Begining Secondary Education

Photo By: Chris

My oldest has started a few high school courses already. Not going to lie, the thought of homeschooling my kid through high school has me a bit nervous.  But it’s too late for nerves, my 7th grader (according to the state), has already started 9th grade English & a 10th grade history course!

I won’t lie, I’ve been in denial about this for too long.  Right up until about January of this year, I thought high school was a long way off.  Then my son finished his Mystery of History book, and I realized that he was too old to continue in the Mystery of History curriculum and be able to fulfill high school requirements.  Yikes!

Some fast research led me to the Switched on Schoolhouse program.  We had considered SOS back when we started this grand adventure.  Unfortunately for Capt740, SOS didn’t start until 3rd grade, and at that time he was in 1st.  While it is on the more expensive side, SOS  is all computer-based, which makes my son very happy.  I chose to start him with the 10th grade history course, World History, after about a week of pouring through research and required credit hours for a high school diploma.  Virginia only requires 3 credit hours of history.  We chose World History, US History, & Government. Switched on Schoolhouse’s high school history starts with Geography in 9th grade.  While Geography is a worthy subject, it can very easily be integrated into World History.  So Capt740 got to skip straight into 10th grade history.

As long as we were getting into SOS, I promoted him into 9th grade English I as well.  I had him using Easy Grammar’s 8th grade course, which seemed to me like it was supposed to be more of a grammar supplement to whatever else he was supposed to be doing in 8th grade.  I was utterly lost as to how to supplement or even what sort of activities I should be supplementing the course with.  I looked over the 9th grade SOS course, and it looks much more like an English course should, what with the literature & reports and such.

So far, Switched on Schoolhouse is a winner.  Capt740 loves it.  He also really likes his Apologia General Science course this year, and Math-U-See is still working for him.  After all my research, and much discussion with my husband & son, we came up with a course of study for the next few years for our high-schooler.

English:  Switched on Schoolhouse; English I, English II, English III, and English IV

Math:  Math-U-See; Algebra I, Algebra II, Geometry, and Stewardship (aka Personal Finance)

History: Switched on Schoolhouse; World History, American & Virginia History, and Government & Economics

Science: Apologia; Physical Science, Biology, and Physics

Foreign Language: Rosetta Stone; Spanish, 2 credit hours

We’re still looking at our options as far as electives, but we’ve got some great ideas.  I’m hoping to put together some kind of Lego Art class, as well as Life Skills (that’s a MUST for all our kids!), Bible, and maybe Photography, or something else.  We’ll see what happens.

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