Handcrafting 10th grade

Handcrafting 10th grade: The Plan for 2015/2016

Eclectic? Absolutely! Academic? Of Course! Innovative? You Know It!

It’s Organic, Too! (I am a chemist, after all! ;-))

History: American government & politics with writing

History and the upcoming election will be the main focus this year.

Computer Science

  • Work for Thoughtstem, http://www.thoughtstem.com/home
  • I let Sean choose between designing a website by himself that will be live by the end of the school year, 2016, or take a series of three courses at UCSD Extension focusing on learning to program in HTML and CSS. He chose designing a website. He already has put in some time on The Homeschool History Project website, and he is enjoying the project. It was getting to be too much to do everything and something had to give. He wants to focus on politics and crew this year, and I can’t blame him. I do to, at least the politics part.

Lit analysis

These will be in addition to the book club books. These are not in the order that they will be read. Before I tell you what the list is, I thought you might be interested in the process I use to decide what books are going to read over the course of a year. I look for books with content that is relevant to what we are studying. I narrow these down based on the quality of the writing, and how likely someone of Sean’s age is to get through the material.

Blog

Write a weekly blog post for Sean’s blog WiseBread, https://wisestbread.wordpress.com/2015/05/, about the following topics

  • Once a month – the election and volunteering
  • Once a month – homeschooling
  • Twice a month – Sean will choose the topic

Thinkwell geometry

http://www.thinkwellhomeschool.com/products/geometry

Crew

It is the first year on the varsity team! http://www.sdrcjrs.com/

Geology

There are several components to this.

  • We will be using my text along with a text I found that uses data analysis for situations in geology. The book has students work through and interpret the data. This logical analysis of science data will be a great compliment to what we are doing in politics.
  • Sean will be scripting, producing, and directing 10 min. videos of me going over the more difficult topics from each chapter.
  • Sean will be editing my final draft of Astronomy and Earth Science 2 as he works through it.

There are four academic pursuits that will be woven throughout all of the above

  • Analyzing written material and pulling meaning from it
  • Tight writing
  • Being able to formulate an opinion and state that opinion clearly while using supporting statements
  • Work on the skill of logically analyzing written and oral arguments where someone is trying to convince you of something. Try to ferret out when someone states an opinion as if it is a fact. Pay attention to the logical process used to form the opinion and how well the facts support the opinion. Study the quality of the sources used to support the argument.

I am not sure exactly what, but something with Thom Jones at Crime Scene Camps, http://www.crimescenecamps.com/onlineclasses.html. I promise you, I am not getting free classes or materials from Thom. His classes are that good!

 FYI, Homeschooling High School Rocks!

Check out this Real Science Odyssey Lab Photo Journal here.