Plans for an Amazing Senior Year {Back to School Blog Hop}

My best laid plans for having everything unpacked by this week so that we'd be ready to start school by next Monday are not going quite as well as planned. I've spent more time dealing with doctors' appointments and medical records paperwork than I've spent time unpacking boxes lately.

While I was either at a doctors' appointment this afternoon or waiting at the pharmacy, Addison nicely agreed to write about her own plans for the upcoming school year.

Entering my senior year, I already have most of the credits I need to graduate. This year I’m focusing more on studying what I’m interested in, while also taking the few courses still required for graduation.

Literature—Sonlight Core 300, 20^th Century Literature

My fourth year of literature looks interesting, and also a lot less intense than the British Literature I took last year. Some of the books I’m especially looking forward to reading are Brave New World by Alduous Huxley, The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway, and Parallel Journeys by Eleanor Ayer. Parallel Journeys tells the stories of two people in Nazi Germany, a young Jewish girl who was sent to Auschwitz, and a teenage boy who became a Nazi commander.

Social Studies—Apologia’s Constitutional Literacy course and Economics for Everybody by R.C. Sproul Jr.

I’ve looked at the Constitutional Literacy program for a few years now, hoping it would come up as a product for my mom to review. It still hasn’t come up, but since I needed to study Government this year anyway, mom decided to buy it as my Government curriculum. I’m really excited about finally doing it, and I think it will help prepare me to vote in the next Presidential election.

I’m also taking Economics for Everybody, an economics course based on Biblical principles. I hope that by taking it, I can have a better grasp of economic principles and how to apply them to my own finances.

Science—Physics and Astronomy

This year I’m starting science with Fascinating Physics from Fascinating Education and Physics 101 from Westfield Studios. I’m a little disappointed that there aren’t any good calculus-based physics courses for homeschoolers, but I think these courses will help me gain a general understanding of physics that I can then apply calculus to.

For my second semester of science, I’m studying astronomy with Our Night Sky from TheGreat Courses. I really enjoyed getting to learn to find constellations in the clear sky around Tucson, and I’m excited to get to learn more about those constellations and learn to find even more while in Colorado.

Math—Discrete Mathematics and Calculus II review

For the first semester of this year, I’m doing entirely fun math. I’m taking The Joy ofThinking: The Beauty and Power of Classical Mathematical Ideas and DiscreteMathematics, both from The Great Courses. I’m really excited about this because I love learning about interesting math proofs and concepts, such as the proof for the power rule in calculus, or the concepts behind Conway’s Game of Life. These courses focus on topics such as these rather than the traditional Algebra/Calculus track, and I’m really looking forward to taking them.

For the second semester, I’m going to review Calculus II for the Calculus BC exam. I took the test this year, but I didn’t get as good a score as I hoped, so this year I’m going to review the material on the test in the hopes of getting a better score.

Electives—ACT prep and Computer Science

Over the next few weeks, I’ll be studying for the ACT. It’s not super exciting, but I would rather study beforehand than go into the test without knowing anything about it.

After I take the ACT, I can rejoice because I get to start Computer Science again. Instead of learning a programming language this year, I’m going to learn how to work with Arduino, an open source electronics board. My engineering friends have been telling me I need to get an Arduino for about a year now, because there’s so many cool things you can do with one. A couple of friends are using them to build robots, and another one built his own 3-D printer with an Arduino. In fact, when I left Tucson, one of the engineers I know took matters into his own hands and bought me an Arduino starter kit as a goodbye gift. I’m going to work through the projects in that kit for Computer Science credit this year, and maybe add on some other projects with tutorials online.

I’m pretty excited about all the classes I’m taking this year. I’m especially excited about the ones that are solely interest-based, like Discrete Mathematics and learning Arduino for Computer Science, but all the classes look interesting. All in all, I think I’m going to have a great senior year.

This post is part of a huge Blog Hop sponsored by Homeschool Connections and The Schoolhouse Review Crew. If you'd like to read more homeschool encouragement or would just like to spy on other homeschooling family's plans, be sure to click the picture above to find the links to everyone else's ideas.

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