I love homeschooling my kids through the high school years. It has provided wonderful opportunities for my teens to grow and develop in their areas of interest and abilities.
Letting my older kids participate in the selection of their courses and curriculum gives them more ownership and excitement when it comes time to start the new school year.
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10th Grade Homeschool Curriculum Choices
This year my up-and-coming 10th grader wanted to use curriculum that had a textbook and video lesson component. I have found the BJU Press Distance Learning program to be a great option for teens who prefer instruction along with reading. Thankfully, my teen has enjoyed Distance Learning courses in the past and was eager to use them for 10th grade.
Here’s a look at what my daughter and I came up with for her 10th grade year. Under each subject heading I have included the course title that will go on her transcript, the curriculum we will be using, as well as the credit that will be given for each course.
Biblical Studies
This past year I received the Comparative Religions course from Master Books. My daughter was so excited to start this course but she had too many other courses to take so we set it aside for another year. We decided this upcoming school year was a great time to add it in and she’s really looking forward to getting started in a few months.
- Course Title: Comparative Religions
- Credit: 1
- Curriculum:
English
English is always a hard subject for me to find curriculum for as it encompasses so many things from writing and grammar to literature and vocabulary. I made it easy on myself this year and went with BJU Press Distance Learning English which includes a semester of writing and grammar and a semester of literature. I also added in BJU Press Vocabulary D for some extra vocabulary review.
When it comes to a transcript, you can list English courses two different ways. The first option is just calling it English 10 (for 10th grade English) and counting it as 1 credit. The other option is to give a half credit for grammar and writing and another half credit for literature. I usually combine English into one year-long course if my student took a general literature course. I like to divide the courses up if my student took a unique literature course such as American Literature or British Literature. This year I’m combining it all together and calling it English 10.
- Course Title: English 10
- Credit: 1
- Curriculum:
History
This past year my daughter focused on world geography as well as civics and the Constitution. She’s also had several recent years of US history, so it was time for a world history course. I was thrilled to see that BJU Press offered World History for 10th grade which covers creation to present day. With my teen’s desire to have video instruction along with her readings, the Distance Learning program was a great fit for her history course.
- Course Title: World History
- Credit: 1
- Curriculum:
Science
Choosing a science curriculum for this year was probably the easiest decision we had to make together. I’ve come to love the BJU Press Distance Learning science courses for the load they take off of my plate as a homeschool mom. My teen has enjoyed all of her previous science courses from BJU Press as well. Since she took BJU Press Distance Learning Biology in 9th grade, we are going with Chemistry for 10th grade.
- Course Title: Chemistry (with lab)
- Credit: 1
- Curriculum:
Math
This was probably the hardest course to choose curriculum for. My daughter has loved using Math-U-See from their Primer course all the way to Algebra 1 this past school year. The problem for her was that she needed a little more instruction than what was provided on the Math-U-See videos and I had a hard time learning the material enough to help her. We decided to give the BJU Press Distance Learning Geometry course a try this year to see if the extra instruction provided in the Distance Learning videos might be a better fit for her.
- Course Title: Geometry
- Credit: 1
- Curriculum:
Electives
My teen is hoping to get all of her foreign language credits in early on in her high school career so she is taking Spanish 1 right now through the summer and counting it as a summer course on her transcript. We agreed that taking Spanish 2 soon after completing Spanish 1 would be a good idea which led her to take the BJU Press Distance Learning Spanish 2 course in 10th grade.
- Course Title: Spanish 2
- Credit: 1
- Curriculum:
10th Grade Curriculum Kit Saves Money
Since my up-and-coming 10th grader is taking all but one of her courses through the BJU Press Distance Learning program, it was more cost effective to order her the grade kit and add on Spanish. BJU Press offers online and DVD options for homeschool families. You can also choose to teach the material to your student yourself and skip the video lessons all together. Check out the BJU Press website for more information.
So happy I found this site. I am a first year home school/distant learning Mom of a 10th grader.
Welcome to homeschooling!
Hello, I am considering BJU press online for my son’s 9th grade year. How much time did your daughter spend watching the 4 courses and completing the work each day? I am think 4 video courses would be enough in addition to any other courses he takes.
The 4 courses that BJU Press offers in 9th grade are definitely enough. They are high school level courses so they will take time to complete (although you can always eliminate work that you think is not necessary.) Just add in 2 elective courses that your son would enjoy to round out his 9th grade school year.
I shared more about high school elective options in this blog post:https://www.janelleknutson.com/2019/03/11/high-school-electives-for-homeschoolers/
And I also shared how to create your own electives in this post and video: https://www.janelleknutson.com/2019/03/22/how-to-create-high-school-elective-course/
Hope that helps!
Hi, Janelle
I am planning for next year and considering using BJU’s Grade 10 English online. What are your thoughts after using it this year? I am trying to decide between this, EIW, and IEW. I like that this covers literature as well as writing & grammar.
Hi Karen,
BJU DL English 10 is a great option since it includes writing, grammar and literature in a one-year, English course. (IEW and EIW are both year-long writing courses and you’d need to add in at least literature.)
A few things to keep in mind though if you are thinking about the BJU English course for 10th grade: It is divided into one semester of grammar/writing and then another semester of literature. The first semester is grammar and writing but is VERY HEAVY on grammar. Writing prompts are given at the end of each grammar chapter. They review the writing process but do not teach how to write as it is assumed that the student is already a good writer by high school. The literature semester does include writing assignments as well. I think the literature lessons are wonderful and my kids have really enjoyed them and learned a lot which is why we went with BJU DL English for 8th and 10th grades.
Here is what we ended up doing this year: My 10 grader did a larger portion of the grammar lessons but we did cut out some as it was a ton of grammar. She is doing all of the literature lessons. However, we cut out all of the writing assignments from both the Grammar/Writing and the Literature and switched over to IEW’s Student Structure and Style for writing. It made for a little extra work for her but it allowed us to use the excellent grammar and literature instruction from BJU DL English but also get some needed writing instruction from IEW.
I hope that all makes sense and helps you in making a decision for your teen.
PS EIW is also an excellent option for writing. I gave my daughter the option of IEW or EIW for writing and she chose IEW. 🙂
Thank you so much for this post! I am planning my daughter’s 10th grade year and looking into BJU. This year she is doing EIW, Easy Grammar,, ACE Biology, ACE Health, Notgrass World Geography, and MUS Algebra 1. I noticed you have used some of these in the past. Do you think switching to BJU will be a huge leap for 10th grade? (Planning to do Physical Science instead of Biology). I’m especially wondering if we should switch to BJU for Geometry or stay with MUS. Thank you!
Switching to BJU shouldn’t be too much of a leap but I would suggest sticking with MUS for geometry. BJU physical science is a great option. Hope that helps.