Halcyon Posted October 30, 2016 Share Posted October 30, 2016 (edited) We are pretty sure DS14 will be returning home in January from high school Pre-IB. I've talked about this endlessly in other threads so I won't reiterate it all here. Here's where we are with planning his 2nd semester of 9th. We are trying to continue as much as possible the coursework he is doing in public so it looks reasonably seamless. English: Mid-Late British Literature (onlineg3) Writing: Writing with Sources (Onlineg3) Math: Pre-Calc at Wilson Hill Science; Thinkwell Biology with a text. He is taking Bio now, but not learning much, so we will start at the beginning of Thinkwell and work through the summer, if need be. American Government: EdX Course American Government, Great Courses, and Steck Vaughn American Govt book Spanish: Breaking the Barrier and VHG weekly conversation. Personal Finance-elective Science and Society in Science Fiction Movies at onlineg3.com-elective Art: local art classes. Look okay? Edited October 30, 2016 by Halcyon 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JanetC Posted October 30, 2016 Share Posted October 30, 2016 Seems fine to me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dereksurfs Posted October 30, 2016 Share Posted October 30, 2016 Hi Halycon, Does WHA allow starting a math course second semester? Or is your son already in Pre-Calc now as an outside course? Just curious. My only cautionary comment would be to allow for some outside interests / free time in his schedule. That was actually our greatest challenge for our son's Freshman year. You can see a thread I posted on it here. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
almondbutterandjelly Posted October 30, 2016 Share Posted October 30, 2016 My dd hated the Steck Vaughn government book. YMMV. We ended up going with Abeka. Won't the British Lit course include writing? Seems like you have three English classes when you only need one. Although I am not familiar with those companies, so forgive me if I'm wrong. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Halcyon Posted October 30, 2016 Author Share Posted October 30, 2016 My dd hated the Steck Vaughn government book. YMMV. We ended up going with Abeka. Won't the British Lit course include writing? Seems like you have three English classes when you only need one. Although I am not familiar with those companies, so forgive me if I'm wrong. The british lit course CAN be done with an added writing component, but my son says he'd rather have a separate writing class at this point to shore up his essay writing skills. Which is the third English class that you're referring to? The Science Fiction in Movies class? If so, that's an elective tht i dont think will require tons of writing. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Halcyon Posted October 30, 2016 Author Share Posted October 30, 2016 Hi Halycon, Does WHA allow starting a math course second semester? Or is your son already in Pre-Calc now as an outside course? Just curious. My only cautionary comment would be to allow for some outside interests / free time in his schedule. That was actually our greatest challenge for our son's Freshman year. You can see a thread I posted on it here. WHA will allow my son to enter Pre-Calculus mid-year (i think they are making a special exception, partially because he did well in his Alg 2 class with them?) We are also considering AoPS Algebra 3 which looks like a Pre-A course, but I am worried about overloading him. Might put the Personal Finance course off til sophomore year. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
katilac Posted October 30, 2016 Share Posted October 30, 2016 It looks a bit heavy, if anything. Does he have a strong interest in the sci fi course? If he does, fine, but I'd leave it at a low priority, with the understanding that other work gets done first. If it's the type of outside course that you will have to report no matter what, I'd probably skip it. We didn't find that Thinkwell Chemistry provided enough background info and explanation. dd was turning to the Chang book so often she eventually decided she might as well go with that entirely. My kids don't love video/computer based stuff to begin with, though. I know he's used to a heavy load, but keep in mind that he may need or want a bit of recovery time from brick and mortar school. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
almondbutterandjelly Posted October 30, 2016 Share Posted October 30, 2016 (edited) The british lit course CAN be done with an added writing component, but my son says he'd rather have a separate writing class at this point to shore up his essay writing skills. Which is the third English class that you're referring to? The Science Fiction in Movies class? If so, that's an elective tht i dont think will require tons of writing. Oh, okay. Well, then I guess my caution would be perhaps to pick one elective to do now, either the Science Fiction in Movies class or the Personal Finance class, and do the other one next year. It really is quite nice to be done with school at an early hour compared to "regular" school kids. The extra time is appreciated and possibly even necessary, unless you just have a kid who adores his school work. (I started my 10th grader's school year with two social studies classes and had to drop one because it was too much. Plus I had too many components for English. So that's where I'm coming from. I know ambitious plans, but they quickly can become cumbersome. Just be alert for that and be flexible.) Edited October 30, 2016 by perkybunch 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dereksurfs Posted October 31, 2016 Share Posted October 31, 2016 WHA will allow my son to enter Pre-Calculus mid-year (i think they are making a special exception, partially because he did well in his Alg 2 class with them?) We are also considering AoPS Algebra 3 which looks like a Pre-A course, but I am worried about overloading him. Might put the Personal Finance course off til sophomore year. Wow, that is very accommodating of them. I believe our sons took Alg2 at the same time last year with Anne Stublen. She was fantastic! We also will be starting Pre-Calc in the Spring since ds15 took this semester off to focus on Chemistry at the local CC. We hadn't even thought about starting Pre-Calc at WHA this coming Spring, though he would love to take it at WHA. We instead looked for something asynchronous and so far are planning on Derek Owens which our middle dd is in right now for Pre-A. If he could he would like to continue to WHA. It just worked out so well. But I know he wouldn't want to miss the first half as he is a real stickler for covering 'everything.' :tongue_smilie: For DO, we are planning on him doubling up on math so as to finish Pre-Calc before next Fall. At that point, he really wants to get back to WHA for AP Calculus. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roadrunner Posted October 31, 2016 Share Posted October 31, 2016 I know from the other thread that he was taking AP Human Grography. Just in case he is invested in continuing the class, Florida Virtual School offers it, so you might be able to transfer him into it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Halcyon Posted December 1, 2016 Author Share Posted December 1, 2016 I know from the other thread that he was taking AP Human Grography. Just in case he is invested in continuing the class, Florida Virtual School offers it, so you might be able to transfer him into it. Nope, he hates the class and it's the one class he asked to drop. We will be doing geography, but not from this angle. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dereksurfs Posted December 30, 2016 Share Posted December 30, 2016 (edited) WHA will allow my son to enter Pre-Calculus mid-year (i think they are making a special exception, partially because he did well in his Alg 2 class with them?) We are also considering AoPS Algebra 3 which looks like a Pre-A course, but I am worried about overloading him. Might put the Personal Finance course off til sophomore year. Halcyon, If you hadn't mentioned this, the thought wouldn't have dawned on me to ask WHA. I just assumed everything was locked in stone from the beginning of the school year. However, during this Winter break I began to wonder if there may be some possibility of our son also attending WHA this Spring. Because he had such a great experience there last year in Algebra 2 with such an excellent instructor (shameless plug for Anne Stublen), I thought why not ask? Well, it turns out that the class is structured in such a way that it can almost be treated as two distinct semester courses - Algebra 2 review with advanced concepts followed by Trigonometry. So we've worked out a schedule for him to attend WHA Pre-Calculus this Spring basically doubling up on math. Thank you for sharing your experience and mentioning this on the forum! Edited December 30, 2016 by dereksurfs 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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