Our Family

Our Family

Thursday, June 24, 2010

HomeSchooling a High Schooler!

Yikes! I cannot believe that Chelsea is going into the 9th Grade already. Well, actually if she was in Public School she would be in the 8th grade, but since she completed 8th Grade equivalent work last year we are moving into the 9th grade this year. Besides teaching your child to read, High School seems to be the time that HomeSchoolers fear the most. I am not "worried" about the High School years. I know that whatever I have been called to do I will be equipped for. I do however want to give my children the best education possible and the proper records if they chooses to go to college. So, I am doing a few things a little differently for High School.

I started out making my plans by looking up the High School Diploma requirements for Public School in our State and finding out how many credits are required and in what areas. Next, I sat down with Chelsea to develop a 4 year "plan " writing out what she will be taking when (subject to change of course in some of the elective areas.) She will have a notebook to keep all of her completed work this year and we are also going to keep all of her writing (stories, poems, songs) and keep a log of books as she reads them (a bit of a challenge since she reads so much.) We will be keeping up with credits earned to make a High School Transcript. I have bought a HomeSchool Planner from http://www.theoldschoolhousestore.com/ to use for this year. I have also found a website that has a lot of forms and articles on HomeSchooling and HomeSchooling through High School. Check out http://www.donnayoung.org/.

Chelsea's 9th grade year looks like this:

Abeka Curriculum
Themes in Literature
World Geography
Algebra I
Science of the Physical Creation
Kings of Israel A and B
Spanish I


Home Economics 1 semester sewing 2nd semester cooking projects TBD

Music- guitar and singing (both self taught with help of computer, cd's and lesson books)

Since we LOVE, LOVE, LOVE Sonlight's Curriculum she is also reading through their History, Readers, and Literature Selections from their Core 100.

2 comments:

April said...

Sounds like she's got a strong year planned. Have you been looking at the CLEP tests? I'm hoping to structure many of our topics so the boys can pass these tests when the time comes. I'm doing Core 100 this year with my boys. I really love the historical fiction approach to lit!

The Happy Homeschool Mom said...

I hope it is not too strong.. We will see how it goes. I have not looked at the CLEP for Chelsea but that is a good idea. I took them when I was a Senior (in Public School) and including my Calc 1 and 2 that I took from a local University, entered college with 17 credits so I know being able to pass those can make a big difference.