We're only starting up this week (we were waiting for lots of it to arrive and even if we weren't, family crisis' would have prevented us starting anyway) in the middle of October. :D She doesn't have a timed schedule right now because it throws her off if she doesn't stick to the times but she knows what she has to do each day. LANGUAGE ARTS Composition (I think this is really rough, but she organised it herself. She's sectioned off a file and is learning how to write different types of papers, writing up a few examples, then going onto the next type. She's also doing NaNoWriMo which involves writing a 50,000 word novel in the month of November. Well she is my little writer. :D) She's also reading How to Read a Book. (: MATHEMATICS Lial's Beginning & Intermediate Algebra (One sub-chapter, 1.1 for example and all odd problems. Check answers and review problem areas.) HISTORY History of the Ancient World (As many notes as her brain can take then reading her notes from previous days back. She has a problem connecting things together so this helps her a lot even though she hates taking notes.) SCIENCE Biology for IGCSE (She hates this. She wants to get it so badly, but she's not a science person. This is probably the one that takes the longest each day.) FOREIGN LANGUAGE French (She does some vocab each day, and we're going to get a french grammar book recommended here on the hive soon but I can't remember the name of the top of my head.) ELECTIVES SAT Prep (She's working this in a few different ways - doing grammar studies, vocab, trying different techniques, practice tests, that kind of thing. I think she's insane since she's only a freshman but ah well. It won't go on her transcript though.) Great Books (We'll attempt to start this in a few weeks time when things settle down. Lots of trips to the library ahead...) Religions 101 (She's studying a book on different religions. She's got a thing about religions. Since she's an agnostic, I'll never understand that. xD) Music (She's attempting to self-teach piano and guitar. If she does well, we'll give her credit and if not, no big loss.) I hope that helps a little. :001_unsure:

Thank you so much for all of your answers! (: I've been reading all along but I just realised I haven't replied yet. We were in touch with Mary Baldwin and DD loved the woman she spoke to but it's way out of reach financially. When I found out the SAT score average was way below what DD's been scoring on practice tests I got my hopes up that she's get a merit scholarship as well as some need based. She'd get $13k in merit but there isn't any need-based for internationals. So that had to go out of the window which DD was pretty upset about. It seems all of the accelerated programs other than that don't have international aid either. Besides, Mary Baldwin was the only one I felt would have been 'right', the same as DD. Ahh. :(

My DD spent the summer before 9th grade researching colleges, has just bought an SAT prep book out of her own money and has been talking with admissions people already. She's academically-serious and also quite serious ordinarily but she's still the best person to cheer someone up. :) I think it's a good thing. More opportunities are available for someone who has the capability to understand the reason behind something & stick at something they're serious about.

I did. :crying: But she was lacking in the basics and the placement tests say she's ready for Algebra I now & will be fully prepared by the time our Lial's algebra arrives so we should be okay. You made me worry then! :D DD's been getting an 86% average on hippocampus algebra though and has just got stuck on multi-step equations so it might be a good tool to find the difficult parts for her. She's been skipping the lessons and going straight to the tests 'cause she did lots of algebra in school so we're just finding the difficult areas and covering those so we're not going to be doing the whole book anyway, more than likely.

Thanks for that Zaichiki! My DD understood that while I stood around looking clueless. :rofl: But when you do the alphabet as a child what do you say when you get to those letters? I know that probably sounds insane but it's a serious question. :001_unsure: Thanks again! (:

I just went out on a whim and bought it. I hope she doesn't whizz through this though! I don't want to be buying pre-calc stuff before the end of the year. :D

She's going through Saxon 87 as revision on topics she struggles with but we ordered that as our curriculum for this year and then she spend about two weeks on mindsprinting and finally 'got' fractions and before that she was getting about 5 or 6/10 on the placement test readiness for algebra 1 and now she's getting 8 and still revising a couple of topics in 87. So after that, we're stuck with what to use. She likes the large print and lesson numbers of Saxon though and I'm considering sticking with it but I've heard that most don't recommend it for upper-level math. Not 100% sure why though, DD loves it so far. We can find other, cheaper curriculums though but I'm not very familiar with curriculum names to look up. I've looked up Saxon, Jacob's, Foerster's and Lial's. Okay, I just looked up Lial's again and I might go out on a whim and order it. :confused: I've no idea! Oh, the curriculum choices! :D

Do they have a website/placement tests? I want to see if DD's at the right level to start Algebra now and don't want to throw her in too soon. Also any experiences with Foerster's? (:

Thank you Laura, that's sweet of you. :001_wub: We now have new problems - it's too easy for her. She has to go over the stuff on circles & one other topic and she's done. :svengo: So now I have to order Algebra I and wait for that to be delivered.

Our Saxon book arrived this morning but it doesn't have the answer key or anything beside the main book. We're already an entire month behind because it took so long to arrive. :rant: :svengo: <--- this is just me all over right now. I just had to rant, sorry.

Is there anyone here who's had kids go to college early and if so, at what age? What were yours and their experiences? Thank you. :)

My DD is set on college at least two years early, but is aiming for even quicker so I know what you mean. (: How old is your DD? It could be, like you said, she's just coming into her own. But I would keep an eye and check she is doing the work. And maybe you should use quizes with her, etc so you can make sure she's taking it all in and agree that if she doesn't get over a certain percentage, she does it over and then you know she's mastering the material. :)

As we've only got a 9th grader at the minute, I suppose I'm not the one that can give you that reassurance but I think just asking her in a non-nagging way (I start arguments accidentally sometimes when it sounds like I'm nagging but I'm not. Teenagers!) what she's up to, what she's doing that day, etc is a good thing to do whether to check she's doing the work she needs to or keeping up with her life, sort of. My DD is very organised with the stuff she needs to do each day, but she doesn't schedule it at all. She says she can never time how long something will take and prefers to do each thing from beginning to end then move on to something else so a schedule might not work for your daughter. My DD doesn't like to keep track of how long something took her either because it puts her off even bothering to start because she knows it'll take a while. I'm sure lots of others will chime in with some encouragement for you too. :)

So is the problem that you want to know what she's working on at what time or you want to know she's done it? Maybe a conferance between the two of you in the evening would be a good idea? DD's one of those kids who asks everyone "so what are you doing today?" so we always get a conversation going that leads to what she'll be working on that day. And I'm virtual-patting you on the head. :] You'll be fine!

DD was never taught how to write an essay in school but she's worried that I'll give her 'mommy grades' and she doesn't want that. So what would you all suggest? I've no idea how to grade an essay & I was never formally taught to write an essay myself but we don't have any curriculum budget left to get a correspondance course or whatever. I'm pretty sure I could find a free resource that taught her to write an essay but what could I do grading-wise oh masterful WTM-ers. :D

My DD was in school at your DD's age and 'playing' was seen as childish to her then. She threw her dolls out because her friends thought they was babyish and I think she regretted it later. I think maturity in girls hits between 13 and 15 though. (:

Thanks so much for all of your suggestions. (: Me and DD will look at them over the next couple of days before we order the rest of our curric. at the end of the month. I've no idea how we're going to fit everything in this year! ;D

DD would like to know if your kids will tutor her. :D

My DD's trying to get back into reading. When she started secondary school she stopped reading completely so currently she's reading Artemis Fowl by Eoin Colfer (if you don't allow Harry Potter, this'll be the same more than likely) Chinese Cinderella by Adeline Yen Mah (again ;D) The Curius Incident by Mark Haddon The History of the Ancient World by SWB (she hasn't started this yet, we've been thrown off track a little) :)

A language could be self-taught, possibly? It sprung to mind as I've just posted asking for online russian resources since DD's just started learning the russian alphabet. It's also something that doesn't mean she has to sit still and write, she can stand up, jump around and sing the language if she wants to. I don't know if that's any help. (:

DD wants to learn russian so she's currently learning the alphabet. She's got the first few letters down vocally thanks to a youtube video but in the video they didn't pronounce Й, Ъ or Ь so she doesn't know how to pronounce them yet and she hasn't memorized too far into it but she said she didn't intend to remember it and she thought she hadn't until she went back to the beginning from half way in and got the first six right along with the video. She managed to learn without knowing it. ;D So I was wondering if anyone knows where we can find the pronounciation of those letters which are apparently the difficult letters and also some free resources for learning russian. Already on her list of languages to learn to fluency are: french, russian, german, spanish, welsh, japanese and arabic. :svengo: Thank you so much (:

http://blog.gettyimages.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/converse3.jpg That shows some pink converse with a dress as well as the Kristen Stewart pic already posted. It depends what dress she's wearing, I suppose. (:

I meant derogatory as in, not a program that was too simple or one that would luck like it was dumbing her down because grammar (at least basic grammar) is normally taught at a much younger age. And from what I said I suppose it does sound like something like that would be more beneficial but since this is our first year of classical ed we're throwing in some logic stuff (along with lots of puzzles and brain teasers ;D) and in the WTM it says "A student entering into formal logic must have a good grasp on the parts of a speech..." which is how it came about. I really shouldn't let my 9th grader become fluent in what the WTM says. :rofl:

DD scored what an average high school senior scores on a practice SAT paper she did (for fun :001_huh:) or rather, she scores above average but apparently not high enough. The same smilie applies. The average is 1509, DD scored 1630. Her writing score is 530, almost fourty above average but she wants to try for a perfect score in it since it was the easiest and most enjoyable section for her. She's going to be doing some vocab work and obviously working on math so that covers the other two sections but grammar - she doesn't know the rules. Or rather, she knows a lot of the rules but because she formally know any of them. She just looks at a sentence and thinks 'that doesn't look right' and quite often she can get it right but basically, we need a grammar program that isn't derogatory to her but covers basics to advanced. Any ideas? (:

DD was actually pretty interested in teaching herself at elementary school level. I think she'd be a perfect gifted kids teacher. She does do very well in terms of relating to young children too so maybe it is a career she should look into with more depth. I think the creativity and chaos would be brilliant too her too and she does have a knack for increasing people's self-confidence and self-esteem. I don't know how she does it. :001_rolleyes: I'll mention teaching to her again later. I know that probably wasn't the point in your message but I was running with it. :D She's already said she wants to homeschool her own children, if she has any too so I'm glad her experience has been positive. (: