I love the line, "Comparison is the thief of joy." One thing I used to catch myself doing was looking at the incredibly outstanding thing that different kids were doing and thinking that my kid should also be doing each of those things. In other words, if Julie was in the youth orchestra, Sara was going to nationals in poetry recitation, and Jimmie was on the state championship robotics team; I felt like my kid should also be doing violin, poetry and robotics. But that ignores the amount of time and effort that those individual kids spent on their passion to get to that place. I try to honestly assess where my kids are and help them move forward from that place to a higher level. Our piano is very dusty, but I have a kid that can give an off the cuff half hour explanation of Chinese history and politics. I think it's also important to remember that you rarely know the struggles of other families. That applies to the family down the street as much as to people on the internet.

I totally understand that grade levels within homeschooling can be very fluid and tough to nail down. On the other hand, some states do make you declare what grade a student is and test accordingly. In addition, once you hit high school, you start building credits that will be assembled on a transcript. If you decided that your kid wasn't ready for high school level work yet, what did that look like? How did you focus on skills you thought needed work? What administrative paperwork did you do to reassign the grade as far as the state was concerned?

I haven't decided if next year will count as 9th grade or 8th grade. Math - AoPS Intro to Algebra book for the Algebra 2 section or possibly shifting to the Counting and Probability book Social Studies/History - World geography. I have the Glencoe World Geography book, which is OK. I plan to supplement it with a lot of articles and books and maps. Science - Earth Science or Physical Geography. I'm loving the samples of Exploring Physical Geography and Exploring Earth Science books by Reynolds. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0078095166/ref=nav_timeline_asin?ie=UTF8&psc=1 I ordered a used copy of his Exploring Geology book to see if the format works for us. There are a lot of pages in common across the samples, so I may go with the one I can get for a reasonable price. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0073524123/ref=nav_timeline_asin?ie=UTF8&psc=1 English - We're building a basket of "crackin' good reads" for him to go through. Stuff that will stretch him, but might not be something that we analyze to death. Then either Windows to the World or Writing with Skill for writing practice. Latin - Toying with the idea of Lukeion Latin 1. I've been an abject failure at teaching modern foreign languages, even if I know them well. This is clearly a subject that I need to outsource for consistency. Boy Scouts - I'd love to see him get through Life rank and be working on Eagle scout stuff. But slow and steady here. PE - Outrigger canoe paddling (and maybe adding sailing)

I think that there is so much self-censoring that goes on at both ends all parts of the spectrum. The mom of a kid with challenges is afraid of posting what might be seen as failures in parenting. The parent of a high achiever doesn't want to sound like she's bragging. The mom of a kid who is just hitting average milestones wonders why anyone would care about her average kid. All of our kids are beautiful and wonderful creations. I'm pretty confident that each of our kids also makes us want to tear our hair out at times. I have posted about my kids who are nearing the end of their homeschool journey. Most of my posts have been about where I'm reaching - AP level courses, college applications, scholarship apps. If it's working, I don't post so much about it. If it's going really badly, I might post some of our lessons learned. However, I'm reluctant to complain about my kids online. I have no idea where those posts might go in 1-10 years or how they might eventually be linked up to my kids real life. I have three kids and there's a lot of diversity there. One who could have graduated early from high school. I wish I could share his test scores with people, because they make me want to bust. But I don't share. One of his brothers is quite different. He will be ok, because I'm willing to work with him where he is, not as if he's the same as his brother.

On a practical level: Do her flashcards have all of the cited definitions on them? Does she memorize her vocabulary before attempting translations, or is she using the vocabulary list a lot? Is she still going through flashcards for words that were from previous chapters? Does she read through the target sentence first for general meaning, then come back through and do a full translation? Does she go back over the sample translations after she submits a homework to catch differences? Has she tried using this site http://www.warmenhoven.org/latin/vocab/ I liked this one, because you could target areas of weakness. For my kids, it was a lot of the "annoying little words." I also made Quizlet lists of their problem words, so they could use the Quizlet app to practice when we were on the road. https://quizlet.com/ Another thing to do is to take the flashcards and group them by category. For example, all of the words that might mean field or a place in the outdoors. All of the words for ruling or command. All of the words for new or fresh or inexperienced. This can help with recognizing patterns or connections in the sense of a word. (As an example, why might we say that a bunch of troops are "green" when we mean they are inexperienced in battle? It would relate to the sense of new, green shoots in spring.)

Sure, if I felt that the foundation could be improved. It is something that I would discuss with the Barrs. How much time is she putting into Latin in order to get the A? What you are describing suggests that she may know some of the possible translations for a word, but be struggling with more nuanced aspects of the word meaning. That might stem from knowing the most common aspect of a word's meaning, but not being so conversant with other meanings. That might also be something that an extra year of wide reading in English will help develop. Crosswords, word puzzles, and reading literature that is older and uses less familiar vocabulary may help. (Please don't take this as a slight on your kid's abilities. It's not intended as such at all.) A student could get an A+ on a semester of Latin by devoting a ton of time to it. Our experience has been that going into higher level translations increases the level of difficulty at the same time that other coursework is getting harder. Keep in mind that Lukeion Latin 3 doesn't just add translations. It also has Word Study papers, where students pick a word from their recent translations and do a deep discussion of that word's meaning and usage in Latin over time as well as its influence on English. They also do peer reviews of each other's papers. And don't underestimate the factor of brain fog and emotional roller-coastering as puberty hits. I'm very glad that AP Latin and turning 13 didn't coincide. Of course each kid is different. My three kids aren't the same. None the less, IMHO 9th grade wasn't a cakewalk. I don't think either of my older kids would have done well with Word Study papers in 8th grade. By the time they were a couple years older, they could crank them out. DS recently realized that he was 500 words short on an essay that was due in 3 hours. He wrote the 500 words in an hour and had time to edit the paper. This would have been much harder at 13. A quick personal story. I took Russian in college. It was my third foreign language. I got an A in both semesters first year. But I didn't have a solid foundation in some basic concepts and second year was tough. During third year, I was trying to do translations, when I didn't have a mastery of some of the basics of word endings. I still got good grades and still got a minor, but I missed a lot along the way. I would have been much better off with a more solid foundation. That is why I'd consider repeating Latin 2, even with a good grade. Especially with a younger student.

Also try searching with the book title but drop "human". I'm not sure that's how college courses would be titled. Or try searching for (Author Name) Geography Syllabus. I had better luck with college syllabuses than high schools. High schools seemed light on actual reading assignments in the syllabus.

If the course has not been revised recently the samples would still be pretty valid. Even with political border changes the themes of geography would apply.

One option you don't mention is to repeat Latin 2. I think 7th grade is on the young side developmentally for keeping pace with some of Lukeion, especially the practice of translating to best fit. I know Latin 3 was a lot of time and work for my high schoolers. It would not be a failure to circle round and solidify skills in Latin 2 before going forward. My kids had Fisher for 1 and Barr for 2-AP. We love them both.

I was going to point out something similar. Purdue admits students to particular colleges within the university. It's possible to be turned down for one program, but have another program at the university suggested. Another way of asking the question is to ask how difficult it is to be accepted into a particular degree program. They can then tell the student if it's a matter of taking courses as a freshman and being accepted into the program or applying as a high school student.

How fun. I recently learned that the Benjamin Britten opera of A Midsummer Night's Dream sticks very close to the script of the play for the libretto. The story I read indicated that they had a short period of time to do the opera. They put all their effort into the music and used Shakespeare for the lyrics.

:iagree: This is very similar to what I did for DS1. I also had a college ask if he was taking AP or Dual Enrollment classes and recommend weighting his gpa. Another school indicated that they have so many different gpa schemes come in that they don't consider the gpa much as an absolute number (in other words, it might be useful to compare students within one district, but not across districts or states). I only had one type of weighting (1 point bump for anything weighted). I didn't try to differentiate between honors, AP, DE, etc. I only weighted home-developed courses if they were AP level. I also specified exactly what type of courses in general were weighted and which courses in particular met that general criteria. My transcript fit onto one page, but also had a second sheet with it where I laid out my gpa calculations. I listed each class, the grade, the quality point unweighted and weighted and then the reason for that course having a weighted grade. I had enough room on the main page of the transcript to put in a box that gave details of how many credits were completed each year, with the cumulative weighted and unweighted gpa.

I would call again and ask to talk to the AP coordinator for the school. Ask if they think they will have room for the tests you are looking for. Some tests aren't offered at all schools. Other exams are so popular that school do have problems with having extra spots for outsiders. (I had the first problem with Comparative Government and the second problem with US Government and with US History.) The secretary may know what the general timeline is, but might not be in a position to predict if having spots open is actually likely. I'm always antsy about waiting until March, because other options might have closed at that point.

We lived very briefly in California. We are no longer there. There are really good UC schools, but the OOS tuition is extremely high. (The OOS tuition supplemental cost is over $20k per year.) My perception was that the competition for the outstanding UC schools was also very high. My kids were longshots to be admitted places like Berkeley, and probably wouldn't get merit aid or need aid there. I don't like hoop jumping, and the A-G requirements and the need to work around them as a homeschooler felt like hoop jumping. While we were there, I read and heard often that the UC schools were impacted, meaning that students struggled to graduate in 4 years.

Oddly enough, CB told me that they couldn't access batch numbers for any score reports after mid October. I have to say I thought that was pretty peculiar. I think one of the problems my son is having is that the score reports were sent before his application was completed with this school. Although I'm not very sympathetic, since other schools, with lower rankings, managed to connect his test scores and his application once it was received.

I found a resource for IB Geography, which has a number of special themes (Geography of Food and Health; Leisure, Sport and Tourism; Oceans and their Coastal Margins; etc) for geography. These might be good frameworks for geography study that cross physical and cultural geography. http://www.ibo.org/programmes/diploma-programme/curriculum/individuals-and-societies/geography/ I also found a physical geography textbook that I'm liking the looks of. Exploring Physical Geography http://www.amazon.com/Exploring-Physical-Geography-Stephen-Reynolds/dp/0078095166/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1454972163&sr=1-1&keywords=exploring+physical+geography

I do have a similar opinion of transcript services. Families I know and respect have used them, but I can't get past the feeling that I'm buying credibility with no value added for the education.

Would they accept a school that does transcripts for homeschoolers? Something like Crossroads Christian School? They aren't physically present in MA, but I think they will do transcripts for homeschoolers living in many places.

Once college cannot find the SAT and SAT Subject test scores they were sent. The SAT scores were sent on two separate occasions. I suspect that because scores were sent before the application was completely submitted, the school didn't know what to attach the scores to and just trashed them. I after going back and forth with them and College Board for about a week, I finally paid to have scores sent again. (Which I resented, because we'd already paid to send those scores.)

This is similar to the revised policy for Drexel. (I think Drexel wanted to see 24 college credits.) I wonder if they would accept credit granted for AP exam scores. It's nice that there is some means possible now, but it grates. In my mind, it says that their college wants to see a year or more of success in some other college setting in order to consider admission. I don't know how good of a school U Mass Amherst is. Drexel's policy was reason to apply to other, more accommodating schools. (I'm especially irked by the fact that they will accept a transcript from a home school agency. I have friends who have used such organizations. The agency looked over logs and samples of work and tests. But they really don't know if the logs and work samples represent what the educational experience really looked like.)

Several of the schools ds applied to specified what sort of information they needed in order to evaluate a homeschooler. A transcript with course description was the easiest way for me to assemble and accumulate the info. We used Apologia for Chemistry. For physics we used College Physics by Knight & Jones and Apologia. None of these were super old, but they weren't last year's edition either. For biology we used Miller & Levine's Biology. I went back and forth over the best edition. I finally went with the dragonfly edition, which is 2004, because Kolbe had a course plan that was easy to implement. I decided that this edition was OK when I realized the very large public district near us was using the same edition still. Their students go on to many select universities. I haven't had anyone question the date of the edition we used. Having said that, I wouldn't use a biology textbook spine that was any older than the dragonfly edition. I think too much is moving too quickly in biology. I am hoping to update to a newer course plan when ds3 does biology.

In this case, I'm pretty sure it's "don't care." They have a very high middle 50% SAT score. Not single digit acceptance rate, but around 24%. They are a profile school, and I'm a little doubtful that it would be affordable unless the NROTC scholarship were moved. Because of the high student stats, ds isn't the type of student to get merit aid here. Honestly, I'm getting tired of the whole application cycle. He has an excellent option or three already in hand. A scholarship for full tuition. It makes me not that eager to keep chasing after this one. The emails from admissions aren't even that cordial. No indication that they regret losing his scores or putting him through more hassle. DS sent a screen shot of the page on College Board that shows when the score report was sent by CB, so it's not like he's making things up.

Gently because I realize that you are frustrated that your hopes for the day didn't come to fruition. What was it the anniversary of? Was this the date of your first date, first kiss, something else? I have a hard enough time remembering our wedding date anniversary. I would never be able to keep track of anniversaries of other significant milestones. I frequently forget our anniversary. It is right around another big holiday and just gets covered up by the hoopla for the other season. Also, we have had to reschedule our observance of another year because we were traveling, moving or one of us was away on business. Why not celebrate in a month with getting married? It doesn't have to be a giant party with the wedding trappings that are marketed by the wedding industry. I've had friends who catered with Kentucky Fried Chicken. There is no reason you couldn't be married quietly in a church* or by a justice of the peace. *I am confident that most of our pastors would be happy to perform a wedding at little expense given a few weeks notice.

I looked again. LearnSmart may be the study site. SmartBook is some kind of adaptive reading program.

I am looking at some physical geography books. One has a SmartBook program option. It looks like an enhanced study site. It's from McGraw Hill. Has anyone used this? It is distinct from the book's the work site