Oh the horrors of facing the choices for homeschooling high school!
We thought we had a plan to public school at home with ECJ this fall. We thought that it would work because it was all done for us and it was a compromise between us and ECJ who insisted that he wanted to go to public school. We thought we had it all figured out. We thought wrong!
Working with K-12 at home has been an exercise in frustration. Each and every day the schedule they have laid out for him has changed, so one morning we're up at 7:15 for an eight 'o clock class and the next we might not have to be up and ready to go until 11! Each night we've been checking and sometimes, even by morning, the schedule changes again. This is a minor irritant that I could overlook if I were so inclined, but mixed with the other irritations it's just not a good mix.
ECJ does NOT like doing his lessons through K-12. Some of his main complaints are the same as they would be if he'd joined the local brick and mortar high school. He has to get up too early most days, it takes all day long to do his school work, he doesn't like his teachers, the other kids (in chat) are annoying during class because he can't hear the teacher or see their typed instructions ... the list goes on like that. Many of these things were things we told him he wouldn't like about going back to public school. I'm above telling my 14 year old son "I told you so" ... but just between you and I? I told him so!
And even though it's still the beginning of the year, I'm upset that their main assignments are to listen to an hour long lecture and then type a code word into an "exit ticket" to prove that they were paying attention. This irritates me to no end! An hour of a lecture to boil down to one word because it's all on information that they were supposed to learn (and in many cases did learn) last year! UGH! I don't know about you but I can think of better ways to fill his time than that.
So, what are we planning to do about it?
What ECJ does now: K-12 online public schooling, Discovery K12 online free curriculum, Easy Peasy All in one High School online free curriculum, and Intermediate College level Algebra.
What's staying: Discovery K12 online free curriculum, Easy Peasy All in one High School online free curriculum, and Intermediate College level Algebra.
That leaves just the K-12 online public schooling that is leaving. Why? Because it's not a good fit for us. Part of his grade is that he participate in each hour long class discussion each day Monday through Friday. We'd been told that he could just watch the videos at his pace and it wasn't required for him to be on at specific times... well that was a half truth. He CAN watch the recordings at his own time and pace BUT he'll sacrifice 10% of his grade in each class for not participating in the hour long discussions each day. He has several appointments every month as well as the fact that we're not home at all on the third of every month and sometimes the fourth as well, top that with the fact that Noni comes every other Tuesday to do something with the children around 10 AM and stays for the entire afternoon and you've got a problem in that he's missing those class times. Yes, we'd have the same issues if he were in public school but it's one of the (minor) reasons why the campers aren't in public school.
It just doesn't fit our family.
That means that eventually I'll have to pick up some ninth grade level curriculum books for ECJ. And over the course of the next couple of months I'll round out his text books to my satisfaction. Do I know which books I'm purchasing yet? No, but I have a general idea of what works for him and what doesn't. In the meantime for Language Arts he'll be reading novels and poems and then giving me compositions and reports based off of his reading. For Mathematics he'll continue working through his Intermediate Algebra on the college level. For History he'll be doing an intense study of America just prior to, during, and directly after the American Revolution. And we'll be following his interests in Science right now, which is centered around robotics and chemistry at the moment. He'll be working through Spanish on both Discovery K12 and EPAiO High School. And for Bible he's got his catechism class every Tuesday evening starting next month and his daily reading of both his Bible and a study book that I assign him. And until the spring he'll be running the local track (weather permitting) twice a week, playing (hanging out) with friends on bikes and skateboards (again weather permitting) each afternoon, and exercising as he chooses because he's attempting to stay fit as his appetite grows ... and I'm counting that as Physical Education.
I'll buy his science, history, and language arts text books over the next couple of months and he'll most likely begin those in January. Sometime in the spring he'll be taking up Karate and that will count towards Physical Education and Health (which we'll discuss on a later post). His credits for this year will be fine and will look close to the following on his transcripts
Bible 1 - 1 credit
Literature and Composition - 1 credit
Early American History - 1 credit
Earth Science with lab - 1 credit
Intermediate Algebra (using college text) - 1 credit
Physical Education - 1 credit
Health - .5 credit
Spanish - 1 credit
Art Appreciation - .5 credits
Music Appreciation - .5 credits
Total for ninth grade : 8.5 credits
I think that's plenty for ninth grade ... don't you?
* Instead of doing chemistry this year, he'll tackle it next year but he'll spend a good deal of time this first semester learning the periodic table and how things work and what not. We'll do some simple chemistry experiments this year to fulfill his want to do more chemistry. *
** We're currently living in Michigan it's only required that I inform the school that he's being withdrawn to homeschool. Make sure you check you're state's laws before you begin homeschooling ... a good place to start is at this link. **
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