I agree. If you choose a grade for them and they disagree, you kind of started it. The most obnoxious I have ever been about grade level was when I signed DS up for Sunday School without a grade level (which was fine every other year - it was a combined K-5th group) and the mom taking the registration forms quizzed me about his age and birthday and school situation and decided based on his summer birthday, male gender, and homeschooling that he should be enrolled two full years BEHIND his age. When I objected she said he was short too. I imagine she didn't appreciate all I had to say on the subject at that point, but I would never have brought it up if she hadn't first. Two hundred threads tagged grade level. Apparently it's not as straightforward as one might think.

I wanted to put off Calculus until 12th grade, since DS is planning to go into engineering and I figured he'd be retaking it at college anyway.... but he has come up with a few projects that might require calculus (a science project that relies on some sophisticated mechanics, and several electronics projects that I don't understand), and all of a sudden that's what we're doing!

we did "themes" -- first week-long and then month-long (and then it turned out we never dropped them so it was just everything all the time... lol) So for one week (or month) it might be rockets, and then dinosaurs, and then trains, and then farm animals... you get the picture. It got us out of the house, made sure we were finding our way around the nonfiction section of the library, and kept it all interesting. Train week, in a happy coincidence that I should have planned, started on the weekend that the local historic steam railroad club did an open house, so we got to ride an old steam train and hear all about them from enthusaists. Other stuff was just a kick in the pants to stop putting off opportunities that were always there.... airplane week we went to the to observation park by the airport and watched planes take off and land. Zoo animal week we went to the zoo. During rocket month we set off every kind of stomp rocket, water rocket, ballon rocket, or Estes rocket (with DH's help...) that we could get our hands on. It really was a ton of stuff.... and if I had more than the one kid it might have been too much (unless I had two with similar interests!) Also, it depended on a really pretty good area -- that steam train club, the zoo, the airport... It wouldn't be as easy if you don't have some resources around you, but on the other hand some stuff is everywhere. We did six different weeks on simple machines - not because he needed to identify levers and calculate forces, but because it's a lot of fun to launch jellybeans across the living room, or find a park with a see saw. It was more fun than any other curriculum we could have been using, and it kept the TV off. DS does well with a schedule and always has... but more than that, I do well with a schedule. It doesn't have to be workbooky, but I do need to have a plan. Picnic at the airport and a weekly trip to the library with plenty of readloud time was perfect for me, and it was all really interesting stuff that we both enjoyed. So even though our days were full, we never really had any grumbling... There were some workbooks -- he really liked the early logic stuff from the Critical Thinking company and the Singapore Earlybird math books -- and he would sit and look through his picture books and alphabet books forever. But most of what I planned was outings and picnics and books from the library.

Whether they really were going to be Sunday.... and given the heat (not anxiety mind you, just weather...) who knows how much trouble I might have sleeping Saturday night. ;)

No one I ever dated was anyone I've wanted to give two seconds of thought to since... lol But I did look up a kid I was in kindergarten with, whose parents divorced that year and he moved away and I never saw him again (not tragic or anything, but one of those weird things you remember 35 years later when you can't sleep)... and he had a conveniently unusual name. According to his FB page he's an airline pilot and looks exactly the same as he did in kindergarten! :lol:

Shouldn't affect talent search participation -- the way I read it it's only if you said she was a ninth grader when you register for the SAT (or something). There's no point where you have to say she's a ninth grader -- younger kids can take the exams too -- so it shouldn't be a problem to register for talent search tests at younger grades. I think of all of that, the Greek is your biggest risk. Taking an uncommon foreign language at a very high level is probably exactly what they're trying to weed out. I think what I would suggest is that you keep very good records... so for instance if we could assume that any language can be learned at any level, one year of college learning might be equivalent to two years of high school... and one year of high school might be two years of middle school. So if she gets through less than half of the book in a year, you could make an excellent case for it not being high school or college level. More than half in a year and I think you'd be in "high school course" territory. In our situation, there was no question of avoiding high school courses. It wouldn't have worked. There were other reasons the spelling bee wasn't going to happen, too, so we never had to actually make that decision, but we would have had to forego eligibility if it came down to that. We did start Mathcounts a year early (having grade skipped before that), but honestly, by the time he would be an eighth grader by age it would have been an exercise in getting a perfect score rather than in learning anything new. So while our year early might have kept him from advancing as far as he might have, I don't think I would have wanted him to put that kind of effort into developing his perfectionist side, iykwim. It was a perfect competition for him when he was in 6th and 7th (5th and 6th by age), and it was not so perfect when he was in 8th (7th). Another year would not have been better.

Unless the kid is the best among older kids. Then you really REALLY don't want to keep them at age-grade because they stick out so badly and because if there are judges involved they may be sorely unprepared to discuss a project at a higher level than they signed on for. Just to clarify... Scripps eligibility rules aren't only based on stated grade levels, but also on high school coursework. If you claim to be a 4th grader but you've enrolled in more than six classes at a high school level, that's sufficient to disqualify you. http://www.spellingbee.com/contest-rules#eligibility Stated grade level is important for competitions -- Mathcounts eligibility, for instance, is entirely based on when you're in 6th grade (no early entry unless you've skipped, and a three-year limit on eligibility), but not skipping grades isn't always the right answer.

No drop, but math (definitely his strong suit, along with science) came up the least and is now his lowest score! Can't complain all around, but :blink: Excellent on the five points!

Now I have that song in my head!!! :glare: :lol:

It really has been forever, but that sounds right... The mom in charge had one of everything and I think the kids just had the readers.

Yes... "regimented rabbits" sums it up rather well! ;)

We've always had a primary math program (Singapore, until we switched to AoPS) and then something else going on the side, either as part of a group, or in a class, or something.... So while DS was doing Statistics at home, we were doing Zome Geometry with a group. And when we were doing Geometry at home, we were doing Competition Math in a group. Discrete Math with AoPS classes and Financial Math to go with Economics... That sort of thing. It wasn't so much that we were doing two whole curricula in regular school time but that we had a side interest going along in the meantime. And really, once we've hit one topic in math, it never quite gets dropped... so as soon as he had Statistics as a class, he started using it in his science projects too... and as soon as he had had Discrete Math it got to be a more important part of competition prep.. and so forth. So even when we're doing only one thing, everything else comes back around in one way or another.

There are a few things that are non-negotiable (or would take a LOT of convincing...) but mostly he has his goals, they're quite worthwhile, and we work together to figure out how to get him there. More often than not I need to rein him in a bit to not schedule too optomistically. He likes the idea of a lot of things, but he doesn't always have the foresight to realize how much work it's going to be and how each day will play out. But when he really wants something, schoolwise, we do what we can to make it happen.

It was ages ago (and now I feel old! LOL) but for what it's worth.... We had a group of five or six kids, once a week, and we did two years' worth... maybe 3rd and 4th grade? over the course of a year or a year and a half. The mom that led it didn't do official training but we did use the teacher's guide almost exactly as written. It was really an excellent introduction to literary analysis and writing. Not that the kids wrote much, but to have a very short story (easy enough to read three or four times), and a specific quest, plus very closely guided, gave them an extremely good handle on how to approach longer works with less guidance. And having the closely-managed discussion group set them up well for wide open discussion in the following years. We switched to a book group format after JGB, and you could really tell which kids had been in the original group and which hadn't, just because of their ability to discuss and disagree respectfully, and to argue with evidence and not personality. That carried over into writing as well, in later years. My favorite memory of that group was from two years after JGB when we were reading Tom Sawyer and one of the kids noticed how much more detail was spent on describing animals than on describing adults. It was one of those aspects that could really get missed, but it contributes to much to the story -- the animals, even dead animals, are of much more immediate interest to the (young) characters than the adults around them! In that book group meeting, I had six kids flipping through their books finding and marking passages to share, describing either animals or adults. It was great! I don't know that you have to do more than a year or so to get the benefits, but I do think it's worth the effort to get a small group together. I think six to eight is perfect. Fewer and you might not have much discussion; more and it would be hard to manage. Our group went on in later years to become our Shakespeare class, which has been one of the most amazing resources we've had in all our homeschooling years. Even if DS grows up to be a geeky engineer (lol) Shakespeare will always stick with him.

Spanish Online at Oklahoma State University. http://spanishonline.okstate.edu/

We moved this year, so I've gotten to do this in two places now (wheee...) The first time it was extremely easy. One of the local charter schools contacted our homeschool group to let us know they'd be happy to host any homeschooled kid that wanted to sit for the exams with them. I got on the list, wrote the check and that was that. Except we moved before May... and I had to start all over again with schools I knew nothing about. If you contact the College Board (there's an email address and a phone number somewhere on the AP website) they'll send you names and phone numbers for a few schools at a time. It took about a dozen tries with their list -- I got a couple schools that didn't offer the exam we wanted, several that didn't have room, one that *might* have had room but wouldn't be sure until all her kids signed up at which point it would be too late to call anyone else... one turned out to be a girls' school and either they really weren't open to outside students joining them or they were trying not to say "no boys" out loud but since I have a DS it amounts to the same thing... (things I would have known if I were local!) They were all extremely pleasant about it, but it took a LOT of calling. I finally got one, way on the other side of town, wrote another check, and that was that. They were really fabulous, too - very organized and professional about everything, great to deal with all around. I'll probably start with them next year, although I'm tempted to give the neighborhood school another shot just because the exams we're considering next year are all first thing in the morning... and a drive across town during rush hour isn't a great way to start the day.

So we "finish" a grade just before he leaves and "start" the next when he gets back.

DH made it easy for himself by buying only black trousers. Seven identical pairs, and if one wears out he buys a replacement. That way the shirts will always go with the trousers, because we never buy anything that doesn't.... lol (no "almost black" colors, and no brown - he hates brown anyway) He used to try to mix and match but he really didn't like light colored trousers anyway, and no brown, so it was pretty much down to black, dark grey, or navy... and he figured going to all black wasn't a big step from there.

I have my Trader Joe's coffee right here, and the ingredients read "Whole Bean Coffee." I don't see any artificial flavors, colors, additives, anything... unless you count "Nitrogen flushed can to help ensure freshness"... but I don't. I have a can of root beer here too (not caffeinated)... it has Carbonated Water, High Fructose Corn Syrup, Caramel Color, Sodium Benzoate, Natural and Artificial Flavors, and Quillaia Extract (whatever that is) I do add sugar to my coffee. 2 teaspoons is about 8 grams compared to the 45g of sugar in the root beer. Comparing caffeinated soda to caffeinated coffee... it looks like 71mg is the FDA limit for a 12 ounce soda, and an 8 ounce cup of coffee could have anywhere from 100 to 150 mg. So about twice as much caffeine. I'm okay with that. We drink coffee, tea, and soda here... decaf after 2pm (DH drinks only decaf at any time), all in moderation. I wouldn't have a problem with a kid having a cup of coffee or tea or a soda, but I wouldn't want it to be a large proportion of their daily diet. As long as they eat well the rest of the day, a single drink isn't going to ruin their health.

We picked up a piece at the planetarium. There are events at several local parks, but I think we'll just step outside and take a look with the welders glass. I've done pinhole projections for eclipses before, but the projection is so tiny I think it would take some patience (and a steady hand) to see something as small as Venus.

That might have been me.... When we were in NC we had a meeting with a UNC admissions officer (the one who handled homeschoolers in our county) and he specifically said that he wanted to see Algebra 1, Algebra 2, Geometry, and a fourth math on the transcript no matter when they were taken. Under direct questioning he confirmed that even if they were taking in elementary school he wanted to see them there. He did not recommend quitting math after four years if you started early, but he wants to check off those specific classes without having to hunt through a whole packet for hints, or making assumptions based on later coursework. DS is planning to graduate from a private high school, but if I were writing his transcript (or submitting a homeschool transcript for what we did before switching to private) there would be a section for coursework completed before 9th grade. Partly because it includes work that would not be assumed based on later courses (like discrete math and statistics), and partly because he started some things ridiculously early, and I don't want anyone guessing that he glossed over the basics to get to the interesting part. None of it will be used in calculating a GPA or minimum number of credit hours needed for graduation, or anything like that.

When DS was in 5th grade, or around then, and I was stressing about how to cover grammar and spelling and handwriting and vocabulary and composition and all of that... it helped to remember that it was all one "subject". We weren't going to do an hour of grammar AND an hour of spelling AND an hour of handwriting etc.... We could do an hour (or 90 minutes) of language arts, which on any given day would include some pieces of each of those. So it might mean writing a short paragraph (composition) and editing it (grammar and spelling), looking for other ways to say something (vocabulary)... and then recopying it neatly (handwriting). Reading was separate, and mostly on his own time.

I was thinking of skipping the audit for this year's courses (because I'm a lazy bum... lol) but that might make it worth the effort.

Oklahoma State University Spanish Online is $389 per course. Weird that they're different, but they seem to be run separately.

I know in some states it's a matter of days or weeks, but it might be worth finding out... here it's done in 20 minutes tops.