2Mgtlnc Holt McDougal World Geography https://amzn.to/2JEpHBM (Teachers version) Holt McDougal World History https://amzn.to/2Mgr3EC The Critical Thinking Company, World History Detective https://amzn.to/2y1AeFT Sparknotes.com has online questions that your student can answer for many of the novels you can choose. Summary: Tying Language Arts and History together. 1. Choose a book textbook or history curriculum. 2. Go through the table of contents and pick books according to the geographical area and possibly the time period being covered. At least one book per unit or for every 3 or 4 chapters. 3. Have the student read the books at the same pace that they go through the history units 4. Use unit tests and a final term paper to grade history. 5. Use a language arts/grammar and writing workbook or test prep book to grade the students language arts, in addition to questions and answer on the novels or book reports. Also grade on final term paper looking specifically at grammar, and format of the paper. CLEP by college board, https://clep.collegeboard.org/about-c... *Disclosure: I will use affiliate links from time to time, including Amazon links. I endeavor to always find the lowest price for anything I recommend and I only link to items I believe in.

College Prep Homeschooling 8th grade math

Here is my second video of the series


Here are the links I mentioned.

I talk about a few curriculums here, but I prefer you go through some curriculum reviews and choose for yourself. My preference, however, is Khan Academy, and even if you use another curriculum, I like to use Khan Academy as a supplement. Why? It teaches to mastery, and it is FREE. But to be fair, I will be linking some curriculum reviews that could be helpful to you. Teaching textbooks review: https://youtu.be/LqbZ1fEKNbw Teaching textbooks: The good, the bad, and the ugly https://youtu.be/LCBOGjXQhUQ Khan Academy review: https://youtu.be/s1ifjuTC2zU Saxon math review: https://youtu.be/-BJ_linfdVM ALEKS MATH https://youtu.be/N0nX8eGu0HU

College Prep Homeschooling - a guide

You know how I have been saying what feels like a decade that I was going to write a homeschool book?  I have written, re-written, scrapped and started over a dozen times. 

But.

My 30ish days of homeschool videos has prompted me to get this done.  I am currently going step by step into college prep homeschooling and am writing a guide along side of it... so, yep.  A goal being accomplished!

Here is the link to the first video: