January 4, 2001 - High School Tips

I use a mix of the counting hours / textbook plan. If you complete a
textbook that is meant to be completed in a year - such as Apologia Biology
- then you can count that for one whole credit - no matter how long it
takes you to finish it. Ryan actually finished his Apologia Biology in
less than a year of class time (we love Jay Wile's books - and he is a
really good speaker, too if you ever get a chance to hear him tell about
how he got started writing them). Anyway, Ryan then had one less "class"
to do each day after he had finished the book early. We also do lots of
"hour-counting" (like you described) for other subjects - like history and
literature - since we use mainly library books for these subjects. I think
you are right on track in terms of how you broke everything down between
the traditional subjects. Don't forget that you can also count Bible as a
literature course - we are doing one credit of Biblical Literature this
year - a survey of the Bible with special emphasis in the book of Luke
(which Ryan's teen quizzing group is studying this year). Ryan is in his
second year of Spanish and he counts hours for that. He does work out of a
traditional foreign language program and is also working on translating the
book of Luke from a Spanish paperback New Testament that I got used at a
convention this summer. You really can link a lot of subjects together if
you start thinking about it. I will be glad when he has more electives
next year so we can concentrate on more literature and history (his
strengths) - but there is so much I want to cover with him and I only have
two and a half years left with him before he goes off to college!!!! (So
MANY books . . . so LITTLE time!! - The story of my life!)

If I had lots of children, I would try to do exactly what you are doing. I
know it doesn't always work out to keep everyone together - some subjects
really have to be done separately - and the older they get the more this is
the case. But, even if you can stay together on a few subjects - I think
it is wonderful.

Keep up the good work!

Dorian