My Freshman

This year should be interesting, both girls are in high school, with one we're starting to seriously think about colleges and all the entrance requirements and for the other I have to worry about NCAA requirements. Talk about crazy stuff!

Rosie Jane will be a freshman this year. With both girls, we've sort of left it up to them whether they went to public school or remained homeschooled for high school. Here, once you start high school at home, it's pretty difficult to re-enter the public schools later. I was really surprised when Rosie Jane said that she wanted to stay at home for high school. It kind of threw me for a loop for a bit since I had really thought she was going to want to go to school. After I regrouped and started planning for this year (and rough outlining for the next three), I decided it would work out well for her. Staying home will give her opportunities to do things that really interest her that she wouldn't be able to do otherwise. I'm working to find outside classes, be they in person classes or online, for her; she's my social butterfly and will do well in outside classes. Once she's old enough she can start taking some classes at the community college. Some outside accountability will be good for her.

We've had the discussion that school really matters now and she needs to buckle down and get it done. She's on board with that. Since she's a pretty good golfer, we're also looking to fulfill the NCAA requirements so she can play in college. Trying to follow the NCAA req's shouldn't be too hard, just a lot of paperwork. Hopefully in the end it will all be worth it and she can get a golf scholarship.

What's she studying this year? She's got some of the basics plus some fun things as well as plenty of outside activities.

English - she's going to be using a mix of the high school writing program from Bravewriter, some grammar work, vocabulary (BJU), and when she's done the Bravewriter program, she'll go back to the Sonlight language arts writing.

History - she did the first half of the world history program from Sonlight last year and will be doing the second half this year. She'll be picking up about 1600 and moving to the late 20th century. Last year she told me there was too much reading so I had planned to cut out about half the books this year for her. We'll see since she's already told me that she wants to read more than I had planned.

Biology - high school science is probably one of the hardest things to pick out. After a lot of looking around, I've decided to go with a typical high school text, Holt Biology and use the syllabus from Oak Meadow School. I still need to get this ordered, just a bit behind. She's going to be doing the labs with a local co-op. She'll have fun with her friends and I don't have to do the dissection with her.

Math - having some math issues but we're moving forward into algebra probably using Saxon. It seems to be a program that's either loved or hated and I think she falls into the "love" group. We'll see how it goes.

Photography - this is one of the fun classes. I got my husband the Great Courses photography class last year for Christmas to help him learn more about his fancy camera, how to use it and how to take better pictures. Rosie Jane has been taking a ton of pictures (thank goodness for digital cameras and their chips!!) so we talked about adding photography as a class and she's really excited about it. We'll be using the Great Courses as the base, then adding in some other things I've found.

Spanish - Rosie went to Guatemala this summer on a mission trip, came home and told me she wanted to learn Spanish. I was not surprised! I had signed her up for an online class, but it meets as a live class only three times during the fall semester. I wasn't crazy about that, I really feel for foreign languages that you need to get more feedback. I was talking to a friend of mine and she was looking for a fourth for a Spanish class, so Rosie Jane will be joining her son plus two other kids for Spanish. The teacher is a former public school French and Spanish teacher so I think it will go well.

German - yes, she still wants to continue with German even though she's adding Spanish. The unfortunate part is that Mr. G isn't continuing with German so I've been on the lookout for other options. I thought I had found a local teacher, but I think that her class is a year behind where Rosie Jane is right now. Now I'm on the hunt again. I'm either looking for a local teacher or tutor or if there's still room, I'll go with OSU's (Oklahoma State University) high school German class. I need to get this figured out in the next week or so!

PE - this is another fun one, that's also easy for me. Rosie Jane has been taking dance classes for years and is continuing this year. She's taking four hours of dance a week this year. Besides her dance classes, she's also got golfing, running, and biking that she's been doing that will count for PE this year.

I'll share her outside activities in another post.