08.08.06
Boy’s Junior Year
Boy will be a Junior this year. It kind of blows my mind. We’ve already contacted the local school about taking the PSAT in October and discussed when we’ll take the SAT. We almost have his year ’set’ up. While discussing different possibilities with him, he decided that he had really enjoyed economics and wants to spend some more time looking into it. So, some things have been changed from my earlier outline.
Math - with the interest in econ., instead of going into pre-calculus this year, he’s going to do statistics with Hubby. It’s right up Hubby’s area and I expect that they’ll have fun.
Science - We’re doing physics. After looking around and listen to other’s discussion, we going with Giancoli’s Physics: Principles with Applications. We are getting the lab manual, but until we see it, I don’t know if how practical they’ll be.
English - We’ve been working our way through the Timeless Voices, Timeless Themes anthologies and so he’ll be finishing up the volume on American Lit and then doing the one on British Lit. This will leave him ahead for next year, but we wanted that so he’d have the freedom to do something else for it. He’ll also continue doing some formal essays and reviewing grammar using the Communication in Action Handbook. I’ve already mentioned his reading list. He has talked about taking a creative writing class at the high school, but right now it’s full, so I don’t know if he’s going to do it or not.
French - We’re suppose to be starting the 3rd book in the Bon Voyage! series this year and we will, but I think we’ll start the year by doing the Reprise - Review Workbooks first. I’m learning French with the kids and at this point I think we all are feeling a little shaky keeping it straight.
Art - I’ve been wanting to do a little bit of Art History even though, aside from the photography (and I lived with an art major that was majoring in photography in college, so don’t tell me it’s not an art ) he’s not artistically bent. I’m thinking we’ll do Art if Focus.
History - well, world history is going to wait another year to focus on the economics. In the meantime though, he’s going to read about British history to prep for his trip in January. We are going to start with a quick run through British History for Dummies and then a leasurely read through Roy Strong’s The Story of Britian. I had a lot of people recommend Schama’s History, but it’s a lot longer and deeper than he’s interested in.
Geography - You’ve probably been wondering where the econ is after saying the Boy wanted more. Well, we’re going to do geography with an econ. focus. We’ll start the year with Human Geography ( de Blij and Murphy’s text) and then move into Economic Geography by Wheeler. We’re doing it this way because many econ. geography courses require human geography first.
That about covers it. He is going to take Driver’s Ed through the local state university. It was his choice on whether to do that or have one of us teach him. It will start in late October and run for 9 weeks. He also wants to get back into me teaching him how to play the piano. It’s been a couple of years since we tried before without a lot of success. I suggested an outside teacher this time, but he said he wasn’t interested. He has also convinced me to try to do a Shakespeare-based drama class for our local homeschool group. There does appear to be interest, so in I jump with 2 feet. And lastly, he studies some martial arts with Hubby at a local place. He always corrects me, but I think it’s mostly Arnis and Ju-Jitsu (Excuse the bad spelling).
August 8, 2006 at 5:45 pm
Excellent plan.
You guys did a fabulous job of balancing the things he needs to prepare for college and his current interests.