One Day Enrichment

A day of enrichment for homeschool students

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Cascade Interactive Classes

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Interested in roboethics, poetry, or the Eurovision song contest? Sign up for these and other unusual classes as part of Cascade, a free, virtual program of weekly interactive classes for high schoolers on Tuesday nights from April 13 to May 11.

View Courses

To register, make an account on our website and check out the “learn” tab:

Make an Account

Registration closes Monday, April 12, so sign up soon!

Questions? Email splashchicago@gmail.com.

A FANTASTIC resource for Mom!

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For all the amazing moms out there – don’t forget to take care of yourself! Even with kids constantly at home and no gym to escape to, don’t despair. This amazing program will restore and heal your body, whether you are still having babies, delivered last week, or suddenly noticed you are twenty years post partum due to the inexplicably fast passage of time. You will find support and clinically proven methods to prepare, heal, and even move forward to strength and fitness beyond your pre-baby experience.

Click to view the program

Short History Videos

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One of our own ODE Dads, Professor Fulton, is a history professor and has created a series of videos which you might enjoy. His area of concentration is home front responses in time or war/crisis WWI through WWII (so yes very apt to what we are going through right now). The videos will primarily be both sections of American History Survey. In case there is an issue with the link you can also search Fulton History Moraine. There are 6 currently but more to come (20-30 in total). Enjoy!

Click HERE to view

Illinois requirements for a high school diploma

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If you are wondering what exactly your child needs to satisfy the requirements of high school in our state of Illinois, Mrs. York has put together some links and a summary of exactly that. Please note this does not necessarily satisfy college entrance requirements.

In Illinois, the current high school graduation requirements are, for students starting high school in 2016 and later, available here: https://www.isbe.net/Documents/grad_require.pdf   Every homeschool parent should make sure they understand these requirements.
This is a very brief summary:
TOTAL: 16 Units of High School (with each unit being a year-long class. Partial-year classes can be added together.)
Math: 3 Years including Algebra 1 and some Geometry
English: 4 Years  (no content specified)
Writing: 2 Years of ‘Writing Intensive’ courses, one should be an English class and the other is open.
Science: 2 Years (no content specified)
Social Studies: 2 Years and one year must be US History with a semester of specified civics content/Constitution (IL and US) exam if not completed in middle school
Consumer Education: 9 Weeks (may be part of Economics or another course)
Health: 18 Weeks of Health Education
Electives: 1 Year of arts (foreign language, music, art, etc.)
Physical Education: 4 Years of some sort of daily physical education but this is not a graduation requirement but rather a requirement that every high school program offer this to all students.
SCED. This is a standardized way to code classes in high school transcripts. Using these codes is completely optional but may help colleges in understanding a student’s achievements. Here is the link to the current catalog of codes and how they are used:https://nces.ed.gov/forum/SCED.asp
Note from EBY – – The Excel file can be kind of confusing. There is a .PDF version that is a little older but still includes most (hundreds!!) of the codes and is searchable:  https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2007/2007341.pdf

Wondering about taking an AP class?

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Mrs. York shares some nuggets of wisdom about the pros and cons of an AP class for your homeschooler.

Advanced Placement classes and exams are an opportunity for homeschool students to demonstrate that they are ready for college-level work.

These high-school level classes are ‘weighed’ heavier on transcripts by colleges and universities because the curriculum is rigorous. In Illinois, most AP classes are considered ‘writing intensive’ and every high school student must take two writing-intensive courses to graduate.

Should the student want to take the corresponding AP Exam after studying all year, it costs about $100 each and is administered in May. These tests are long – usually around 3 hours.

A high score may equal credit at the college level and usually will allow a student to skip an introductory class and move to advanced one.

A low score does not hurt a student’s chances. It simply means the student gets the credit of the transcript for taking a rigorous high school course without getting the college level benefit on top of it.

Here are a couple of articles that talk more in depth about the pros/cons:

How does ap credit work at colleges?

HSLDA – The Benefits of AP® and CLEP Tests for College-Bound Teens