Yikes! Me, too! We're all over the place. Every time I feel bored we do a Shakespeare play. We're doing scifi instead of 20th cent. lit and interspersing it throughout the rest of our literature. When I go to write the transcript, I'll put the books in order and divide it into 4 parts and label them appropriately. Until then, I'm not worrying GRIN. -Nan

Groan... mine... sometimes I think it is a mistake to sleep with them, especially as they get older...

I hang out here not because my children are gifted (they're just brightish and, well, odd), but because mine match this bunch of children better than other children. They chew holes in their shirts, take off for months with Buddhist monks, can't bear depressing modern literature, ... I feel like *I* fit in better with the mothers here. The descriptions of everyone's children make me feel less like mine are way out there. Everyone here is flexing homeschooling the same sorts of ways we are. And there are lots of good tips on how to cope with the other odd stuff, like not being able to bear to watch movies until you are in your teens. -Nan

I heard it was because CC classes are sometimes not very well taught and vary quite a lot from school to school. I think colleges think they know better what they are getting when they get a child that has passed an AP test? Maybe? And maybe AP classes are taught at a higher level than the local CC? -Nan

I can't tell you yet whether this works because my son is a junior. So far, we've stuck with the education we want for our children and they want for themselves, and almost completely ignored the rest of the world. Almost. We aren't expecting scholarships, so we aren't jumping through many hoops. We've shaped the education to the child. Sometimes that looks more like severely warped the norms and flexed schooling to the max possible while sticking with the general idea of TWTM flavoured classical education. My son travels for months at a time, during which he does no formal academics. We're doing great books aloud at a VERY slow rate, discussing them in an almost totally unguided way, and substituting drawing for writing quite a bit. We don't want to do 20th century depressing literature so we've substituted scifi. We didn't want to do biology so we substituted natural history, ham radio, and human anatomy for the first two years of science. We're rather slow at Latin, so we will have two credits for three years of Latin (and then probably switch to some French). My son is just reading the history book, and possibly writing a few papers, not discussing it (except where it intersects with the rest of life) or answering the questions in the book (except to read them before he reads the chapter and keep them in mind). We've opted to do NEM math because it is applied and top-down even though my son gets most of the problems wrong. We've opted to do Conceptual Physics even though it is physics-for-poets because it contains the useful bits of physics that I think my son will remember. And we're doing it awfully slowly because we have constant interruptions by new woodpeckers on the feeder and cool perpetual motion discoveries and the need to verify that yes indeed there are 7 1/2 gallons in a square foot by tracing around milk cartons. We're counting on geometry to fulfil the function of logic. I refuse to give grades because they would make it so I couldn't teach properly and would impede my children's learning. All that is just to give you an idea of how we've flexed things. We have a general strategy of math, great books, Latin (which I'm counting on for historical perspective, English grammar, and English vocab), music, drawing, gymnastics, and science every year when we are "doing school", and reading and/or traveling when we're not. In things with textbooks, I try to keep us making some forward progress even if it is slow, and in math, I am super careful to finish a book each year (that being the limiting factor if your child suddenly wants to become an engineer). Other than that, I try not to worry and just aim for teaching them the things I think are important to being good people. So, what about college? I hope mine go. There are many, many colleges out there. Some are going to be out of reach financially or because they are too high academically and won't take my children. Some more are going to be out of reach because of the educational choices we are making, like no AP tests and no grades and a transcript listed according to subject instead of time (to accommodate those subjects covered in a more ahem flexible manner, like music at 10 minutes a few times a week for 4 years = 1/2 credit). Some are going to be out of reach of my older one because he isn't particularly academic (despite being talented and intelligent) and doesn't test very well. That is ok. I'm all for not closing any doors (why we are doing a math book per year), but not at the expense of my children's education. As far as I can see, having ruled out scholarships, there are three main reasons to take those tests. One is for college credit. This seems to be if-y at best. Each college is different. If you know what college you are going to go apply to, then you can take this into account. Otherwise, it isn't very useful. And getting credit might mean that instead of getting used to the college experience while taking freshman level classes, you have to do it struggling with upper level classes that assume you covered a particular set of material in their particular basic level classes. We aren't interested in transfering credit. Another is because colleges require them. There are lots of colleges out there that require only SATs or ACTs. We're just going to have to go to one of those. Again, if at this point you know where you are going to apply and are sure you aren't going to change your mind, then you can tailor the education to that particular college's requirements. It isn't going to require PSATs, SATs, ACTs, CLEPs, and APs. The last is validating the mummy transcript. This reason is one that does concern us, especially since we aren't grading, but because my son doesn't test well, we are choosing to do the validating with community college classes. Besides, there are some subjects I can't teach well, like writing, and some that I think are very hard to reproduce at home, like certain laboratory sciences. I also want to ease my son back into the classroom/school situation before we dump him into college. So where does that leave us? PSATs sophomore year for practice, SATs junior year and if score isn't as high as we think it might be senior year, a CC class in most areas (composition, chemistry, pre-calc, speech, and drawing - notice the heavy "communication" emphasis), and a reduced choice of colleges. We could verify the mummy transcript with CLEPs, or SAT2s, or APs, classes at our high school, or online classes, but we have a nice CC here and it serves other purposes as well. I spoke with an admissions person at Hampshire, an alternative-y independent college, and she said in my son's situation, she would want to see SAT scores even if they weren't very good and 3 or 4 academic CC classes as demonstrative of his ability to handle college work. As someone pointed out, to apply to college, you have to get those CC classes in BEFORE you apply, which means you can't wait until senior year. Phew! This is long! I went through a similarly depressing stage of my high school planning, before I worked out that an alternative, so I sympathize. A few more bits of advice: Get The Homeschoolers Guide to Portfolios and Transcripts by Heuer. It explains how to structure and document all that flexability in a way that will appeal to colleges. Look at the NARS material for ideas on how to make your own course and its requirements. I'm sure you have ideas, but I found it comforting to compare my requirements to those of other people so I knew if I was requiring too much work or too little. Cafi Cohen's books are useful for ideas, too, and comforting. I kept (keep) track of the mishmash of everything we do by getting a notebook at the beginning of high school and dividing it into basic subjects like math, world history, writing, great books, natural history, chemistry, ..., leaving room for others as they occurred. Then when we do something, I write it down in the approapriate place. I choose, sometimes arbitrarily, which catagory to write the item in; I don't write anything in two places. Then, in the end, I'll move a few things around if need be and divide it into classes. I'll give them nice specific descriptive labels, like Ancient Literature and Analysis, and then make a transcript. Since my son is a junior, I've done a partial/tentative transcript a number of times in an effort to make sure we're covering the things I want us to cover. I also keep in mind what colleges are expecting to see (generally not a problem for classical homeschoolers) - 4 English, 4 math, 4 science including some lab sciences, 4 social studies, at least 2 foreign language, and some art or music. I have no problem taking a few grand subjects like peace studies and great books, and documenting them in a more conventional way as 4 years of English, 4 of social studies, and a few electives. We could easily call all our science Natural History 1-4, since it all IS natural history and we're looking at it all from that perspective, but I'm not going to GRIN. I call our homeschooling style cosy-casual, since a lot of it is accomplished reading aloud or talking in front of the fire with the dog on our feet. Honestly, high school doesn't have to be the end of the good part of homeschooling. You have to put a firm limit on the academics and not let them take over your whole lives and crowd out other educational things like travel and building projects and volunteer work. And you have to not be afraid to cut down the possible colleges list a bit by picking and choosing which tests. Choose how you are going to validate your transcript and how you will demonstrate that your child is capable of doing college-level work, and then try not to worry. Not worrying is the hard part - sigh. Ask me how I know! Hope this helps. -Nan

Yeah! And I just took your advice about that SS number, something I would have left blank without your warning. -Nan

We went through Kingfisher, outlining the sections and doing whatever extra reading the child felt like, occasionally writing a report, in middle school. Now in high school, I have given my son Western Civ (Spielvogel) to read to himself as we do great books. They nest beautifully. He looks at the questions and tries to answer them to himself and occasionally writes something, but mostly he is just reading it. We also have various videos and Teaching Company tapes to look at, as he wants to. I'd just find a nice spine to read and then continue to unschool it. That way you won't risk ruining it for him. ;) -Nan

I am using it too, with great success. We find a little background info either in the intro to the book or on Wikipaedia or something, then read the book aloud together discussing it and sometimes taking notes, then put it on a timeline and a map, then read the genre section and answer the questions. I agree that the general questions are much, much better for creating discussions and helping you think about the book. They also mean that after you've been through them a few times, you can keep them in mind as you read the book. I am seeing this happen with my children. They are pointing out the sorts of things that will be in the questions afterwards as we come to them in the reading. TWEM works really, really well for high schoolers. -Nan

Yes, go and talk to them. They can help you fill out the forms to apply for financial aid or explain how to get a loan. Financial aid can take the form of an on-campus job (easier to fit in around your classes), a reduction in tuition, a loan, or a combination of the above. Sometimes they even take into account the other expenses involved, like books and transportation. Almost all people who go to college have some sort of financial aid. You can't tell whether you can afford it or not until you go into the school and ask how much you would *really* have to pay. Many, many people begin their careers paying off school loans. There are low-interest government loans available that you don't start paying back until a few months after graduation (long enough to find that job and get settled into it). Even if you can't afford for your daughter to go full-time, perhaps she could take just one or two classes, science for example, at the CC and work on the rest at home with you. But you can't tell until you go and fill out the forms and they process them. Hopefully you will be pleasantly surprised. -Nan

My son is doing this and I can't say enough good things about it. Here, you just need to take a placement test. It is multiple choice and untimed, if I remember correctly. It has three parts - math, reading, and writing. If your daughter does poorly on the math, all that will happen is that she will need to start the math sequence lower down, with the general math instead of with algebra and she won't receive college credit for the class. No biggie. Our community college has lots of cool majors, like airplane pilot, graphic artist, nursing, cosmetology, child care, accountant, ... or you can major in liberal arts or pre-engineering and transfer after the 2 years. If you have a 3.0 or better grade point average, the state university will automatically accept you and you can continue to pay community college tuition. Here, they are friendly, helpful, dedicated people. To sign up, you can just walk in and they will walk you through what to do. I think we needed to bring some form of id and it took several visits to get all the testing and paperwork done, but it was easy. You can apply for financial aid, too. I know that the quality of community colleges varies from place to place, but ours has been great so far, the perfect bridge between homeschooling and college, with the nice safety net feeling that if for some reason college doesn't work out, he will be well on his way to getting an associates degree in a career. Ours also offers "certificate programs". These are like the associate degrees for a career, but without the general education classes so they can be completed in less time. In the meantime (since this is the first week of classes here and it might be too late where you are to sign up for the spring term), people have said good things about Aleks math. HTH -Nan

It isn't as easy to read as the old board was. I like seeing the whole thing at once, which you can't do here without openning a post, and the format gives me a headache. Very sad.

I thought the concessus was that one should buy the books at the input level and then modify the expected output to match what your child is capable of? You might want to look at: Prentice Hall Science Explorer series (think I got the name right) Singapore primary math History of US by Hakim (but watch the content if your child is sensitive) Early Times history (again, watch the content, but mine loved these) Pharoahs of Ancient Egypt and tons of unabridged literature and science and history books from the library, the only way to keep up without going broke LOL These all have middle school reading levels but nice meaty content. When my youngest was that age, I found it hard to find things with a low enough reading level and a high enough content level without going into all the nitty gritty detail of say a high school biology book, which he would have found tedious. HTH -Nan

The Galactic Gourmet, Harry Potter et les Reliques de la Mort, Mansfield Park for the umpteenth time, various water colour books from the library, and a book on homeschool portfolio writing. And I'm reading Dante's Inferno and the Mabinogeon (mangled the spelling I'm sure) with the children. -Nan

Hybrid definately helps. And I've now figured out quick reply, which helps. Thank you.

You are one of my special people, too, a major reason I finally registered. What is subscribe/subscription? I got rid of the signatures and avatars (now I know what they are GRIN) and that definately helps. They were interesting, but made everything require so many clicks and so long.

I read Jean's post and didn't understand it. Nothing I do trees the forum as a whole, only individual posts. The boxes make my head hurt when I scan. Scanning computer screens tends to give me a headache, but the old format at least was all text. Something about the new one's boxes and lines makes it difficult. I can't tell if I want to read a post unless I can see the threads under it and I don't have the time to open everything to see if I want to read it. It is looking like my major homeschooling support has just turned into something painful not helpful. Waaaaa! Can anyone help? -Nan in Mass