As your student moves into jr. high school, he or she will start to be more responsible for work outside of the classroom.  He/she will begin to hone the skill of forming their own opinions and defending them.  By asking questions, discussing instead of just reporting, and sharing what they have learned, jr. high students will learn how to come up with their own thoughts and theories by doing their own research, and bring them to the round table of the classroom to share and discuss.  This paves the way for the mind to move fully from the grammar stage into the logic stage.

​Social Studies:The Modern World (1900 to 2000)

Where was the Crystal Palace? Who was the Sick Man of Europe? And how did cow fat start a revolution?  Year four, the final year in our first cycle, covers the major historical events of the years 1850 to the late 1990s, from the reign of England’s Queen Victoria to the collapse of the Berlin Wall. 

Topics Include:
Britains Empire
West Against East
British Invasions
Resurrections and Rebellion
The American Civil War
Two Tries for Freedom
Two Empires, Three Republics, and One Empire
Becoming Modern
​Two More Empires, Two Rebellions
A Canal to the East and a Very Dry Desert
The Far Parts of the World
Unhappy Unions
​The Old Fashioned Emperor and the Red Sultan
Two Czars and Two Emperors
Small Countries with Large Invaders
The Expanding United States
China's Troubles
Europe and the Countries Just East
China, Vietnam - and France
Revolution In the Americas 
A Revolution Begins, and the Great War Ends

National Uprisings
'Peace' and a Man of War
The King and Il Duce
Armies In China
The Great Crash, and What Came of It
Civil War and Invasion
The Second World War
The End of World War II
Partitioned Countries
Western Bullies and American Money
Africa and China After World War II
Communism in Asia
Dictators in South America and Africa
The Cold War
Struggles and Assassinations
Two Short Wars and One Long One
Two Ways of Fighting
The 1980s in the East and the Mideast
The 1980s in the USSR
Communism Crumbles--but Survives
The End of the Twentieth Century

Language Arts and Grammar

This year your student can confidently navigate through writing and grammar using a systematic approach that will build upon itself.  Utilizing the Saxon Grammar and Writing as our curriculum, we believe your student will not only retain a thorough knowledge of the English language, but will also develop excellent writing skills.

Some Topics Included:
The Paragraph
Developing an Outline
Brainstorming
The Parts of a Complete Essay
Self-Evaluation of Essays
The Persuasive (Argument or Opinion) Essay
The Expository (Informative) Essay
The Personal Narrative
The Descriptive Essay
The Research Paper
The Imaginative Story
Writing in Response to Literature
Writing in Response to Informational Text
The Chapter Summary
The Short Story Summary
Writing a Traditional Poem
Writing a Free-Verse Poem
Diagraming
Usage
Spelling Rules

The Period
The Comma, Quotation Marks
Italics or Underline, Titles
The Exclamation Mark, The Question Mark
The Dash, The Hyphen
The Semicolon. The Colon
The Apostrophe, Ellipses
Parentheses, Brackets
Proper Nouns, First Word of a Sentence
The Pronoun I, First Word in a Line of Poetry
Titles, Outlines
Direct Quotations, People Titles
Family Words, School Subjects
Areas of the Country, Religions, Bible, Deity
Greeting and Closing of a Letter
No Capital Letter
The Eight Parts of Speech
Sentence Structure including gerunds, infinitives, particles, and parallel structure
​Vocabulary Development

Some Books That May be Covered in Literature This Year:

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by Frank Baum
Great Gatsby  by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Out of the Dust by Karen Hesse
The Boy in the Striped Pajamas by John Boyne
A Separate Peace by John Knowles 
The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
A Short Story Unit and Poetry Study
Hope Was Here by Joan Bauer
Because of Win Dixie by Kate DiCamillo

Science

General Science offers a broad range of scientific principles stretching from its ancient beginnings to modern day scientists. Students will learn how to build upon a solid foundation by thinking more methodically, recording scientific data, and looking beyond what is already known. Earth sciences, chemistry, physics, life sciences, and environmental sciences are among the topics covered.
Topics That Are Covered:

​The History of Science
Scientific Inquiry
Documenting and Interpreting Experimental Results
Scientific Analysis and History
Earth Science--Astronomy
Earth Science—Geology and Paleontology
Earth Science—Meteorology and Oceanography

General Chemistry
General Physics
Life Science
General Biology
Marine Science
Environmental Science
Science and Creation

A word about Saxon's Scope and Sequence:
​
 Saxon 8/7 and Alg 1/2 are both considered Pre-Algebra. Algebra 1/2 was written by John Saxon for students who hadn’t previously taken pre-algebra or who had scored poorly. It moves at a faster pace than 8/7, but the material is the same. Saxon 8/7 was written by Stephen Hake.  Since our school follows Joh Saxon's teaching, we teach Algebra 1/2 and not Saxon 8/7.

***Saxon also offers Geometry.  This is new and not part of the original sequence written by John Saxon.  This is because geometry is covered adequately by Jon Saxon in the Algebra 1 and 2 books that we use.  We teach all  students as if they are  college bound in the area of math or science. Therefore, we teach Algebra 1, Algebra 2, Advanced Math, and Calculus and your geometry is then covered by the content found in these texts.