Smarter Than A Ninth Grader Part 2

Some of you have expressed an interest in my homeschooling progress, and by "some of you" I mean "one of you." (Shout out to my new favorite lurker, Amanda, who did not leave her email address or else I would have sent a happy little note thanking her for her kind comment.  Although I must say Amanda is quite right to be cautious about giving out her email address willy-nilly.  There are a lot of kooks around here out there!)

So without further ado, I will tell you what I have accomplished thus far in my homeschooling venture.  I will also tell you in list form because that makes me feel organized.

1.  First, I researched the homeschool laws in my state.  They're pretty flexible as far as required courses, number of credits, etc.  There is some standardized testing that will have to be done but that's no biggie.  Basically, all I have to do right now is turn in the proper forms (which were helpfully emailed to me by my bestie, Amber) by August 15th.  Then we're official.

2.  I went to the local school district website and downloaded their graduation policy for an advanced diploma.  We'll follow pretty closely so that IF we want to return to public school we'll be on track but we won't be using any of their curriculum.  I also downloaded their course catalog so I can make sure that our classes cover the same basic material as theirs does just in case.

3.  I found a GREAT website with every kind of printable form you could ever want to use for homeschooling and all kinds of great resources.  I even found a schedule for our science curriculum that someone else had prepared and posted.

4.  I prepared a course of study using the info I gathered in #2 to be sure that we'd end up with the right courses and number of credits.

5.  Then I wrote a four year plan which divided up the required courses into the proper sequence and year.

6.  Now the fun part--shopping for curriculum!  Here's a list of what we'll be studying this year (and I do mean we as I'm going to have to re-learn this stuff too!)

• English 1 - Introduction to Literature by Smarr Publishers .  I'll also add some grammar and spelling.
• Geometry - Geometry: Seeing, Doing, Understanding by Harold R. Jacobs.
• Biology - Exploring Creation Through Biology by Wile and Durnell (Apologia). This is one place I'm deviating from the public school plan which calls for Physcial Science.  Since Hayley wants to go to med school eventually we're jumping right into Biology so that we can end up with Anatomy her senior year.
• Civics - The 5000 Year Leap by W. Cleon Skousen (National Center for Constitutional Studies) I am SO excited about this one! I'll also supplement with some of the original sources written by the founders and also some of the works that they studied. Next semester we'll do Economics.  Another of my FAVES!
• Spanish 1- Spanish 1 LifePac by Alpha Omega
• Computer Applictions 1 - I'm going to wing it on this one.  I'll use my noggin and resources found online.  Basically it's just word processing, internet searching skills (what skill, just Google!), citing Internet sources, Powerpoint and simple spreadsheets (Be still, my heart!)
• Health - Total Health: Choices For A Winning Lifestyle by Susan Boe.  Next semester we'll do a PE credit.  Boo!

So that's it in a nutshell.  Now my task is to plan a schedule for the year and make lesson plans. We're right on track to begin mid-August.  Yippee!