High School - Part 4

So, in summary, for GW's 9th Grade Year:

English - Reading, Listening, Writing
Algebra 1
History
Typing
Personal Finance
Basketball

Next up, is JA.  Right now, he is in 8th grade, but I'm already thinking ahead for him.  In the state of Florida, any high school student (including home school students) are able to dual-enroll at the local community colleges as long as they can pass the entrance exam.  The cost for this:  FREE!!!!

As a result, we will be strongly encouraging/requiring JA to enroll and spend his high school years earning his Associates in Arts degree.  Once he earns his AA degree from the community college, he is automatically accepted into any of the Florida state universities.  Total savings on a college degree:  $8000 (the cost of 2 yrs at the local community college if he attends after the age of 18).

We have also considered having him CLEP out of part of the AA degree since our local community college will accept up to 45 hrs of credits by exam towards the 60 hrs required for the AA degree.  There is a cost to this, but there is the potential for saving a lot of time (i.e. it may take less time studying for the CLEP exam than he would spend in the class)  This would free up time for him to volunteer and get a better idea of what he wants for a career.  It would also keep him away from the philosophies/ideologies that are polar opposite to what we believe that are so prevalent in colleges these days.  We haven't made a final decision on this as of yet.

In the meantime, here is what is on his plate for 8th grade:
Jensen's Format Writing
Saxon Algebra 1
American Heritage Series (AHS)
Life Science (yes, I know it's 7th grade, but he hasn't had this yet)
Financial Peace University (FPU)
Additional Reading:
Whatever Happened to Penny Candy?
It Couldn't Just Happen
TBD

He also must attain the rank of Star Scout.  He has everything for this except for 3 Eagle Required Merit Badges.

A note about the Life Science JA is taking.  This is a FREE course available in iTunesU.  While having an iPad for this makes it easier, it is not required.  You can download iTunes to your computer and access all of the courses there.  There are a TON of FREE courses available from Kindergarten up through College level classes (including MIT, Harvard, Stanford and others).  If JA doesn't end up taking advantage of the free AA degree, I will probably pull some of his coursework from iTunesU.

Now, a word about Robinson Curriculum.  I still LOVE Robinson Curriculum and will continue to use it for the other kids.  (and I am essentially using it for Ben, it's just he is watching videos rather than reading the books).  For JA, I changed the writing portion to Jensen's Format Writing because JA really needs a "tell me how to do it" writing curriculum.  This got really good reviews (especially for reluctant boy writers) so I chose it.  Then I changed his reading portion.  A few months ago, he had the opportunity to shadow a friend of ours who is a surgeon.  He was able to sit in on three surgeries and came home saying he, too, wanted to be a surgeon. Knowing what a commitment this is, I wanted to expose him to the type of material he needs to know as early as possible to gauge whether this is really something in which he is interested.  Hence the Life Science course.  I also wanted him to be able to do the FPU and AHS courses with GW, so that is why he is doing those.  I have just added on the two books to help fill out the 36 weeks of class work that we try to squeeze in each school year.