heartofdakota.com

We have used CTC this past year and loved it. My ds loves it also. No more searching every year for the best. We found it in HOD. My question is where to go for the upcoming school year. I can't decide between RTR and RevtoRev. My ds is 13 and will be in the 8th grade come Fall. He could do either I think. I looked at placement and scope and sequence and I am leaning toward RevtoRev so we will be on High School track with HOD. My concern is missing the Medieval Writing Lessons and going into a Creative Writing. Is this a big deal or would he be fine skipping to Creative Writing? He writes wonderful Narrations and grew so much in this area last year. Also RTR is such an interesting period of time in history. My dd who has graduated from HS loved that period of time study. What would we skip then later on if we went with RTR? Also, he loves science and the science for RevtoRev looks wonderful. I'm so confused, so any advice would be appreciated.

We're using RTR this year for my 8th grader.

His high school will look like this:

9th Rev to Rev with extensions
10th Modern with extensions
11th HOD Geography
12th HOD World history

This plan doesn't skip any guides, and still gives him American, Geo, and World history.

Even if we skipped guides (which with HOD usually isn't a good idea because the skills taught build on each other ), we still wouldn't get to all the guides since the high school guides won't start coming out until our 10th grade year. I personally wouldn't mind extending his high school years so that he got all the guides, but I bet my son would protest.

There are several threads on beefing up the guides for high school and/or making them credit worthy (although honestly, since ds falls within the extension range, I'm really not worried about. We just make sure science and math are grade level.) This one has several links included in it:

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=6571

HTH!

Thank you so much for the reply! Your plan looks great and clarifies what I was feeling about the guides building on each other. HOD is so wonderful and we are excited to do our 2nd year with it. Will you do the science as written in the guide?

We've actually already read all the books scheduled in RTR's science, so we will be using something else.

Since he is heading into high school, we will likely be adding to the science each year to make it credit worthy, although I love the living book approach, and plan to have him still do HOD's science (since he's on the extension end of the guides, this is what we've always done, though it certainly isn't necessary). Next year he will do the physical science in Rev to Rev as a supplement along with John Hudson Tiner's Integrated Chemistry and Physics course. I'm pretty sure, though, that the HOD science on it's own would be credit worthy if you were to do Option 2 with the advanced labs next year for 9th grade.

Do you know what science route you want your ds to take in high school?

For HS, I see us doing Physical Science - 9th grade, Biology - 10th grade, Chemistry - 11th Grade, Physics or some advanced science 12th. My problem in 8th grade is we have done Exploring Creation with Astronomy years ago and don't know whether to do it again or try something else. Any suggestions?

If it's been awhile, I'd do it again. There's a lot of meat in those Apologia Elementary texts!

Then next year, you could do the science in Rev to Rev as written with the advanced lab option and get high school credit for physical science.

I'm hoping Carrie has a biology suggestion out by year after next when we'll be hitting 10th grade.

The Apologia book is only a portion of the year's science in RTR. Once you finish that book (mid-year or less, I think), you move on to the Option 1 or option 2 books http://www.heartofdakota.com/rtr_hearts ... ckages.php.

Somewhere in discussions Carrie suggested using option #1 and option#2 books. Then you would substitute option #2 when Apologia Astronomy was in guide. Option #2 is in appendix and doesn't follow the usual HOD science just as written in book. Otherwise you could do Apologia Astronomy again with more depth. Tammy

Thank you so much for your input. I think we will probably do Astronomy again since it has been awhile and also since it is only part of the science curriculum.
I'm anxious to order so we can start in August.

mamas4bugs wrote:We've actually already read all the books scheduled in RTR's science, so we will be using something else.

Since he is heading into high school, we will likely be adding to the science each year to make it credit worthy, although I love the living book approach, and plan to have him still do HOD's science (since he's on the extension end of the guides, this is what we've always done, though it certainly isn't necessary). Next year he will do the physical science in Rev to Rev as a supplement along with John Hudson Tiner's Integrated Chemistry and Physics course.

That's a great idea! We are using Apologia Physical Science for 9th grade (to make it credit worthy), but we could also do HOD's Science reading, since we're on the extension end of the guides, too. I'll have to see how it works and if we can fit it in, because dd LOVES Science!

What a good discussion this has been! I think you have come to some excellent conclusions here. Carrie has suggested doing "Our Weather and Water" on Day 5, along with the Option 1 Science plans and books, to up the science in RTR. I think this is a great way to up the science in RTR without upping your teaching time and student's school time too much.

"Our Weather and Water" is scheduled in the Appendix of RTR, for Unit 25-35, which results in 11 weeks of plans 4 days a week, totaling 44 days' worth of plans. It was meant to be an alternate schedule to use if dc had already read "Exploring Planet Earth", but you could use the schedule in your situation as well. You could start the "Our Weather and Water" plans 9 days early before you start RTR, and then you could just do it once a week when you do the 35 weeks of RTR. Or, you could do the 9 extra days at the end of the year. Anyway, the plans are well spaced out and are nicely balanced, so I was thinking it would be convenient to use them in this manner if it works for your school year. Just thought I'd throw that out there! HTH!

In Christ,
Julie