The Junior

So hard to believe that we've only got two years left at home with Sweet Pea. We've been talking about colleges, what she wants to study, where she wants to go, all that sort of stuff. I think as homeschoolers we kind of need to start really thinking of these things a bit earlier than most families do. Getting into college as a homeschooler isn't generally a problem, there's plenty of schools out there that welcome homeschoolers with open arms. There's a few that have some extra hoops that homeschoolers need to jump through but really aren't a huge problem. Then there's others that aren't quite as friendly to homeschool applicants.

So what is Sweet Pea studying this year? Lots of fun stuff, things she's been looking forward to for a while as well as things she loved last year and will be continuing.

English, or more properly called Literature - she's also going to be using the Bravewriter Help for High School writing program. This will help them both learn how to better craft essays and the more analytical writing needed in high school and college. Kind of wish I had found this earlier in her high school career. She's also going to be using Sonlight's 20th Century Literature; this will give her more writing practice and lots of lit written in the 20th century.

History - she'll be studying the 20th century (using Sonlight). She has really been looking forward to this year and the chance to study more recent history. She is particularly fascinated with World War II and Russian history.

Science - finally finished with the "evil" physics and moving on to chemistry. She'll be using Spectrum chemistry and doing the labs with a friend. Hopefully they won't blow up our house!

Math - she loves Life of Fred math and insists that she's going to work through Calculus at home so she can find out how Fred became a math professor at the age of 4. This year she'll be finishing up geometry and moving on to trig.

French and Russian - she has loved learning both of these languages. She's moving into her third year of French and second year of Russian. French she really enjoys, Russian pushes her brain to work hard. She's continuing with Mr. G over at CurrClick.

Imperial Russia - this is another online class, done by Professor Carol. I've heard her speak twice at our homeschool convention. She has a love of Russia and music that can be contagious. She's also really funny and interesting. I think Sweet Pea will really enjoy this class since she likes everything Russian.

And finally, Art History - for this I've got two books for her to use as texts and she's going to be doing a lot of looking online at pictures. I'm also going to try to get to the art galleries in DC for field trips a few times this year so we can see some of the art she's studying.

We also need to get in some SAT prep since she'll be taking those later this year. I need to look up the dates and get that on the calendar.

I think she's looking forward to everything except maybe chemistry. She did say that last time she had some chem she found it interesting, hopefully she will again this year. I know she's happy to be doing the labs with her friend.

She's got lots of extra curricular stuff going on this year, just like her sister. They'll keep me running, but at least this year Sweet Pea can drive herself where she needs to go.