The Great Divide

The 2008-2009 school year finds our happy home in the midst of a great divide because it is the first in which we have seen a need to form a high school, seeing as half of our students are now in high school.  Let's face it, "SimKids Academy" does not seem very professional on the ol' high school transcript.  So, we are in the midst of coming up with a more appropriate name for our Upper School.  

Upper School:  This is the first year in which the older kids will begin taking classes outside our home school (We were in a co-op for the first time last year, but this is different in that instead of the parents teaching the classes, you pay a teacher and she is responsible for their learning.). We term this type of place a "drop and pay."  JDS will be taking Chemistry there, which eases my mind considerably since I never took Chemistry and don't really want to house chemicals in the kitchen.  AMS will be taking a Creative Writing class, at the end of which she will have written her second book of fiction.  We are also looking into enrolling JDS at the local community college for one dual credit class this year (either Fall, Spring or Summer semester--TBD). 

Lower School:  This is the first year in which I will use the character curriculum KONOS.  I discovered it when JDS and AMS were little, but we could never afford it.  I found an older copy at a huge home school store locally and Simon and I decided to just do it!  We're very excited to learn alongside JSS and COS and look forward to all of the memory-making this form of learning will afford.  We plan to share some of that with you via this blog.

To find out how this will work out practically, you'll have to check back.  We're still ironing out those details.  : )