My Ninth Grade Curriculum

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In ninth grade my curriculum consisted of allowing me to earn ten high school credits and to find and develop my interests. Here’s a list of the classes I took before I break it all down. 

• Honors Geometry (Jacob’s with Scio Academy) 

• Honors Physics (Novare, Advanced Studies in Physics and Chemistry through WHA) 

• The Great Conversation 3 (American history, literature, and theology, WHA) 

• Honors Latin 3 (Memoria Press Fourth Form Latin) 

• American Sign Language 1 (Florida Virtual School Flex class) 

• Digital Information Technology (Florida Virtual School Flex class) 

• Driver’s Ed (FLVS) 

• Guitar (Kids Guitar Academy) 

• Speech and Debate (Lamplighter Academy) 

Geometry: In eighth grade, I had taken Algebra I, so I went with the usual next step, geometry. I chose Jacob’s as my curriculum specifically because I wanted to stay with Scio Academy. I had used Scio in eighth grade and really enjoyed it, so I decided to stay another year.  

Physics: As I mentioned in a previous post, Novare does science “backwards” from what most people might be used to, so I took physics in ninth grade. I chose to do it with Wilson Hill because they were one of the few options we found that offered Novare. I now love WHA and would choose it for many more reasons than just that, but that was part of my initial decision. WHA also offers both a basic and honors course that are decided mainly on whether the student has completed algebra 1 before starting high school. I had, so I decided to go with the honors track. 

The Great Conversation 3: I had taken Omnibus II Secondary in eighth grade. It was great, but I had taken it self-paced and wanted a live option. We had heard wonderful things about Wilson Hill, so we decided to take the leap and try it out. As I said above, WHA is truly amazing, and I loved this course. TGC3 is the integration of American/Modern History, Literature, and Theology, specifically focusing on how modern worldviews have resulted from historical events (and caused them), how these worldviews have affected literature, and why a biblical worldview makes more sense than others we see today. 

Latin 3: In seventh grade, I started with Henle Latin 1. However, Henle is a very difficult curriculum to use on its own. In eighth grade, I decided to try Memoria Press’ Latin curriculum. From what I had done in seventh grade, it looked best to enter into Third Form Latin, even though it was only my second year of Latin study. That year worked well, so in ninth grade I decided to continue with Fourth Form Latin. FF had an honors option built in, which I chose. I also did this class self-paced as I didn’t really want another live class as part of my schedule.  

American Sign Language 1: I’ve always been very interested with ASL. My mom taught me some basic words when I was very little, and as I got older, I learned the alphabet. When we moved to Florida, one of the options for homeschooling was Florida Virtual School Flex, where they happened to offer ASL. I jumped on the opportunity and took the class. While FLVS is not my favorite option for learning, I did grow in my ASL skill and overall, I enjoyed the class. 

Digital Information Technology: I took this class over the summer before my freshman year. I’ve considered doing something with Computer Science as my career, so I thought this could be a valuable class. However, I knew I already had a lot on my plate for the school year. I had heard this was a fairly quick and easy class, so with a little bit of extra work, I completed the credit over the summer through FLVS, where it is part of a 3-year Web Application Development and Programming Program of Study.  

Driver’s Ed: Florida is a state where you can get your learner’s permit at 15, so in my second semester of ninth grade (at which point I was 14 ½, the prerequisite), I took Driver’s Ed to learn the information to pass the written test, as well as have the opportunity to take the test online. 

Guitar: I worked through this course from Kids Guitar Academy in the second semester of eighth grade and over the summer before ninth. I wanted a fine arts credit and I had gotten a guitar a while ago, so I decided to take the course to learn the notes and chords needed to play basic songs. 

Speech and Debate: In a lot of the research I’ve done, I found that it’s a generally a good idea, especially for homeschoolers, to have a speech and/or debate class on a high school transcript. Since it is challenging to do a class like this online, I opted for a local Christian school. The first semester we focused on speech skills, and in the second semester we did two team policy debates.  

In the future, I’ll dive more in-depth into some of these classes and the curriculum, but for now this was a summary of the classes I took in my ninth-grade year.