Home School through High School - Part 1

(I recently wrote a series of postings to a closed list on how our family manages high school using the ATI curriculum. Since most of that information is general to all home schooling, I am adapting and posting the information here on my public blog.)

Once a year, usually during the summer, I update my student's high school information. I plan what our main goals for the upcoming year should be. I gather information and make a generalized plan first. I get input from the student, and then I give it to Dh. He gives his input and then I make adjustments (if any) and we are ready for the next year. It isn't really complicated and once it is initially set up at 9th grade, I just tweak it as needed. I just grab bits of time over a couple of days to do this. This year the process was about a week in length - with most times being 15 minutes here and there - but the final write up (since this is my daughter's upcoming senior year) did take me an hour or two to finalize. This plan is the basis for our final transcript after we finish all the courses. While we have it set up for this final year - there could still be variations. As the Lord gives opportunities or takes them away, we just adjust. I do this all in pencil as we go.  

It is important to note that our main focus is the Wisdom Book (WB). Most of the rest of the content of the courses is in some way related to the WB, and often done as a result of a WB project. We add other courses as needed, and as time allows, keeping the direction aimed to our child's bent. If you let the student dialogue with you and observe their interests - it is pretty easy to know their direction by the time they are at 9th grade - and it will only be refined as the years go along. 
 
I will write further entries with the general categories I have just done for my daughter - just as a point of information, not to copy, since each student will have a differing focus for their high school career. My daughter is heavy on music, but lighter in the history and science categories. My 3rd son was very heavy in computers but very little in the way of fine arts. The content for each course is based on doors that open for us along the way. Or shut. I had great plans for some hands-on art courses - they just didn't work out for us. 
 
It is also important not to panic the first year of high school, and don't worry that there is soooo much to do. Yes there is a lot to do, but you only need to take one day at a time.