SkateLeft
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Posts posted by SkateLeft
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I totally agree with the previous posters. The only real prerequisite to high school science is math. I'd just let her explore science this year with books, documentaries, field trips and whatever else catches her fancy. That's especially important if her anxiety extends to science!
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My oldest daughter has had very well paid internships for the past two summers. She's a computer science and studio art double major, and her focus is on visualization engineering and integrated media.
They absolutely loved her portfolio and said that it really set her apart from the other applicants.
She included both coding work and art pieces. She used only projects that she'd done on her own, outside of structured assignments. Hiring managers, especially in computer science, see a lot of the same school type assignments utilized as parts of coding portfolios. They were most impressed by the things that my daughter had done as part of her own extensive coding projects. They like seeing something different. She also included her artwork to show how versatile she is. Most of my daughter's portfolio consists of her big hobby coding projects, and work she's done for various development jam events.
I'm not sure what field of engineering your student is interested in, but I'd recommend he make himself look as unique as possible. I wouldn't include brochures from summer programs, but I would list them on the resume and have him be prepared to talk about them during the interview. The portfolio should include your son's personal work and should show his passion and personality. They'll ask him to talk about his portfolio in his interview, so it helps if they're things he's excited about.
For coding projects, my daughter has pages of code and screenshots printed and put in page protectors. Digital art is also professionally printed in best quality and put into page protectors. She uses a high quality slim binder with a professional looking cover (with her artwork on it). She also has her work uploaded to her website and github, so if they want to see it in action, they can pull it up during the interview.
I hope that helps a little! I know it's probably a bit different since your son is a highschooler, but I thought I'd throw it out there anyway. Good luck to your son!
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It's too late to drop without it showing up on her record. This is technically a college course.
If she can withdraw and get a "W" on her transcript, that looks much better than a D or F. Is she past the withdrawal deadline?
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14
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Honestly, I'd advise her to drop the class.
An instructor who refuses to allow a student to make an appointment isn't worth the trouble. The rest of the issues, like making sure she's using the format he expects, can be worked around. That's just part of the college experience. If he's not willing to meet with her in office hours, that's not a good thing. She can't win this one and trying to go over his head just might make things worse. The school would be scrambling to find a replacement at this point in the year, so they probably won't do much.
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10
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My oldest started full-time dual enrollment at 14, and I graduated her from high school at 16, with 60 semester units of college coursework and a 4.0 GPA. I didn't make an issue out of her age when she applied, and they didn't care.
Our state dual enrollment program specifies "11th and 12th grade" but a lot of colleges will add "16 and 11th grade" as a requirement. We picked one that didn't list an age alongside the grade and just went through the application process. The folks I know who've had problems with getting a younger student into dual enrollment make an issue about the age beforehand. They ask if their student can apply because they're young, and of course the admissions person usually says no. My daughter was an 11th grader, so I just didn't ask. She met all the requirements and had a pretty standard looking transcript, despite being a homeschooler.
I didn't prep her at all. I would not have enrolled her if I didn't think she was ready. Sometimes I think it's the parents who need prep, more than the kids. :) It's really important to realize that if there's an issue with a class, the parent can't march down to the professor and intervene. Once the child is a college student, they need to deal with it themselves. If your child can do that, or you think they can do that with a little nudging from you at home, then they'll be okay.
i was pretty much out of the loop. I provided support and advice, but my daughter did it all herself. If she needed help, she went to office hours. If her lab partner didn't show up, she did the work herself. If she didn't understand a grade she received on a paper, she talked to the professor. It was all her.
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3
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I never did an allowance with my older kids. It just wasn't necessary.
My youngest son has some special needs through, and his doctors at Mayo advised us to use a structured reward system with him to keep him motivated with treatments. His allowance is part of that. We don't tie it chores.
He gets up to $10 a week. Each weekday, $1 is tied to having a good attitude, and $1 is tied to completing schoolwork, so he can "earn" $2 a day. I have a little chart on the whiteboard over his desk with the weekdays listed, and columns for attitude and schoolwork. I put check marks in each column at the end of the day when he meets those goals. On Friday afternoon, we check the chart, then he logs into the bank with me and watches me transfer however much he's earned that week into his account. Some weeks, it's $6, and some weeks it's $10. Most weeks now, it's $10. :) He has a debit card that I carry in my wallet, but he rarely ever spends his money. He just likes watching it grow.
(The second part of his reward system is token based. We keep it very simple. He earns tokens for a set list of things and can spend them on a set list of rewards.)
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Like others have said, if your child isn't 7 by October 1st, you don't have to report or test this year.
Also, you don't need to test at the end of the year. You can test at any point, and those test results don't get sent to your school district or anyone else. I don't get too hung up about which test to use or when to test. The results don't tell me anything I don't already know, so I only do what I need to do to stay in compliance.
You can get more information on the specifics here at the Minnesota Homeschoolers' Alliance website.
I prefer the Peabody for young children, since it's an orally administered test and pretty much stress free.
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I forgot to mention that puberty and menopause don't mix well. Anyone got both going on at the same time?
OH YES.
With both of my girls home all summer we had three adult women in the house, me going through menopause, as well as a teenage son with space cadet style puberty. It was... interesting. My poor husband. ;)
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My youngest son is using Reflex and although he absolutely HATES the picture puzzle, he enjoys the games and he's definitely learning his facts. All summer long, our rule has been "Get your green light, then you're free for the rest of the day."
We used Xtramath for ages, and while it worked very well for my older son, my youngest just wasn't moving towards automaticity.
DS really liked Reflex at first, but you'd think that picture puzzle was killing him now based on his complaining. ;) It was money very well spent.
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My daughter did Clover Creek physics last year and enjoyed the lab projects so much (especially that egg drop!) that she decided to pursue mechanical engineering.
She's loving her MechE classes this semester (she already had all of her general ed requirements out of the way because of dual enrollment), is an Engineering Week ambassador for the university, and she's on the lunarbiotics team, where they build space mining robots for a NASA competition.
So I have *really* high praise for Jetta's course! My "I'm not sure what I want to do with my life" teen decided "THIS is what I want to do!" thanks to Jetta. :D
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12
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My son did the Edhesive intro class last year, and while it went pretty well overall, the system did have a few glitches so definitely keep an eye out for those!
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Is anyone else signing up for AP CS A this year with Edhesive?
My 10th grader is using it this year.
Our schedule is about a week behind Edhesive's recommended due dates, since he didn't start the course until this week. We won't officially start school until Monday.
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My third child will start driver's ed on Monday. Although my state gives homeschoolers the option of teaching the classroom portion ourselves, there are some hoops to jump through that aren't worth it to me.
My older kids all took driver's ed through a local company that teaches it at the public high school after school hours. I pay for the package deal which includes classroom and 9 hours of behind the wheel instruction. The classroom part is a two week course after school Monday through Friday, and it's worth it to me to just get that done so I can actually do the real practical instruction.
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When my girls were applying to colleges, I listed their senior year courses and put IP as the grade, then noted elsewhere on the transcript that IP meant "in progress."
That's sufficient for applications. Once they graduate, they'll need to send a copy of their final official transcript to the university, usually with a deadline in June or July.
I would not leave the senior year blank.
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We moved #2 in on Tuesday this week. It was a lot easier and way less emotional than my first time around. We drove down 4 hours, got her moved in and unpacked and then drove 4 hours home. We were only there for about 45 minutes. Her roommate was already there, and seemed very nice. They're a lot alike, and they've been texting each other for weeks, so I think it'll be a good fit. She has some local friends who are attending the same university, and she'll be playing rugby, so she's pretty well plugged in already.
We used two 40 gallon tote bins with wheels and a handle, and pretty much all of her clothes, toiletries, sheets, towels, sundries and sports equipment fit in there. She carried her backpack with her school supplies. We didn't try to bring down winter stuff this time, like we did with my oldest, and that reduces the amount of things to move in by quite a bit. We'll either drive her winter stuff down at family weekend in October, or mail it to her. Having the two large totes with wheels let us move things in with one easy load, which worked out well because she's on the 6th floor.
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My oldest daughter used it for Algebra II, then successfully moved into higher level math with no trouble at all.
I really like Math Relief. It's very solid instruction.
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It's a petty thing, but I opted to wait on giving it a shot when I noticed that the title of the Shop page spells "monthly" as "montly." Simple stuff like that always seems unprofessional to me.
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My younger daughter played sports at the local public high school and went to youth group. Most of her friends, including her boyfriend, attended the public school. Her closest friendships came from playing on the high school girls' rugby team.
With #1, I focused on trying to help her find friends in the homeschool community, but it just never really happened. All three of my older kids have had far more success in building meaningful friendships with students at the local public school than they have by attending homeschool teen groups, which really surprised me. The amount of drama among homeschool teens (and their parents) is just off the charts here, and I just don't have the patience for it.
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It was way easier for me after the first time through.
The only con for us was that our first kid was pretty serious and introverted, so helping her find her tribe was hard.In contrast, #2 is a social butterfly who played sports at the local public high school and makes friends easily everywhere she goes.
Other than that, there really weren't any cons for us.
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We'll start September 12th. My youngest is at Mayo Clinic until the 26th, then my in-laws will be here until the 7th, so we'll be starting a little later this year than we normally do. We usually start right after Labor Day.
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I did it with my older son for 9th grade this past year.
I signed up for a teacher account and he has a student account. Setting it up that way lets him take the quizzes online and enables me to see his test scores.
I took the syllabus that I choose from the BHP's teacher materials, and edited out the group activities that weren't feasible for us. I also added some things.
It's entirely doable with one child.
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Any of my kids would have been upset if I'd changed a prior rule without giving them adequate notice, regardless of what it involved.
Unless it's a safety thing, I think it's important to give them some heads up. Honestly, at 12 years old, the child is old enough to listen to your concerns and your reason for changing the rule before you spring it on them. I think he's justifiably upset at feeling punished.
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My oldest used the US edition, and then I switched to the Standards edition for the other kids. #2 and #3 both used the entire elementary sequence from 1A to 6B. #4 is using 4B right now. All three of my older kids tested well and transitioned easily into higher level math.
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I didn't label anything honors, even the "honors" labelled English classes my girls took in 9th grade through an online provider. They both did full-time dual enrollment in 11th and 12th grades, and I didn't label any of their college classes honors either. I did note on the transcript that they were taken via dual enrollment.
Personally, the only label that I'd use on a homeschool transcript would be AP classes, if I'd used a College Board approved syllabus.
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For those who have NOT done a 4 year history cycle in high school...
in High School and Self-Education Board
Posted
Kid #1:
9th - World History
10th - US History
11th (dual enrolled) - Human Geography / Microeconomics
12th (dual enrolled) - US Politics / World Civ 1
Kid #2:
9th - World Geography
10th - US History
11th - World History
12th (dual enrollment) - Arab Culture / American Government and Politics
Kid #3:
9th - Big History Project World History
10th - US Government (semester) / Economics (spring semester)
I have US History and at least a semester of modern world history planned. He'll also do a semester of human geography.