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High School Curriculum
We're not big fans of online high schools, especially public ones, but we do use some courses from online correspondence schools. The private schools, Universities and the ones that specialize in dealing with homeschoolers present the most interesting coursework. Below is a table that has the links to descriptions of what we did.

Our Course Surveys and Resource lists for High School
9th Grade 10th Grade 11th Grade 12th Grade*

* I am adding these resources we are using as we progress through high school.

What's a course survey?

Other Topics on this Page

Completing High School
Typical HIgh School Material
Accelerated Student Material

 

A Word about Textbooks:

A Consumer's Guide to High School History Textbooks
February 26, 2004, by Diane Ravitch

A Consumer's Guide to High School History Textbooks is a summary review of 12 widely used U.S. and world history textbooks. Download a hardcopy[pdf] of the 94 page report click here

Completing High School - Are We There Yet?
It's really up to your student when he's "done" in my opinion. But there are ways and methods you can use to tell when you're there, if letting Junior decide doesn't sit right woth you. Most states list graduation requirements in their compulsory education laws so that is one place you can look. You can also look to the Univeristy where your student wants to attend, to determine what is required of entering Freshman if that's the goal.

For a student in a "College Prep" type course, completing high school generally means that a student has 19-25 Carnegie credits. Below is a chart I compiled that shows what a high school program might look like if you are considering some sort of college career for your student. The x's mark the subjects in each kind of "program" colleges look at. Different Universities expect different subjects on a transcript. Schools like MIT and Stanford most likely will look for a transcript that shows a "strong program", where Carnegie Mellon and Brown University are looking for a "solid program". Generally 25-30 credit hours are considered extraordinary. I don't think you can have "too many" credit hours, especially if you have a student that schools all year around. The best bet is to be in contact with the University of choice as early as possible and describe anything out of the "ordinary" in your counselor's letter or school profile packet.

  BASIC PROGRAM SOLID PROGRAM STRONG PROGRAM
MATH      

Algebra

X X X
Algebra II/Trig X X X
Geometry X X X
PreCalculus   X X
SCIENCE      
Biology X X X
Chemistry X X X
Physics   X X
AP Science   X X
SOCIAL STUDIES      
World History X X X
U.S. Government X X X
Sociology X X X
Psychology     X
Political Science     X
ENGLISH      
ENGLISH IX X X X
ENGLISH X X X X
ENGLISH XI X X X
ENGLISHXII X X X
FOREIGN LANGUAGE      
Language Level I X X X
Language Level II X X X
Language Level III     X
Language Level IV     X
ELECTIVES      
Year 9 X X X
Year 10 X X X
Year 11 X X X
Year 12 X X X
       
  19 Credit Hours 21 Credit Hours 25 Credit Hours

 

Regular High School
In homeschooling a gifted student, you get into that asynchronous learning stuff pretty quick at the high school level. Your student may want regular old high school English, but college level Physics, which was my experience. So I Split up the resources we used into two areas, regular and accelerated.

Academic Resources We Have Used:

 

"Principles of Alchemy" is a self-paced, self-learning program specifically designed to teach Chemistry on your computer. Students may range from the bright child demanding an accelerated program to someone seeking his/her own self-fulfillment by learning Chemistry. Alchemy is for everyone and Alchemy is specifically designed with the needs of home schoolers in mind.
The Teaching Company brings engaging professors from the Ivy League, Stanford, Georgetown, and other leading colleges and universities into your home or car through courses on DVD, audio CD, and other formats.
The Future Channels - Movies and Activities Deliver Hands-On, Real World Math and Science Lessons To Your Classroom - Free!
TED Talks - TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from those three worlds. Since then its scope has become ever broader.
Caveman Chemistry - an experiential exploration of chemical technology from the campfires of the stone age to the plastic soft-drink bottle.
Keystone High School - Keystone offers year-round enrollment and the flexibility of at-home, self-paced study.
 The Physics Education Technology (PhET) project is an ongoing effort to provide an extensive suite of simulations for teaching and learning physics and chemistry and to make these resources both freely available from University of Colorado at Boulder.
ALEKS Math - ALEKS Corporation is a leader in the creation of web-based, artificially intelligent educational software. ALEKS assessment and learning technologies were originally developed by a team of cognitive scientists and software engineers at the University of California, Irvine, with major funding from the National Science Foundation.

Resources We Know About:

 

The American School - a pioneer in Distance Education. Students may enroll at any time during the year. The American School neither requires nor gives entrance examinations for admission to its courses.
Clonlara Compuhigh is the online division of Clonlara School.
Laurel Springs offers a premier distance learning educational experience.
Languages Abroad - We are an International organization that specializes in sending thousands of students, of all ages and from around the world, to study abroad in a language school of their choice. We offer total language and cultural immersion programs in over 50 countries and in 30 different languages.

Accelerated High School

If you want something more interesting than "high school", many Universities are offering OpenCourseWare these days. OpenCourseWare is a free and open educational resource (OER) for educators, students, and self-learners around the world. They are college level courses, often with MP3 lectures, readings text lists and sometimes quizzes, if that suits your fancy.

Academic Resources We Have Used:

 

MIT's OpenCourseWare - Massachusettes Institute of Technology offers a free and open educational resource for faculty, students, and self-learners around the world.
The Teaching Company brings engaging professors from the Ivy League, Stanford, Georgetown, and other leading colleges and universities into your home or car through courses on DVD, audio CD, and other formats.
Education Program for Gifted Youth (EPGY) at Stanford University.
Center for Talent Development - CTD at Northwestern University
Gifted Education Resource Institute (GERI) at Purdue University offers summer sessions in Aerospace Engineering and Mechanical Engineering and other advanced pursuit.
Open Yale - Courses provides free and open access to a selection of introductory courses taught by distinguished teachers and scholars at Yale University.
The Monterey Institute for Technology and Education (MITE) is an educational non-profit committed to improving access to education. This library of open educational resources features course materials for seven Advanced Placement courses from MITE. These high school level materials are available for free download.
French in Action - A video instructional series in French for college and high school classrooms and adult learners; 52 half-hour video programs, audiocassettes, coordinated books, and Web site from the Annenberg Foundation
University of California College Prep - UCCP Open Access, University of California college prep courses freely available for students and educators to use as supplemental or complementary material. UC Regents
Essaywritinghelp.com
 
Wheelock's Latin When Wheelock’s Latin first appeared in 1956, the reviews extolled its thoroughness, organization, and conciseness; at least one reviewer predicted that the book “might well become the standard text” for introducing students to Latin. Now, five decades later, that prediction has proved accurate.

Resources We Know About:

 

Gifted Online Accelerated Learning From the University of Missouri Center for Distance and Independent Study. Our gifted courses permit academically talented students to work online, at their own pace, on a challenging array of subjects, including mathematics, science, language arts, foreign languages, and social studies.

A List of High School Math Texts

University Level Open Courseware:

 

The United Kingdom's Open University From the United Kingdom
Open Course Ware consortium for worldwide (Australia)

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