Day: February 8, 2010

The ACT this year felt so much better than last year’s.  Last year, there were many math and science questions that I didn’t know where to begin with, whereas this year I felt I could understand and ace every single question if I had had more time. Unfortunately I don’t think I paced myself perfectly, but I still feel a lot better about this year’s test, even the essay.

I have recently discovered the joys of vegetables that aren’t peas or lettuce or brocolli.  When I was immature and unenlightened, I would go to Subway and order a plain ham and cheddar on wheat with only lettuce and tomato.  But ever since I discovered the wonderful tangy taste of mustard (on an airplane, too!), food has slowly revealed to me a side of itself that I’d never seen before.  Ham and cheddar is still my favorite. But now I eat ham and cheddar with cucumbers and green peppers and mustard!  Portabello mushrooms are no longer rubbery over-sized fungi.  They’re steak flavored rubber.  Pickles and veggie pizza are growing on me.  Those crunchy fat green bean pods that come with the vegetable trays at the grocery store are my current favorite vegetable after I tried them for the first time a few months ago. Still working on olives and raw onions though.

Kelly and Christian both took their second past at the ACT college entrance test yesterday.  Both of them felt like the did quite a bit better than last year.  All got me to thinking about a series of comments by Ruthie made after the monthly homeschool update post last week.  We are right at the point where we need to quit thinking about the transition from homeschool to college and start actually doing things.  Ruthie’s comments that it is better to transition into college slowly rather than diving into an intense workload has changed my thinking on the way we are going to attempt to do this.

Our original plan was to put Kelly into school full time next year with a 13-15 hour schedule at a university rather than the community college.  Lorena and I talked about it all when the kids were taking their test yesterday.  Now we think it might be a good idea to transition her into college a little more slowly.  We are going to start looking at putting her into two classes at the community college during fall semester–maybe Calculus I and Biology II.  Then Calculus II and Chemistry II during the spring semester.

We want her to do something hard, but have plenty of time to do it.  Her whole load for the year will consist of those four classes and and at least one more CLEP tests:  American Literature.  She will finish Precalculus before the end of the year this year, so we plan to get her going on Thinkwell Calculus after that.  We know she will not be able to complete it, but it will give her a jump-start so that her first math class will not be so new to her that she drowns in it.  She will continue through Rosetta Stone French, but probably not take the French CLEP test until after she has had a chance at at little immersion–who knows when.  She will have to do the American Literature preparation with only the REA book and the local library.

The community colleges in North Carolina do not students into any classes unless the parents accompany them.  Therefore, we will just have Christian load up on CLEP tests next year.  He will do Chemistry, Calculus, one more History class, Psychology, Sociology, possibly American Literature.  All that will give him what he needs to get an associate degree the year after that with a fairly gentle transition from homeschool to the community college his first semester.

Well, that is the plan.  Maybe we can make that work.  Thanks for the help Ruthie!