Homeschoolers are blessed with many learning options. Below are the ones I am familiar with. Please leave a comment of curriculum or other options you have enjoyed.
Traditional Homeschooling – Favorite Curriculum
Sonlight (History & Readers), A Beka (Grammar), Apologia (Science), Saxon and Harold Jacobs (Math), Memoria Press (Logic), Henle Latin, Alpha Omega (grades homework for you)
Visit a curriculum fair at a homeschooling conference–the variety of options is breathtaking. Many area homeschoolers go to Cincinnati each Spring for their homeschool conference.
Academic Centers and Co-ops – Private school education without the high price tag.
Choose between core academic classes or electives. Which ones do you prefer to teach at home? Which do you wish to outsource? You have many options. Click here to see options in the Central Kentucky area.
I teach at Bluegrass United Academic Center Core Program and Mars Hill, but I have been involved in many programs over the years. Whether you want someone else to teach academics or you want enrichment and social opportunities, these programs are wonderful! Most programs meet either one, two, or three days a week.
Electives I have seen include Yearbook, Drama Club, Civics, Art History, ACT Prep, Marketing, Debate, Drawing/Art, Logic, Personal Finance, Film, and much more.
Bluegrass United also offers a prom, sports teams, and a graduation ceremony. (I believe the sports teams and the ceremony are available to any homeschooling graduate).
Lab Opportunities
Don’t want to disect frogs at your kitchen table? Neither do I. Fortunately, Asbury University offers Biology and Chemistry labs to homeschool students. Contact Ann Witherington from Asbury University in early June to register. There are six labs in the fall semester and six in the spring. Cost is $100 per semester.
For Fall 2018, Bluegrass United Electives is also offering a Biology lab.
Online Options for Classes
The sky is the limit here because so many colleges are offering online classes. However, high school content and AP content can also be easily accessed. Some online classes meet on regularly scheduled days, like HSLDA. For some, you go at your own pace, like Thinkwell, which we used for AP Calculus. (This is an excellent course.) Other options are Veritas Online , Alpha Omega Academy, and a host of college dual enrollment options. (See below.) Hillsdale College even offers a free economics course.
Dual Enrollment
High schoolers can take college classes that count for both high school and college credit, and sometimes for free! In Wilmore, Kentucky, Asbury Academy offers four free credit hours per semester for high school seniors. They also have online courses available for $144 per credit hour. I have heard wonderful news about their on-campus Calculus course. My kids have taken their MAT 120 class, Concepts in Math & Technology. This teaches Probability, Statistics, and Finance and has a spreadsheet design lab, useful for learning number-crunching techniques. This course transfers nicely to the University of Kentucky. My daughter also took their Theory of Wellness class, which counted as her high school health credit.
Eastern Kentucky University offers dual enrollment either for free or for $53/credit hour; see website for their criteria. Western Kentucky University also offers dual enrollment classes for a similar price. Bluegrass Community and Technical College also offers dual enrollment with some scholarship opportunities.
When considering dual enrollment, be sure to look ahead to your future college choices. Pick courses that will transfer into useful credit. This will save you time and money later on. To check that course credits will transfer, look at a potential college’s College Transfer Equivalency Database. Then type in the college where the course is transferring from and the class name, like PSY 101. If it transfers, it will tell you the corresponding course number. Then see if this course will satisfy a core requirement at your college of choice.
Homeschool Sharp 