Preparing for our Homeschool Year

This has to be the most different school year ever for me. Why? Because I am really only planning for one student! And that is vastly different from the first time, 25 years ago, when I was setting out on my homeschool journey and preparing for one Kindergarten student. I had no experience and very few curriculum choices available. How quickly the years seem to have gone by!

Sierra will be graduating very soon. She is currently working on a few remaining subjects for her diploma. I will be issuing her diploma when her required courses are finished. If all goes according to plan she should be done by the end of the year (spring time at the latest). She has not taken a summer break in order to try and finish up this year. She is currently working on Civics & Economics, English writing and Literature. And her love of learning more and more about photography and art will continue to be part of her schedule.

That leaves me with my son Isaac as my only student to plan for. I don’t need to purchase any curriculum as I have shelves full of books not to mention a zillion free online resources that I’ll be taking advantage of this year as well as a lot of practical experience when it comes to teaching high school. Isaac is 15 and starting his 10th year of homeschooling.

So far this is the basics of what I’m planning for him:

Math: Saxon Algebra 2
Science: Biology 101: Biology 101: Biology According to the Days of Creation
History & World Geography: Around the World in 180 Days (Sierra used this and loved it)
English Lit: I have a large book list of American authors for him to read through and he will write a synopsis of each book for discussion with me
English Writing: some of it is covered in English lit, the rest will come from assignments I give on research papers, essay writing and so on.

Aside from this there will be electives that interest him such as computer programming, building computers (he has volunteered his time at a store in the city that takes in old computers, rebuilds them and donates them to the community and we will continue with this), and possibly studying for his first IT certificate. He also has an interest in mechanics and household fix it projects, and electricity (in a practical sense.. like knowing how to change a light switch or wall socket, circuit breakers in a house and how they work, etc..) and my hubby does and will continue to help feed those subjects. We will just see where his interests go as far as picking more electives.

I still have a bit of planning to do and organizing of the school area (an upcoming post! :) ). While many children have already headed to school or their homeschooling year has started, we are not there yet. Thanks to the freedom homeschool has given us I typically don’t start school until later in September and sometimes as late as October. We seem to get about 9 months of rain a year in our part of the world, so I’ve no intention of ending summer any sooner than I have to. We’ll wait for the rainy days to start and then, fire up the wood stove to warm the house, put on a pot of tea (or coffee ;) ) and open the books for another year of learning and adventure!