The new school year and curriculum

I've been somewhat consistent posting this each year in the past, so here goes:

Holly:

As I wrote earlier, Holly will be taking two community college courses, counting as dual enrollment for both high school and college credit.  So far, it's been great.  She's taking Chinese online and spent a few hours last week familiarizing herself with the website, format, and class materials.  She's already turned in a few assignments, and she expressed appreciation at receiving both a grading rubric and a study guide to prepare for her final. The class will meet once a week online, and also team up with language/study partners.

At this writing, she's only had one English class so far. She liked the teacher immediately, and she liked her even more when the teacher said she's not big on homework.  Huh.  I was kind of hoping for that!  Looking at the College Composition course syllabus, it appears it will be an easy class.

English and Chinese are this semester; next semester, she'll be taking Chinese II and a geography course.  Each semester will count as one high school credit.

She's using Lial's Intermediate Algebra by Lial for Algebra II.  This textbook is for use in college remedial math, written directly to the student, with great explanations.  Holly used this series for Algebra I, and I'm sold on it.

She'll also be taking Driver's Ed and counting a P.E. credit.  On paper, it seems like a rather light year, but  in reality, it hasn't been yet and won't be. She's in the final prep for her ACT next week and will retake the SAT in October.  We're also considering the SAT Subject Test in Spanish for November (which will give a back up for a Spanish credit). We've been planning on some sort of community service (honestly, just to have it on a transcript), and she'll be in the throes of college applications shortly.

Trevor:


Trevor is beginning 9th  grade. I'd been praying for something that would be interesting and yet still challenge him.  He'll be using My Father's World Ancient History and Literature. It uses Notgrass's Exploring World History as a spine, spreading it out over a two year span. There are a dozen other books included, so while Trev will still be reading a lot, it will be pages here, pages there, going from selected books each day.  The actual schedule is a bit ??? to get used to (think Sonlight's), but he's already getting the hang of it, and it will give him the independence he needs to achieve his own goals for high school.

We toyed with the idea of using Life of Fred for math, but in the end, I chose the sure thing, Introductory Algebra, again by Lial, the same series Holly is using.  In addition to the textbook (which is written directly to the student), Trevor will be taking an online class once a week for additional instruction. Jann's held my hand through Lial's in the past. I'm thrilled he's in this class, and while he was looking forward to Fred, I think he's pretty on board with this option too.  (I would consider the AlgII class for Holly, but she's already started her math, and the timing would be a conflict for us too.)

With his MFW schedule, I'm not ready to also throw in Biology. That will wait until next year.  Meanwhile, we've talked in the past about him pursuing a subject in which he's passionate and making it into a class.  Hello, Molecular Gastronomy!  Using Alton Brown's show, following up with cooking labs, and tossing in a few additional resources, Trevor will enjoy this science credit.

He'll also be finishing up the second Fallacy Detective book to gain a half credit in Logic, and will count a P.E. credit.  We are considering a foreign language but will wait for everything else to settle down before making a final decision.

And that's it.  Seems a lot shorter than my curriculum-for-the-year posts in the past!