Learning US History
I've been trying to figure out what to do with the older boy for classes. He's going to take some 'fine arts' and foreign language classes at the high school, but I didn't think some of the standard core classes would work well for him. I think he'd be bored out of his mind, and there's his auditory processing issue. He could work through things faster and get more out of it by studying on his own.
I'm also fighting this mental problem of the concept of high school as being redundant. You learn all this stuff in high school and then you have to retake most of it for college. I realized this part-way through high school, which is when I started taking AP classes. On the other hand, the older boy says he is too young to be thinking about college. I can see his point.
Finally, I have an issue with high school because it's simply too easy. Even taking AP classes through most of high school (and getting all 4s on the exams), I never really did learn how to study. I could usually do just fine by cramming. When I got to Caltech, this really bit me in the behind.
So I settled on the following: he's going to do CLEP exams. Rather than have him run through stuff and possibly have colleges look at it dubiously because I said he did it, I'm going to have him work through things and take CLEP exams. This will show that not only has he learned the material, but learned it well enough that, at many colleges, he won't have to repeat it.
His math course is one that he does on the computer (Aleks), and it turns out they offer a college-level chem class. I think that should be adequate prep, comparing the exam requirements and what Aleks covers. (I also have my old copy of Zumdahl, which may make for some interesting reading here and there.) So Aleks should cover math and science. I'm not going to worry too much about writing and reading at this point. I mean, this is the prolific author of many short stories...which I wish he would put on his LJ. :-)
I have a fun idea for history, however. I really like the Teaching Company videos, so I'm going to get their high school history courses. The guy who teaches them has been famous for quite a while for his theatrical presentations of history. As far as books go, I found a blog written by another homeschooling family who has been doing this same thing with their kids. Their recommendation for a supplementary text for US history is "A Patriot's History of the US." I looked at it as well as other texts by the same author, and it strikes me as completely jingoist.
So the fun part is that along with the videos and study manuals, I'm going to give the boy both "A Patriot's History of the US" and "A People's History of the US" by Howard Zinn. He will have to read them both and write up some comparisons. It'll be interesting to see what he gets out of reading these two books.
I'm also fighting this mental problem of the concept of high school as being redundant. You learn all this stuff in high school and then you have to retake most of it for college. I realized this part-way through high school, which is when I started taking AP classes. On the other hand, the older boy says he is too young to be thinking about college. I can see his point.
Finally, I have an issue with high school because it's simply too easy. Even taking AP classes through most of high school (and getting all 4s on the exams), I never really did learn how to study. I could usually do just fine by cramming. When I got to Caltech, this really bit me in the behind.
So I settled on the following: he's going to do CLEP exams. Rather than have him run through stuff and possibly have colleges look at it dubiously because I said he did it, I'm going to have him work through things and take CLEP exams. This will show that not only has he learned the material, but learned it well enough that, at many colleges, he won't have to repeat it.
His math course is one that he does on the computer (Aleks), and it turns out they offer a college-level chem class. I think that should be adequate prep, comparing the exam requirements and what Aleks covers. (I also have my old copy of Zumdahl, which may make for some interesting reading here and there.) So Aleks should cover math and science. I'm not going to worry too much about writing and reading at this point. I mean, this is the prolific author of many short stories...which I wish he would put on his LJ. :-)
I have a fun idea for history, however. I really like the Teaching Company videos, so I'm going to get their high school history courses. The guy who teaches them has been famous for quite a while for his theatrical presentations of history. As far as books go, I found a blog written by another homeschooling family who has been doing this same thing with their kids. Their recommendation for a supplementary text for US history is "A Patriot's History of the US." I looked at it as well as other texts by the same author, and it strikes me as completely jingoist.
So the fun part is that along with the videos and study manuals, I'm going to give the boy both "A Patriot's History of the US" and "A People's History of the US" by Howard Zinn. He will have to read them both and write up some comparisons. It'll be interesting to see what he gets out of reading these two books.