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6th grader & high school student - same curricula?


Cecropia
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Since I took ds13 and ds10 out of public school a year and a half ago, they have been doing most of their schoolwork together.  I keep it somewhat simpler for ds10 -- not in terms of content, but in the amount of work that he's responsible for.  Examples: he can choose 3 of 5 comprehension questions for literature today, his essays don't have as many sentences as his older brother's, and I make his end-of-semester exams a little shorter.  I have tried to choose curricula that are not necessarily lighter in content, but perhaps presented in a more interesting way than your average textbook to help keep ds10's interest.  Lots of Ellen McHenry science with all of the accompanying activities and games, SOTW coordinated with Human Odyssey and Mapping the World with Art, LLLOTR this year with an accompanying audiobook, Life of Fred etc.

 

Now I have a rising 9th grader, and I'm torn about what to do next year with all of the rigor that high school requires.  Do I let my rising 6th grader tag along, or do I craft his own program?  In many ways they are on the same level.  They'll both be through Algebra 1, at the same stopping point in social studies, have finished LLLOTR together, taken the same IEW writing and grammar programs...  I'm sure it helps a lot that they are playmates and generally prefer to learn together.  However, these programs I'm intending to use next year seem like a significant step up.  I'm not so worried that he can't grasp/remember the concepts, but more that they'll be presented in such a dry "adult" way that his eyes will glaze over and he'll shut down.  I'm also concerned about social studies and literature being age-appropriate (sex, violence, language...) for him.

 

Have any of you let your younger AL tag along with your high school student?  How did it turn out?  Any advice?

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How does the teen feel? My BK was in a similar situation, and as a high school senior, has a decent amount of resentment about being held back. It didn’t bother her when she was younger, but once her friends were in high school, she started to feel weirder and weirder about being expected to do everything with younger siblings. It also led to her feeling like she was stupid, not like younger sib was advanced, and the fact that mom tried to avoid more “adultâ€content didn’t help.

 

Another teen, with more self-confidence, might have no trouble with it.

 

I will also say that BK never verbalized this to her parents over the last few years. it wasn’t until she started DE classes that it started coming out.

Edited by Dmmetler2
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My AL 13 year old and my 17 year old do parallel work ... so we are all studying Modern US history but their assignments are not the same (different texts, different output expectations ... Sometimes an activity that is the same both do a DBQ or something) but we stay together on the timeline and they watch documentaries together and such.

 

He has nearly passed his brother in math but since they use different curricula this doesn't stick out so much. They have very different needs from math curriculum.

 

 

 

Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk

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