Day 1 of freshman year is in the books.

Our son has attended a private Montessori school through the 8th grade, and it has been an amazing experience. Great school, great curriculum, great faculty. Unfortunately, they don’t have a high school program there. Our daughter will continue there until her 8th grade year, but for high school, we have chosen to home school.

Day 1 consisted of an hour of Algebra, 2 hours of Gardening, and 2 hours of Nutrition Sciences. This year of gardening will include soil sampling, types of fertilizers, garden lay out, and of course planting, weeding, and harvesting. Nutrition Science involves slaughter, butchering, processing and packaging of meats, canning and preserving fruits and vegetables, and cooking/meal prep.

He’s also assigned summer reading of 3 books, 2 of which must be selected from a book list and 1 free choice. He selected Lord of the Flies, Animal Farm, and Ghost in the Wires. There will be writing assignments and a project for that.

Not sure what you or your children's aspirations are, but I have four educational regrets in life, in priority order:

1. Not understanding that to really become wealthy one must OWN something. Rarely does just getting a paycheck and doing a good job build wealth. I learned this early enough to retire at 59, but it was a near run thing. This means equity in their own business or someone else's, or both.

2. Not learning about financial markets (stocks, bonds, commodities, and every other kind of investment). I could balance a checkbook in 8th grade and understood credit cards, but that's not the same stuff at all. Again, came to this knowledge far too late in life.

3. Not skipping all the AP courses and other high school BS, graduating early, and doing a year or two at a local college earning real college credits and obtaining quality instruction (YMMV on this one, only applies if your situation involves a college education, although nothing wrong with graduating early--get a jump on making a living!)

4. Not learning a foreign language as a small child when language learning is easier.

I blame my parents for all these omissions and shortcomings.

Recommend you put the first three in your curriculum. It might be too late for the language thing, although many folks maintain an aptitude for language learning through adulthood.

The first three are definitely in the curriculum.

He’s very interested in civil engineering, and one of the reasons he’s focusing on civil engineering rather than some of the other engineering pathways is the potential for playing that into owning a business that handles multimillion dollar projects. We’re definitely looking at including a financial literacy class that goes into investments, loans, credit, and so forth. And he’s already been studying Spanish for a couple years now.

His plans are to start doing dual enrollment asap, which becomes available during his sophomore year. Dual enrollment is free, and it allows him to take college classes that count as both high school and college credit and are free. He’s also considering getting a technical certification in something like electrical work or plumbing for the potential to have an income generating avenue while he finishes his engineering degree.

His Montessori school had a program where the middle schoolers did internships at local businesses that were of interest to them. Lots of kids picked stores that sold stuff they liked, like coffee shops or skate shops, etc. Our son chose the local water authority, which manages all things water related for the county. Sewage, city water distribution, local environmental impact on natural waterways, construction projects, and so forth. They had him out doing site inspections, reviewing plans, observing the water sanitation plants, and a bunch of other stuff. He loved it and they loved him. They want him to continue to come intern with them through high school and have already offered him a career as soon as he graduates if he does so.

Consider getting him into the Civil Air Patrol.

He can learn about flying and military structure.

The flying is fun and the structure can teach him teamwork and leadership skills. Even with no military aspirations that can be a valuable skill.

@freefallret homeschools his kids and his HS age son is doing well in the CAP.

Funny thing is, he’s actually attending an Experimental Aircraft Association summer camp in a couple weeks. It’s not got the military aspect to it, but they learn a ton of stuff about planes and flying. I’ll have to investigate CAP.

EAA is awesome, my son goes to the meetings every Tuesday night.

They also give out flight scholarships, but my son  didn't get one. Three cadets from our squadron have though.

He is on the Dads gun money scholarship plan

I love CAP, a good place for kids to get exposed to the military and search and rescue.

As a Dad who has experienced JROTC and Boy Scouts, CAP is by far the best program.

Dual enrollment is a fantastic idea.

Civil engineering is a laudable trade (my entire career was in engineering) but it's a lousy way to make a living. Even lousier working for the government or a public utility.

I'm also a commercial pilot, but it's more of an avocation or hobby than a real money-making thing. Indeed, you have to have money to do the pilot thing, either for fun or to achieve some level of professional success in aviation. It's a good motivator to want that money, though!

If I could do it all over again, at 18 I'd not be going to school, at least not full time, and if I was going to school it would be study finance. Not business, but finance. And I'd be begging, borrowing and, ok, not stealing , to scrape up enough to start flipping/renting real estate, which is something a young, degreeless person can do and has the energy to do. I'd live cheap. Once I'd developed a small nest egg of cash, say $100K, then I'd either start reinvesting in a more serious way, or perhaps even invest in real estate securities. As the cash balance comes up to around $500K start to diversify. At the $1M mark start networking with venture capital groups.

Sadly, I was totally focused very conventionally on science and engineering, electronics and computers specifically, and while I did a fantastic job of getting through a great school and progressing through a very successful career in that field, it was also hopelessly conventional, with nothing to show for it except a fat 401K and a 90th percentile salary for my geographic area and position. That is until I saw the light about twenty years ago and started working my ass off to obtain an equity position in a young company and then continued to work my ass off to position that company to be acquired by a larger company.

Work to own, don't work for the man, and learn how to do that as early as you can. (Ha, that rhymes, and it's catchy! )

@FreefallRet

Taking you at your word regarding CAP.  Taking both kiddos to their first meeting this week.

If I had a school age kid, he/she would be in CAP.

Just know their promotions work on a program called eservices. They do online training and take tests.

System is a PITA at first, but once you figure it out your kid can get promoted every 60 days.

Also after the first lesson is done and they get promoted you get a $100 credit at vanguard military clothing for their dress pants, shirt and shoes.

Hit me up anytime and I can talk you through it.

Kids need to be able to read email and be familiar with teams. Also good haircuts for males and be in somewhat decent shape.

PT test is a one mile run, push-ups and curls aka sit-ups and sit and reach.

The first one is just an evaluation and they take them every 180 days.

You experience will be dependent on the squadron and your kids participation.

And meeting location, luckily we have a hanger and a airplane.

Good luck and hit me up anytime.

Thanks for the insights!

My kids had a good time tonight at their first meeting and are eager to see where it will go.

Was a little concerned how my daughter would take to it, but she really enjoyed herself.

Sorry for the derail OP, but wanted to express my appreciation for getting clued in to the program.

You said you are looking for HS Curriculum. Check into online resources like https://www.flvs.net . Free to Florida residents, and I believe available to out of state students for a fee. Under the FLVS Flex program. My kids learned Mandarin Chinese thru FLVS.

Concerning CAP, don’t settle on the first squadron you visit. Some are very outgoing for the cadets to provide the most opportunity, some are just weekly social clubs. For our family it actually took going to a third squadron to open the doors for opportunity in CAP for my kids. The ‘cool things to do’ list available in CAP is at the following link. Most have prerequisites before attending.

https://www.gocivilairpatrol.com/programs/cadets/activities/national-cadet-special-activities/explore-the-ncsas