Spent the whole day compiling my favorite curriculum resources

I have been asked for a homeschool high school guide a million times, so I spent the day compiling it.

You will find it on my curriculum blog or here.  It is a compilation of the last few posts I did subject by subject and free resources all over the net.

Enjoy.


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High School Homeschool Curriculum Recap- Foreign Language & the Arts

This is the last of a series of blog posts compiling the resources I used for my kids during the high school years.  This last installment covers foreign language and the Arts.

Foreign Language: Most states and colleges have a foreign language requirement for high school students. I have to say that this was the hardest subject for my family.  The reason is that I don't speak and foreign language, and couldn't even keep up with my kids' learning.  They ended up being on their own. Here is a brief accounting of what we used.

For my son:
Spanish 1a: My son took this in a classroom atmosphere using Bob Jones Curriculum and Rosetta Stone.  He was unhappy with his progress, so he insisted that I only award him a half credit for this class and the next year...
Spanish 1b.  He used Learner.org and Rosetta Stone again.  He did the first half of the learner.org program which is supposed to cover spanish I.  It's a pretty neat program.

High School Homeschool Curriculum Recap- History

This is part 3 of my curriculum recap series.  Please scroll to the bottom for other subjects.  This installment specifically covers history in the high school years.  Before the high school years, I feel that history should be taught chronologically.  Personally, I prefer that it also be taught chronologically in the high school years as well, but for the college bound student, that is not always possible.

To keep things interesting, and for continuity's sake, I always pair my literature choices with the history/social studies unit.  You can find my k-12 language arts plan here.

American History:
Each of my kids actually did two year of American History.  There is just so much information to cover.  We used Hippocampus.org, and studied Discovery to Civil War the first year and

High School Homeschool Curriculum Recap- Science

This is part two of my curriculum recap series.  In it I am attempting to look back at my kids high school years and give lessons learned and what we loved and hated.  Here is a review of my children's science subjects.

Neither of my children were very excited about science as they are more artsy people, so we did not go out of our way to do AP courses or take SATII's which science minded kids will want to look into.

Environmental Science:

My daughter Used Hippocampus for Environmental science.  She used it in conjunction to one of the recommended textbooks on the site, and mostly followed the hippocampus format.  I just mapped

High School Homeschool Curriculum Recap- Math

 I have done my best to list curriculums my kids have used, as they have used them.  Sometimes, though, I have changed curriculum within the first 3 months due to dissatisfaction, and may have left off that information.  For that reason, I am listing everything we used, and liked for the high school years:

Algebra:  
My son did Algebra in Middle School using Teaching Textbooks.  He got a very good understanding of Algebra and after taking this course was able to go through all following math courses pretty much without any help, so I recommend Teaching Textbooks.  It is very expensive though.

My daughter used HippoCampus.org for Algebra, and took over a year to finish the course.  Still, it was free, and she also got a very good understanding of Algebra 1, allowing her to finish Algebra 2 very quickly.   (on hippocampus, she used the course labeled Algebra 1 - 2004)  They have a new course, Algebra 1, An open Course 2011 that looks promising.


Algebra 2:
My daughter did Algebra 2, and my son did not.  We sued the following textbook:  Algebra 2 by

Slipping language arts into the other subjects

In my last post, Grading subjects that haven't been taught, I touched on integrating language arts into other subjects.  The comment that followed made it clear that I must be more specific.

Here is how I would, and in some cases, have integrated language arts into science and social studies, and art, etc, eliminating the need to do a lot of painful language arts exercises.

Lower Elementary:

Trips to the science museum, zoos, and science experiment workshops are always preceding by reading about the subject matter and the scientists or historical figures involved.  Their interests were most piqued in anticipation of the outing, and so they payed attention, and they were always ready to discuss the subject matter during the outing.  There was one circumstance when we went to an art museum, for

Grading subjects that haven't been taught

I can't tell you how many times I have heard people ask, "how do you decide their grades?"  "How do we know you are even teaching the subjects you say you are teaching?"  That's a really good question, and I suggest people start directing that to the brick and mortar schools and away from homeschoolers.

It is actually a fact that there are teachers giving less and less science instruction, and just filling in the blank or report cards.  Yes, grading a subject they never taught.  It's a shame really.  It's clear that there is little time to teach science due to all the testing and preparing for tests that are going on.  But with a

One-half credit in Government

The plan was originally, to do a full unit in Government for my daughter's senior year.  When we found out that is was required for accreditation to do 1/2 unit plus 1/2 unit of economics, our plans were changed.  We went from using the textbook, Politics in America , and the Hippocampus Government program to just using Hippocampus and leaving out the written assignments.   That, I hoped would take a good 60-70 hours creating a half credit.
  

To my surprise, my daughter sped through the information, scoring in the 90th percentile on all tests, within maybe 30 hours tops.  I was concerned that her lack of interest in the subject had translated to

My last year homeschooling.... and I finally find the perfect math program

Ok, so we all no that there's no such thing as a perfect math curriculum for all children, but this one is as close to heaven as you get.  I am really upset that it took to now for me to find and implement this math program in our homeschooling program.  Oh the program... its called ALEKS.

ALEKS is available for every grade, K-12 and then some.  I discovered it because many homeschoolers who were taking CLEP exams were using it to learn college level math and science.

When we realized that the Personal Finance program my daughter was using did not give enough guidance, I decided to try ALEKS Business Math instead (as it included all of the personal finance

False starts, do-overs, and adjustments

 Now that my son is delivered safely to college (sob!), I can focus on my daughters senior year.

I have been homeschooling for about a decade, and every August has been an experiment.  After all, I am a homeschool mom, not a curriculum expert, so sometimes I choose curriculums that don't gel with my child.  This year was no exception.

This year the curriculum I had to shelf was at least free.  It was the packet from The Actuarial Foundation for Personal finance.  It is not a bad curriculum, but it does not do enough explaining, as it was designed for the teacher who actually already knows personal finance... not for the mom and child who don't really understand compound interest and mortgage amortization.  So we had a false start with math this year and

A new school year and a roving play

We just got home from this years "school" meeting. We went over rules, regulations, dress codes, cell phone rules during class, and all that good stuff. We found out about all the new things that the homeschool program is rolling out. (Don't you hate it how things always get cooler and better just as you are done?... It reminds me of how mad I still get when I see the super-cool strollers that weren't available when my kids were babies.)  But they all grow up and things change.

The most exciting news was Drama Club.. of course!  The fall play is undecided (almost decided) but it won't be held at our usual venue.  Instead, the kids will bring the play to the community.  They may do a nursing home, a school, a community theater, a major theater, or all of the above... who knows.  The second play will be a full school play... I won't say what it is just yet, but it will have kids of every age from

Guest posts, blog spammers, and other housekeeping

 So, It's clearly time to spell out some policies:

Guest posts:  As of June 2017, I have decided to severely limit guest posts.  The requests are getting out of hand and I feel like the posts that are sent to me are not really what I am looking for in a guest post.  For the few I accept I will look for the following:

What I look for in a guest post:

• Writer must be a homeschooling parent, homeschooling student, or former homeschooling student. 
• Relevance to homeschoolers, as in you have something concrete to offer homeschoolers whether it be subject specific, experience specific, a unique perspective or something of that nature. 
• Uplifting topic, as in I don't want to read another article about the downfalls or problems in

Nailed down this years curriculum... again

We really thought this year's curriculum plan for my SR. daughter was going to be easy peasy, then we decided to go for Accreditation. So, instead, we found ourselves adding classes in some areas which meant scaling back in others. 

Here is a brief accounting of our new and improved plans:

Math:  Business Math with Personal Finance:  ALEKS.COM
Language Arts: Analyzing and Interpreting Lit (study for CLEP exam)
History: Government 1/2 credit Hippocampus.org
Social Studies: Economics:  Uncle Erics Books

• Whatever Happened to Penny Candy
• Uncle Eric Talks About Personal, Career, and Financial Security (An Uncle Eric Book) by Richard J. Maybury, Jane A. Williams and Kathryn Ann Daniels (Apr 1, 2004)
• Whatever Happened to Justice? (An Uncle Eric Book)

Science: General Physical Science Hippocampus.org
Spanish: Mango Languages (library subscription)
HEALTH: Glencoe Online



The plan is to still try to be finished with the bulk of this by Christmas so she can focus on her Sr. project at her Arts program.

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Ongoing Money Management Lessons for Children Help them Avoid Costly Mistakes

I am glad to offer you this guest post from another homeschool mom and freelance writer:

It doesn’t seem to matter whether your children go to public school, private school or are homeschooled – financial lessons and money management are lessons our children need to learn before they need to make financial decisions.  Money management strategies cannot be taught during a one time lesson; instead, children need age-appropriate information throughout their childhood so they have time to form sound financial habits that carry over into their adult years, and are armed and ready with the information they need to make good financial decisions.

Elementary Age Kids and Finances

My own children are ages 6 and 9.  My 6-year old seems to think if we need money for something, we need only visit the bank or ATM and ask for it; while my 9-year old understands you have to have the money in the bank to withdraw it, but doesn’t quite understand why we

What your college prep student needs to know.

Remember that whole speech I made yesterday about doing personal finance math instead of Calculus or the like?  Well, the Board of Regents of the University System of GA has released guidelines that must be made to be considered entry into a GA state college, so if that is your goal,  any Personal Finance Class will have to be an elective, or perhaps you can use Economics/Business classes to satisfy the social science requirement.

So, if a GA state college is your goal, (and this probably applies to many state colleges across the country, here is what your child will need to complete beginning the school year 2012-1013.  (As my kids are not applying to state colleges, this is not a problem for us.

College Prep English:  4 units

• American Lit (integrated with grammar, usage and composition)
• English Lit (integrated with grammar, usage and composition)

Calculus or Personal Finance Math

For their senior year math classes, we had to make the decision for both kids whether they should take calculus or personal finance math.  In both cases we chose the latter.

Firstly, the reason we chose for them to study personal finance math over calculus is because neither child is interested in going into a science or math field.  Therefore they really don't need to go beyond Geometry, but for college reasons they took Algebra1, Algebra2, and Geometry.  My son also took Trig. 

Secondly, personal finance math is something they will be doing every day for the rest of their lives, so

Homeschool update video Feb 2012

Thought it as time I did a homeschool update video.
 Items discussed:

• My son will graduate this year. 
•  My daughter will graduate next year. 
•  Planning for my daughter's senior year.
•  Curriculum overview for next year.

 
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I'd Love to do Elementary Math Education Again

The longer I homeschool, the more I wish I could start over.  Just like the new strollers and baby gadgets on the market that hadn't even been conceived when my kids were babies, there are now so many new and shiny learning programs that I have no use for because my kids are nearing the end of their homeschooling journey. 
 
I have always been partial to technology based learning for certain subjects. I experimented with all kinds of learning software that allowed my kids to "play" their way to acquiring knowledge.  While the games my kids played were cool... very cool, the stuff available now is insane.   In my opinion,  to date, the most natural way to teach homeschoolers is through adaptive learning. Adaptive learning is can now be found in many elementary math education programs in which you will find an individualized approach to teaching, that uses "personalization and also learning systems that dynamically assess and adapt to the student's current knowledge and ability levels". 

I love the fact that parents can purchase computer based curriculum and set kids in front of it and allow them to just go for it.  Compelling graphics, fun characters, and intuitive programming does the bulk of the work for them.  They don't have to worry about alignment to common core standards or any of that other educational mumbo-jumbo.  Children don't have to be dragged into a new concept before they are ready, or become a disruption because they have been stuck on a concept for too long waiting for the rest of the class to catch up. 

Sure, as homeschoolers, we want to get down and dirty into the trenches of addition, subtraction and multiplication, but trust me, you will want to back off when it comes time to figure out the perimeter of a circles. I know I did anyway.  Too bad most of these programs don't go past basic math.  While It won't do my kids much good as they've already mastered elementary math education, I am hoping that by the time I have grand kids (take your time kids) that adaptive learning software will be available for kids all the way through high school and beyond. 

Crazy about online curriculum

I just updated my curriculum page, and listed my favorite curriculum from over the years (scroll to end of page).  To my surprise, most of them ended with .com or .org. I have a thing for online curriculum.

The downside to that is that we end up buying new computers... often.  My daughter seems to be able to trash a laptop in 18 months.  My son's last longer, but his choices are more expensive.

Fortunately, I fill in the blanks with free home education resources such as those found on my  FREE HOME EDUCATION WEBSITE

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2011-2012 Curriculum Choices

 I just updated our curriculum choices page. 

As I see it, homeschooling will be pretty laid back and also pretty hands off next year.

My daughter will be a Jr.  She will squeezing Geometry in over the Summer and into the fall, in time to take the PSAT, which she will also put some speficic effort into studying for it over the summer. She may take the College Math CLEP at the end of the school year, as it seems easy to pass after taking the SAT.

For language arts, I will count the work she does towards her PSAT & SAT studies and she will also take a fiction writing course at her homeschool program.

For science, she will take the online MIT course Kitchen Chemistry.

We are skipping history this year opting to study government during her Sr. year, an election year.

She will continue to work on Spanish (2a) and Mandarin (1b).

Then there's a slew of arts electives such as voice, drama, instruments, art...

*If she starts at a decent hour she will be done with her work by lunch and can work on her electives and independent stuff... not holding my breath.  I am considering not regulating her sleep patterns next year to see what happens.


My son will be a SR.  ACK!!

He has few requirements and has opted to take them as a dual enrollment student at the local college.  We are working on his applications now, but it looks good.  The dual enrolled classes will probably be:

• Intro to Physics (Fall)
• Personal Finance (Fall)
• Spanish 101 (Spring)

In addition to that, he is taking a Journalism class at the homeschool program, and a few arts related electives.

*My job with my son is to ask questions and perhaps guide organization.  Oh, and to make sure he gets his drivers license. 







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