Our plan: Math Geometry and Algebra II at the community college English: Great Book class + grammar and writing (WWS 2) German: OSU German online III History: We'll have two strands of history 1. Ancient History using SWB's book 2. American History of the 1900s at our coop Science: Chemistry at the community college Electives to work on over the course of 4 years: Music, Art, PE, computer related courses

A lot depends on your goals. Are you looking to transfer into a UC school? If so you may want to find the list of required transfer courses which are basically the a-g requirements. A: English Comp, 1 course B: Critical Thinking, 1 course C:Math 1 course (must college Algebra or higher) D: Arts and Humanities 3 courses E: Social and Behavioral Sciences 3 courses F: Physical and Biological Sciences, 2 courses G: Foreign Language: 2 courses This makes a total of 13 courses. Since at the CC they are all semester courses you could finish those in 2 years. I am not saying you have to or that you wanted to. It all depends on your goals. We are planning on doing all of our Math and Science courses at the CC. This is partly because I am not that comfortable with these subjects and partly because I am not able to provide a proper lab at home. We are still doing most of our history and literature as well as foreign language at home. The senior year I'll probably have the boys complete English at the CC. We'll try and test out of foreign language. You should look at your cc's website or pick up their catalouge and you'll probably find the requirements listed in detai. Also, I am not sure but I was under the impression that in CA you can attend any community college at 15. Prior to 15 years old it various by college. We are lucky, I guess. Ds is 14 and is taking Math there right now. I hope was helpful and not too confusing. :-)

You can also take the a-g courses at the local community colleges. That's pretty much what we intend to do.

Here is my take on this: In your example, "If a book is completely understandable from start to finish, then it can't increase your understanding," you can't INCREASE your understanding because you understood it already. You increase understanding if you need to think and ponder about it. You may have gained some insight or knowledge but nothing to truly think and ponder about. This indeed is all he means to say, imho. HAHA. I probably didn't clarify a thing.

I don't grade anything for our at-home classes. However, it seems that we are actually starting to accumulate a lot of grades for various outside classes. How this will turn out when it is time for transcripts remains to be seen. :-) But I really don't worry about this for some reason.

Thanks everyone. I think I can tackle Biology now. :-)

Thank you Michelle! So if we do @10 labs for a Biology course at 2-3 hours each. Would that be enough to call it a Biology with Lab highschool course?

What I'd like to know is how involved are these labs? How much time would 1 lab take? Susie

I have a new 9th grader in the fall and he is in the middle of deciding if he should go to our charter school's highschool program or not? If he goes he will be at school 4 days a week; one day is home study day. We just got his schedule for this yesterday; Algebra I Spanish I and II English 9 Biology PE At home he would still have German (OSU online German III), Piano and Soccer. If he stays home he would probably take: Math as at the local college: Pre-Algebra and Algebra German online English: either continue with the Great Books course we are taking this year or use Lightning Literature Speech the 1st semester and Ancient Literature the second semester (skipping Greek literature as we covered a lot of that this year) History: The World in Ancient Times by SWB as well as a Civil War class with a coop which is excellent Biology using CK 12 plus experiments plus reading the following On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin Experiments in Plant Hybridisation by Gregor Mendel Double Helix by James D. Watson He may also take a Photoshop course at the CC. My 10th grader will have Math at the CC: Geometry and Algebra II Chemistry at the CC English either at the CC or continue Great Books course German III History: World in Ancient Times (if he is not taking the Great Books course he'll read some literature with this) some kind of elective but don't know yet

Agreed! Which is why I was trying to say it is true for us for this son's choice of school. :-)

I think it is really difficult to compare AP and DE. It is even difficult to compare DE between different college and even within one college. The same is true for AP. Not all highschool courses are the same; neither are the college courses. So yes, it comes down to your individual goal. For us: 1. Dss can take classes at the CC which I am not able to teach (at least not well). 2. Money. Our CC is free as long as the kids are highschool students. This is huge for us. Also, what ds1 wants to study is available at a school he could transfer into. So we are focusing on taking appropriate courses. This may safe us a lot of money in the long run. 3. Choices. The sheer amount of different topics offered at the CC cannot be beat at any highschool in our area. To me that alone is worth DE. 4. Getting Credit for highschool as well as transfer into the school of choice is huge for a Science major. The amount of science classes on our list is insane. We may as well get a headstart. These are my reasons for preferring DE over AP. There may be more, but I can't think of others right now.

Looks like a good plan to me. I'd like to just add, though, that many plans will change. I speak from experience here. I do always plan ahead, but it always seems to change. Our current highschool path ended up quite different from what we had originally planned. But that's okay.

Totally agree with Regentrude! I somehow thought it would be so much more difficult. But it isn't. It's just different than in the younger years.

Next year I will have two highschoolers. So I ponder this a lot lately. I started taking classes again at the cc to finish an AA in GIS. This will lead, hopefully by the end of this year to an internship and then on to a new career. I may continue taking classes to transfer to a 4 year university next year after I am done with the AA. One step at a time. I am actually excited about it, but at the same time quite nervous. I haven't worked in a 'professional' job in 14 years. It's like starting over.

I haven't responded to any of the threads; although I have been reading them with great interest. I think we are outside as well as inside the box. Let me explain. I think that where you are (inside or outside) is actually a matter of perception. Compared to many who responded on the "outside the box" thread I feel very much inside the box. However, when I compare our schooling to our friends whose children go to school (public or private) I am very much outside the box. We do not follow our states requirements at all because ours are actually higher anyway. I am not concerned about how far behind or ahead anyone is. We work where we are and that's that. Some of our unschool friends might see us in a giant doing-school-at-home box because, well, we deliberately do school work. So, really, it depends. I guess, I am mostly in a WTM box. This box has fit us best.

I was trying to respond in my own words, but Regentrude did it much better than I could. I agree especially with the bolded part above. I have also noticed many of our friends breezing through highschool. Honestly, most of them are not really gifted kids. They are all nice kids; don't get me wrong. However, the course load they are required to carry is way to small to feel like effort. I want my kids to enjoy learning AND know what it means to think; to really work with the material and ideas. That's what we strive for. And yes, what happens in highschool does matter. We see this right now with ds who is taking Math at the CC. It is amazing how many highschool grads have to start with remedial Math (Pre-Algebra) and how many still struggle. These kids have a lot of Math ahead of them. Math they should have covered already.

Totally agree with Jenn! My ds 14 will not use anything I introduce to him to help him get organized. He will, however, somehow figure out how to be organized when it really matters to him. This still looks messy to us, but somehow he does it. We do continue to talk about different methods as they arise in the hopes that someday we find one that sticks. The way I see it is that as long as he can pull it all together when he really needs to he'll be fine. It can be very frustrating at times.

Regentrude, It seems to me that you already answered your own question about Literature and History. He seems to be doing enough reading and listening. What you want to add is more formal writing. Although, my ds (9th) has written only 3 papers on Ancient literature he has also prepared weekly oral reports related to history. The literature essays are evaluated by an outside tutor. He also attends a two-hour class in which the students discuss the literature reading. I am not sure that I am helping at all, but I do think you have answered your own question already. Add more writing projects and somehow get involved in discussions either at home or some kind of class. Good Luck to you. I always feel this way when it comes to Science.

We outsource a lot this year as well. DS's in 8th and 9th are taking German II via OSU and Great Books with Escondido Tutorials. Th 9th grader is also taking Math at the CC. All of these classes have been an excellent experience for us. We'll be doing the same next semester. And next year older ds will add Chemistry at the CC to the mix.

Thank you all! The responses were really helpful to us.

About the pre-algebra.....I agree that it is absolutely positive that he re-takes pre-algebra if that's what he needs. Having said that I want to point out, though, that in our area he would not receive credit for pre-algebra in highschool. Credit is only awarded for Algebra I and up.

Thanks Regentrude! I had ds read it. He said: "Sounds complicated!"

I bet Regentrude (and others) can answer this question. I have no clue on how to explain this to ds. I have never taken Calculus myself. Can you help?

Yes, to the above. This year I had an 'active' study session with my son for one of his Math exams. I gave him a problem and together we worked through it step-by-step. We did this with multiple problems. It seemed he needed to see what exactly we all mean by: "Show your work." :-) Fwiw, his score improved by 20 points over his previous test because he made way less 'little' errors.

I don't understand the cheerleading. Why wouldn't you want to do the sport rather than cheer others on. Don't get.