I'm sorry, my question is probably a little off tangent. Do you assign a separate credit to a lab component, and if not, how many lab work per week or how many hours of lab work needs to be done to accompany a one credit science course? Thanks.

I've been working on designing a syllabus for my daughter's 9th grade English and I thought I'd do it for all the 4 years and that has led me to some questions after looking at high school English content standards. We're trying to shoot for AP English either Lit or Comp for 12th grade, so, what are the basic goals for each year of high school English, generally? Are there general, common novels, plays, poetry, short stories that are specifically done in each grade? If I want to design my daughter's high school English courses for each year to prepare her for the AP English in 12th grade, what should I try to achieve for each grade of English? I looked at the AP English requirements/content and I looked at my state English content standards for all 4 years and I looked at some sample syllabus of high school English teachers on the internet and I'm still lost! The way I've been trying to approach this is by picking books, short stories, plays (while screening them first) for literature and coming up with the writing assignments last. So, I guess my determinant is literature in doing all of this, and somehow grammar and writing will be incorporated into that, but I'm having trouble determining what literature pieces to pick for each grade as I don't even know what I'm looking to achieve for each grade in preparation for the AP. Help?

Thanks again Karin! I've been working on designing my daughter's English Syllabus and it's driving me crazy. I'm going to create a new thread about just this. :P

Thank you everyone for your responses! I really appreciate it. That's what I've seen too for the Government it seems to always be paired with Economics. I guess we can go for half credit then. Thanks tigersgrowl1093! Karin, So did your ds go through the Conceptual Chem book herself? How do you do the lab component? I looked at the websiite and it really looks interesting. It comes with a DVD? Controversy? If you don't mind, can you elaborate on that? Does this course need a prereq of Biology? Thanks for the art link! i don't know if we can spend that $99 for that right now though. I've been reading up some old threads on how to make up your own literature course and that has helped a lot. So would it be safe to say that for English, we have a leeway of focusing more on literature or composition, and that the composition can be heavily based off literature or not?

Thank you Susan! Does it matter what books we choose? (contemporary or classic)

Hello, I'm new to the forums. Posted once before but have since lost and forgotten my password only to be able to get in again now :P I have gone through the thread on this forum and they have been so helpful in helping me plan my daughter's high school plans. Thank you! My daughter will be starting 9th grade next year and I have kind of put some things together in terms of what we will be using, except for English. I need ample help in that. This is what she's going to be doing (it's still under progress though). Any comments, suggestions, recommendations, feedback are welcome. I'm a complete newbie at this, so I'll need all the help I can get! :P We're not going too rigorous with this one because I don't want her to be too put off by high school work, so we're kind of going lightly. Chemistry - Principles of Alchemy (btw, has anyone used this? initially we wanted to do Biology, but then I was reading how now they have quite come biochem in Biology so that it helps to take Chemistry first, but that the problem with that is that Chem requires some algebraic math (which my daughter doesn't have yet). This particular course leaves out those high level math and so I thought it'd be a great introductory course in Chemistry for my daughter. It doesn't come with a lab component though. Any suggestions for a chem lab component? I was reading through the threads and managed to glean someone mentioning Joy of Chemistry as having some lab activities. Is that enough for a high school chem lab component? Algebra 1 - MUS US History - with Hippocampus, and maybe some supplemental books if she needs them Sketching - have yet to plan the course in detail (maybe 1/2 credit) Sewing - have yet to plan the course in detail (maybe 1/2 credit) American Government - I'm still looking into this one. Any suggestions? and how many credits should this be? English I/9 - I need help with this one. Basically, how much writing should she do, how many novels, non fiction, poetry, short stories? I'm so lost with this one. Thank you!

I am new here on the forums, a mother of 4, and I have a ton of questions. My daughter is currently in 7th grade, but we're currently doing 7 and 8th grade work together. We don't use a packaged curriculum, but kind of compiling our own based on the World Book grade standards. Looking at the pace she is doing her work right now, she might be done with 8th grade end of this year or even sooner. My questions: If she's ready to start high school courses, how do I go about doing it? How do I document her finishing 7th and 8th grade, or don't I have to do that? If I start her on high school courses, how do I document that? Do I start recordkeeping for her transcript immediately? I noticed that 9th grade science usually study physical science. Can she start with biology instead? if we don't follow the public school's calendar, how do we document our children finishing a certain grade? What if the child finishes a certain grade in 6 mths? Sorry for the many questions, but I'm so confused.