Here are some additional opportunities for home schooled students that are great enhancers to your program:

HSLDA National Debate Tournament: High school level
Here is the first I hope of many academic competitions organized by home schoolers for home schoolers. The National Debate Tournament is well organized according to standard procedures. Students learn to think logically, defend their points reasonably, and gain a great deal of confidence in their ability to articulate their passions publicly. Plus, in the process of friendly competition, your kids will make friends with home schoolers from around the country. You will always find a lively discussion going on in the debate folder of the Home school Channel Forums. (www.hslda.org)

Knowledge Open Academic Competition: Elementary through high school levels
I found this competition for my sons when they said they didn't really like competing against their friends (as in our local Geography Bee), but rather wanted to work with them. Knowledge Open quizzes kids across the curriculum, so you build a team of students with strengths in a variety of academic areas. On the day of the competition, teams take a timed quiz via computer. The quiz is automatically scored and submitted to the national headquarters. The top scoring teams in a variety of categories (school size, age of students) are ranked and published. Knowledge Open provides inexpensive resources for preparing your team, and in the process all the kids will master content in a variety of subject areas. There are competitions throughout the year, you can participate as much as you like (or can afford to.) (www.greatauk.com).

ThinkQuest: Ages 12 through 19
This is an Internet-based competition, and you can actually build teams with kids from anywhere in the world. Homeschool teams have participated and teams that are a mix of public, private and homeschooled students. There are endless possibilities. Each team's challenge is to build a content-rich, Web-based educational tool, i.e. Web site. Some of the best educational sites on the Web have come out of this competition. It's a great way for your kids to learn how to master the vast technological tools now available. (www.thinkquest.org)

SMG Stock Market Game: Grades 4 through adult
Here's where my kids interest in investing got started. Kayte, Mike and Gabe have all participated in this competition through our home school co-op. Each team of kids is given a hypothetical $100,000 to invest in the stock market. Stocks and team standings can be tracked via the Internet. (We were using old technology when we first did this i.e. daily newspapers.) Now with real-time stock quotes available online, this can be a very addicting game. For us, we had a lot of fun investigating companies, finding out what they produced and learning to read financials. After this experience, my sons' put their college savings into a portfolio that has done quite well. Kayte just got hers started and managed to visit the New York Stock Exchange and Commodities Trading Center this past year. The home school mom who coached our co-op teams started her own investment club! (www.smgww.org)

In His Sovereign Grace,

Debra