Geography

8:30 a.m. - 9:50 a.m.

In this class, students will learn about both physical and political geography. We will use two textbooks, Welcome to the Wonderful World of Geography by Brenda Runkle and ABeka World Geography in Christian Perspective Second Edition.  The majority of class lectures will focus on the physical aspects of geography with political geography lectures interspersed. Class time will consist primarily of lecture, but will also include hands-on activities.

Students will learn to map the world's countries across six of the seven continents (excluding North America) with a mapping test each week. The method used is the additive method, meaning that students add to their knowledge of a continent's countries a few each week until they have mastered all of the countries of a particular continent. Then, a new continent is undertaken, using the same method. 

Each week's homework will consist of book reading and review questions. Projects and reports are also intermingled with the homework assignments. Students should anticipate about three hours of homework each week for this class.

Chemistry

10:00 a.m. - 11:45 a.m. (12:00 on some lab days)

Students must have completed Algebra 1 with a C or above in order to take this class.

Instead of the typical lecture-style class, this class will consist of reading the textbook together with teacher explanation, examples, and experiments. Experiments will be performed in groups or as a class. The textbook used will be Apologia's Exploring Creating with Chemistry, 2nd Edition by Dr. Jay Wile. This is an excellent book, but it is sometimes difficult for students to fully understand on their own--thus, the teaching method selected.

Occasionally, when an experiment or group of experiments may take a little longer, students may need to stay after class 15 minutes. Prior notice will be given for these weeks. (Be sure to consider this in your year-long schedule.)

Students will be expected to review the material covered in class, complete Study Guide questions, On Your Own questions, and other worksheets, etc. as part of the week's homework. Tests will be given every two weeks. These will be take-home tests that require a parent or other adult to proctor the test and sign saying this practice has been followed.

Homework time may vary from student to student and week to week. However, students should plan on about three hours of homework each week, with some weeks having up to five hours of homework.