I'm another one-hour-per credit person, even when I was teaching a dd with aspirin-type traits. That said, the thing is that high school credits are based on two methods: completion of an established body of work, such an an algebra textbook, or completion of a number of hours of work - I've heard of folks using 120 to 180 hours, but to be honest and forthright, I think the amount of work during those hours needs to be at the rate and level of typical high school work. The 6 hour day is pretty standard and pretty do-able, you can tell your son. By comparison, a job at Target requires 8 hours on your feet with virtually no down time besides an unpaid lunch and two 10 minute potty breaks. Doing less than 6 hours won't affect anything except how long it takes to earn credits. Schooling year round might compensate a bit, but usually year-rounders take regular weeks off. One way to help make it work could be to reduce the number of credits you require. Electives are great for the student and for a solid transcript. However, they might not be essential at your school with your student. And if he does well in his 4core areas, and learns how to test well, then I dont think you will be cutting off all his college options. You might also be able to build an elective credit out of something he is doing outside of school hours, maybe something he enjoys. Julie

I was in a child care magnet school in 12th grade, and I'm sure we did child development study, but the main things I remember were building a largfixated file of activities to have on hand for planning the day, touring several very different facilities (academic,family style, community-run, etc), and running a child care program in our school for a few months followed by outside experience (with feedback) at another facility after that.

When my son was doing Spectrum, he was in love with this chart, which shows all the +/- details he needed: http://www.sciencegeek.net/tables/PT_ions.pdf

Strongly disagree. My kids have been more STEM majors and it's all about content. Myself I didn't take any writing classes but I wrote a lot of papers in the various liberal arts and it was all about content and perspective. My editing friends were in journalism and English, and they never talked about tiny style details. My honors thesis professor had a couple of grammar pet peeves that he would correct but he never counted those in his grading. I think my biggest weakness was not having clear enough thesis statements, and it was my honors statistics public presentation where that was first pointed out to me, of all places. Anyways, no, nothing has anything to do with ly words (go ahead and avoid them if you can). Nothing has to do with sentence length (obviously too many dick-and-jane sentences is annoying unless making a point with it). As some have mentioned, I have seen professors who want you to parrot their perspective and point of view (I try to think of it as wanting you to show you have learned what was taught), but never have I seen mention of things like sentence length. College papers have expectations of content, and clarity assists in presenting that content, so work on strengthening and clarifying your content but don't waste time on silly sentence and word tricks that are not going to matter much, if at all, when you could be looking up another supporting example or editing for the best organization of your points. Usually I say "in my opinion" or "in my experience," but I just can't get myself to say that in this case! Julie

Well, it's hard to compare directly, because Omnibus does American History in 9th, so you'd probably compare their 10th to MFW 9th. To me, the amount of reading in Omnibus 10th and MFW 10th (WHL) is comparable, though I get the impression that Omnibus has a larger focus on acquiring lots of information in general, whereas MFW has a little more of a focus on presenting information where a student is at (tested on a lot of pilot families), applying it to life, and builds skills more gradually as far as pulling out responses and forming them into coherent thoughts. Also, AHL covers the entire Old Testament and associated history in 9th, but saves learning about Rome until the next year when reading the entire New Testament (and continuing into an overview of world history), whereas Omnibus covers "doctrine and theology" for their Bible credit in 10th and the history spans Old Testament and New Testament times -- the typical Greece & Rome together. I haven't used Omnibus, so those are just some comparisons from looking at different things (I started homeschooling a high schooler some 12 years ago, so I've looked at high school things for a long time LOL). Julie

Yes, 9th grade wouldn't work for your 6th grader. Even if you have one of those braniacs, a 6th grader is still in the logic stage, building knowledge and skills, making connections. The 9th grade MFW program isn't impossibly rigorous, but the 9th grade student is ready to enter the rhetoric stage -- starting to own his own ideas and compare the thoughts of others, with AHL primarily using an apologetics approach that year. Your kids could still do some things together, maybe science labs or a fine arts credit or other electives, but MFW high school is very much credit/transcript based and geared towards providing for the emerging rhetoric level student. Julie

Any questions you have about MFW? That one would be for your 9th grader, and seem to fit your requirements. Julie

Yes, for things that need to be "written in the margins," your tax software will either have a prepared place for this, or it won't. When it didn't have a place for my situation (not the same as yours), I contacted the service and they said that I couldn't file electronically that year, at least using their software (TaxACT). However, they had the option of printing out my already-filled-out forms from their site, writing in what I needed to (including a manual signature), and mailing them in. Then the next year, they had some kind of fancy software where I could scan the forms I had mailed in and their software would incorporate the information into my forms for that year. I was so happy, because that is one of the main values of using tax software -- not having to enter everything in manually each year. Julie

My kids have taken the PLAN. It's the pre-ACT, similar to the PSAT being the pre-SAT. It also qualifies on college apps for Minnesota dual enrollment. There is no NMSQT associated with it, so most public schools in our area go with the PSAT. Several large (huge) homeschool coops in our area administer the PLAN, whereas they don't seem to be allowed to administer the PSAT, probably because of the high stakes scholarships involved. Julie

I am a fan of Math Relief. I think he is gifted at teaching algebra, pure and simple. And he has everything laid out, including the problems already written on the worksheets and complete solutions, so you could go through the year fairly quickly if he has already done algebra, and Math Relief algebra 2 is shorter, so you might be able to dive into that immediately afterwards. http://www.mathrelief.com/ Julie

LLATL Gold has a poetry section. You could start with a used copy of their Green book to get the foundational poetry lessons SMARR has a poetry series (the same author used in AHL literature). I don't know if it's a fluke or not, but the whole volume seems to come up on a google search. Michael Clay Thompson has some lovely poetry books. I'd almost be inclined to start with the first one, young elementary age, but that's because I need a lot of help with poetry :) HSLDA lists several good resources: http://www.hslda.org/highschool/curriculum.asp#subject_poetry I've tried lots of things but have never gotten very far. There was quite a bit of poetry in WHL, as I recall. Julie

Ah, so you understand. What a blessing your young man will be to the world. My youngest is actually a very good-natured kid, and I try to appreciate that. He also really took the lessons to heart in a "personal communication" course he took at the college last semester, and is trying to communicate better with me. But alas, he is still that cowboy that you describe, always has been, never was a schoolboy. Thanks for comforting me :) Julie

Well, not a distraction, but hopefully some comfort: Enjoy the fact that you are sad. It's actually a lovely treasure that you have -- and not everyone has it. Our local homeschool support group this week was discussing something similar and we basically all said we are just ready for our 18 year olds to be out, to move on, to live with their own decisions, to do things their own way. None of us ever expected to feel this way, but it was the same across the board, whether it was the 1st or the 6th child heading into adulthood, whether it was a textbook family or a sit-on-the-couch-and-read-literature family. School assignments are not getting done because the "adult" child feels he knows how best to manage his time, the number of controls we have is getting very small, and a smoothly running household has become a daily challenge. We just all felt done, separated already, ready for the next stage rather than this limbo of a semi-adult who is still quite dependent but shaking himself free of us. We are all energetic women finding ourselves tired and our home life unsteady. I'm not sure if it's the culture we live in, being almost-inner-city with all kinds of problems and temptations and poor examples around us, or what. However, I was speculating that even in cultures where multiple adults live in one household, there must surely be a strict cultural norm of one woman being in charge of the home, or each adult being in charge of clearly defined areas. Even when we have visited close family over the years, it always takes a lot of self-control for two mothers, for instance, to be under the same roof. I just don't see human beings doing well with shared leadership. And that seems to be the idea that our young men and women have of their situation. I thought I'd feel like you, I loved all my kids to pieces, knew them inside & out, secretly felt they were the best kids ever, raised them carefully according to their unique needs, but with all of them, I think I was just ready for them to leave when they did. Sigh, thanks for letting me share that in the middle of your sweet thread. Maybe someone else will relate. :001_unsure:

I'm going to be the devil's advocate and say, isn't the whole point of home education that parents should be allowed to teach their own children as they see fit? I've known a few girls who received very little academics at home, but that doesn't mean they haven't been able to work hard in community ed or jobs. And I've seen some who received all kinds of academics and aren't doing all that well. I believe in the value of an educated public but I believe even more in the family's right to raise their children their own way, barring blatant abuse. It's also possible I'm just having an argumentative day. Julie

I've found it extremely unusual that a college will cover the full cost as you mentioned, with tuition, room, board, and books. Or even that a college will allow outside scholarships to cover the full cost -- unless you give up the entire grant and merit scholarship first. Typically, colleges use the FAFSA as a baseline, and provide their scholarships and grants ONLY after the parent portion (or student portion for an independent student) is paid. And even a "zero" parent portion (EFC) means some of your "help" will be in the form of loans. I realize there are some unusual private colleges (usually with limited majors), and probably a state college situation that I have not heard about. Then there are those NMSQT types of rare students who are just too wonderful for a college to pass up, and there are special circumstances like students who bring diversity or sports to a college seeking that. But in general, I just wanted to say for the typical newbie reading this thread that this is rare. Julie

Don't Peace Corps and Americorps give some kind of student loan assisstance? We have family and friends who made it work. But I suppose each situation is very different. http://www.peacecorps.gov/volunteer/learn/whyvol/finben/instructions/

Like 8fil, my son just didn't fit with the conversational Jacobs. We switched to Teaching Textbooks for the rest of that year, beginning right in the middle at the same place in their text, and the transition was pretty seamless.

I can't say what I *wish* I'd done, but what I liked to do in 8th. I liked to focus on writing, as you seem to be, so I'm all for that. However, I find it best to focus on each child's strengths and weaknesses in that last year before high school. For instance, you mention style. My youngest does not need one.single.second wasted on style; instead, he needs to be reigned in to be more factual. Each of my kids was a very different writer. By 8th grade, I wouldn't spend time on a program that doesn't suit the individual child, except as far as a plan that involves simply writing and giving reader feedback. Do as much as you can to insure the student can write a logical, organized paragraph with a main point and supporting details. Julie

I wouldn't totally evaluate military potential by the way a kid behaves at home. My brother the Marine was the most lackadaisical teen you could imagine, nice but not very motivated, didn't really do what he was told, not very physical, fishing was his sport of choice. But he loved, loved, loved the discipline of the military, the physical fitness, the defense of hearth and home. (He still has great posture, LOL.) Even my dad the disciplined Air Guard career Colonel said he joined the military because he was goofing around too much in college. That I wouldn't worry about. What I have worried about with my boys is whether they really get that they will no longer be able to decide "I want to have this job" because whatever the promises were, they can be changed as the military needs them to be changed. Of course, it might be less likely that a college-trained candidate be changed from what he is trained in, as long as the college was finished before beginning active duty. (Oldest son has already finished his 8 years in Army Reserves, and youngest seems to have dropped his Marines aspirations and the recruiter is no longer coming over. Last year, he passed their little online test easily, so they seemed to be pursuing him, but he wasn't a senior yet so nothing could be formal. Unfortunately, neither of my boys wanted to be an officer, not really the types to want to yell at people, which they seemed to feel would be a lot of it LOL.) Julie

I don't have a lot of experience with officer training/academies, but plenty of military folks in my family. I would say the one thing I wanted my boys to get was that once you sign on that dotted line, you belong to the military. For instance, many a young man was promised to be able to take college classes during the military and it rarely happens, unless it's a random online class while the enlistee's duties are in a lull. I also know young men who signed up for career paths that would keep them off the ship, and then ended up on the ship. If you join the Navy or the Marines (a branch of the Navy), you would be best to accept you will likely be on a ship. And with the Marines in particular, there really isn't a chance to become anything but, well, a Marine. You can't be a medic (except as a side job, band-aid type of work) or build bridges because those are Navy jobs. The Marines are a division of the Navy that is meant to just be... Marines. My brother was a Marine and absolutely loved it, and he probably should have just stayed in. There aren't really any skills that transfer to civilian careers outside of very physical things. And compared to other family in other branches of the service, my brother had a particularly difficult transition out. Maybe it was just him, but we wondered if Marines in particular are so accustomed to being told what to do every minute of the day, that it is difficult to suddenly find no one standing over you - it took a good while for him to get himself up for work, clean up after himself, etc. (he was not in war). Julie

That basement group sounds like a great thing. There's something about teen discussion that sticks longer than parent discussion, KWIM? I had explained Reformed/Arminianism to my ds, but when another student asked him, So which are you, that's when he decided to figure out, What were those again...? I don't have a favorite or not, but I can contribute some comparisons, based on my tendency to obsessively read when I'm looking into something. Here are some of the things I've read. 1. How to Be Your Own Selfish Pig, by the daughter of Francis Schaeffer. This is pretty short and topical. A chapter will bring up a question that young people at L'Abri have often asked, and discuss it. What's it all about, is every view okay, are Eastern religions okay, etc. The title comes from reading a magazine with her mother and concluding that "How to Be Your Own Selfish Pig" would be a better title for the magazine, and wondering if that part of our culture is okay. The topics seemed based on a lot of experience with the issues teens struggle with, but it's more of a conversational intro. 2. The Deadliest Monster, An Intro to Worldviews, by J.F. Baldwin. This uses Frankenstein and Jekyll/Hyde to teach that worldview differences can seem subtle but actually be very vast. He basically says that every view of the world is either a Frankenstein view (problems caused by society, we can be completely good) or a Jekyll/Hyde view (conflict of good and bad comes from within each of us), and that Christianity is the only worldview that can help us understand the truth of Jekyll/Hyde in this world. (This is used in Starting Points.) 3. Thinking Like a Christian, by David Noebel. Summit Ministries also has Lightbearers for junior high, and the full-year Understanding the Times for high school; Thinking Like a Christian was designed for Sunday School/small groups rather than for Christian schools, so it’s shorter – MFW uses it for one semester of high school so that other materials can be added. I do have Understanding the Times on my shelf, but it is just more than I’ve ever wanted to read from one author’s viewpoint; maybe some day. Thinking Like a Christian has chapters on 10 “disciplines†that are easily understandable to teens – biology, ethics, law, economics, etc. A little of the scholarly worldview vocabulary crept in, such as a quick overview of how the Christian worldview fits into the various ideas of philosophy (which has the most dense vocab, to me), but the discipline-based topics made it easy for my ds to understand what he had just learned. Within each discipline, the book looks at “worldview questions†– e.g. the discipline of history asks “How should we interpret human events?†I did the “teacher option†and did the activities that introduce each chapter. In one of the first activities, I was to cut out random newspaper articles on not only political and science issues, but sports events, craft fairs, whatever. Then I was to ask my son to separate the articles into things related to your worldview and things that don’t have a worldview. The basic goal was that by the end of the year, the student would realize that EVERYthing comes from a worldview. (This is scheduled in MFW year 3.) 4. Transforming Your Worldview: How to Think Like a Christian, by Michael J. Ericson. This is a comb-bound, home-published type of program. I think it’s the one that was sold on Vegsource for many years. This one is very philosophy-based, looking at underlying philosophical worldviews as influencing all areas of society. To me, this would be good for a family that wants to build on philosophy terminology (ontology/being, epistemology/truth, ethics), delve into the philosophy of science and such, and become more familiar with philosophers (from Aristotle through Kant). 5. Assumptions That Affect Our Lives, by Christian Overman. This is a novel-sized book with questions at the end of each chapter. His perspective is to divide worldviews into Greek (the worldview that affected Rome and eventually America, and is the most influential on most of our students) and Hebrew (the worldview of the Bible). He uses a lot of good examples to draw you into seeing the similarity between issues today and issues of anient Greece, a few hundred years B.C. He then compares the worldview that encompasses all of that, vs. the worldview as taught in the Bible (Old and New Testament, not an issue of Greek language but of culture). (This book is scheduled in Starting Points and in MFW year 3.) 6. The Universe Next Door, by James Sire, divides worldviews into 6-10 what I’d call “scholarly faith categories,†such as deism, nihilism, and eastern pantheistic monism. It reads more like a chapter book than a textbook, and each chapter takes one worldview out to its limits, and compares it with the answers that Christian theism would give. I felt it brought up a lot of thoughts and ideas that students may confront in college but not necessarily things high schoolers would be asking yet. In homeschooling my kids, I always found it tough to know where the line falls between “prep for the questions that are coming†and “waiting until the material speaks to you.†(This book is scheduled in WVWW-1.) 7. Stobaugh’s American Literature. Not technically a worldview program, this text (at least as adapted for MFW) begins with worldviews and continues to plug worldview ideas into literature study. He also divides worldviews into scholarly categories, with 7 including Naturalism, Existentialism, Romanticism, Theism, and Deism. Then American early documents and literature are studied with a bit of worldview evaluation thrown in. His are dense categories that could each be studied extensively, but my student got exposure to one of these more scholarly systems of categorizing worldviews without too much effort. (This is scheduled in MFW year 3.) 8. Teaching the Classics, Worldview Supplement, by Adam & Missy Andrews. They suggest reading literature, absorbing what the author is saying, and then learning to ask whether the author is telling the truth (and they discuss physical truth vs. poetic truth, that an author can depict a worldview truthfully or falsely, etc.). TTC courses are short and then depend on your using a long list of ideas for drawing out a student evaluation using the Socratic method of questioning. This supplement adds Socratic questions on what an author says about God, society, nature, evil, death, etc. 9. Francis Schaeffer’s video series, How Should We Then Life (close to 6 hours, if you include the ending interviews, now I believe all on Youtube). Schaeffer doesn't so much label worldviews in scholarly ways, as he addresses cultural values like personal peace, affluence, apathy, and oppression. He also has an interesting point for kids to realize, in that other worldviews can "borrow" Christian views in faulty ways. I personally began by thinking the series was cheesy and ended by almost crying that someone finally helped me understand the absolute flop that my well-intentioned generation ended up as (at least that was my perspective). The gradual loss of a worldview in the society I grew up in was very much my experience, and led to a deep searching in very strange and unfulfilling directions for many of my peers (myself included L ). I think he “spoke to me†because he spent his life discussing the questions asked by young people of my generation. Anyways, I digress… I showed a few of the final videos to my son, but felt he was already quite familiar with the history topics of the earlier videos through homeschooling. (This is scheduled gradually in WVWW.) 10. WVWW, by David Quine. I went through part of year 1 as teacher-ed while homeschooling my older dd. It’s more of a chronological study of major Western worldviews, rather than categorizing worldviews. It includes studying whole books outside of the text, including lots of Schaeffer that first year, lots of audios on various models of government and economic, plus whole books of the Bible (not the whole Bible straight through as is my preference, but at least not jumping around to small verses). Quine to me is similar to “inductive Bible studies,†in that he is putting you into the original works to draw conclusions using evidence, but on the other hand he is carefully scripting exactly what you do in order to lead you to certain conclusions. For instance, if you do his art program alongside WVWW-1, you will line up the art in a specific order and make conclusions about the rise of the worship of human form, and then the deterioration of society into impressionism, abstract, and modern art. So, if you find yourself enjoying impressionism, I don’t think there’s a study strand for that, so maybe it’s more about reading an author’s text after all. Wow, sorry so long! Julie

Thanks EL. A very nice reminder. And an amazing blessing to celebrate. Raising teens is so hard sometimes, balancing support and push. The risks feel so great, either way. Reminders are good.

It was a battle here, too, one that I surrendered. Even my public schooled kids were given school planners and "required" by the schools to use them, even told what to write in them, but no one did. An additional problem in homeschool was that my kids, especially youngest, could fill an hour looking at pages, scribbling random notes that may or may not be factual, and not truly learning. He did this in K-2 public school as well. Therefore, I have always required "one class period worth of work" rather than a time requirement. I would allow them to appeal due to a difficult assignment or going into more depth etc. It wasn't a perfect system, either, but I gave out the amount of work, and I took on the headache of recording what actually got accomplished (way easier to gauge with my youngest using a pre-tested amount of work laid out on the MFW grid). Yay for those kids who have learned this skill. It's a great thing they've accomplished. Julie

Ah, I see, the whole 4 years. In that case, I think you'd get no Schaeffer the first year, and a ton of Schaeffer the second year (plus Augustine), and then I'm not sure. In the first 2 years of MFW, you'd have the entire Bible (not just sections) and then there are a few other Bible books that you might sub out over those 2 years. In the 3rd year of MFW, there is a focus on Worldviews in both the Bible and the American Literature, at least the first semester and a bit into the second semester, with some of the founding documents and such as well. By the last two or three months of year 3, and into most of year 4, I don't think it's hard to sub at all, at least to me. There is a connection between the more modern history and literature, but I get more of a "these are the final things I want to get into you" feel during those months (e.g. Speech and another research paper in English, both of which my ds has experienced through dual enrollment). Thus the Bible and literature studies are often more stand-alone and easy to sub in and out. There is an especially nice interaction between the optional geography credit and the Bible using Operation World, but that's mostly on Fridays. I am a subber-outer, since my son has been in a boys' book club most of the time, and just because I had things I'd already used with my older dd. Not everyone will retain the benefits of MFW if they start subbing. Know thyself, I guess LOL. I am careful, though, to evaluate what I'm giving up, or what my ds in particular might need. I find the MFW manuals very helpful to *me* in seeing the full picture so I can make those careful choices. HTH, Julie P.S. I am always a great fan of having dad work with the student, like Crystal mentioned. My dh did read the Bible history books with us in years 1 & 2, and also did some shop classes in junior high. Those dad experiences are precious now that dad is no longer with us, but even without that, they are priceless connections for all children. Encourage it as much as you can.

I just wanted to clarify that Starting Points is not the same as WVWW. I got confused as I read the posts, because Starting Points doesn't include Schaeffer or Augustine. It's a largely a worldview course, similar to the one that MFW uses in year 3, and adds a little literature (Frankenstein/Dr. Jekyll) and a little American history (Never Before). I haven't used Starting Points but looked at it closely. I did do part of WVWW-1 myself, as self-education when my older dd was in high school, and it indeed was more than half Schaeffer, if you include Mrs. Schaeffer's book & the videos. I am a big Schaeffer fan, but I felt it was more than my dd needed at the time. I did add the Schaeffer videos when my youngest was doing MFW, and added a short Teaching Company series "about" Augustine's life & works, both during WHL, but my ds likes videos :) I only mention that because you brought up MFW. I think your dh would be a wonderful resource if you do decide to tackle WVWW. Just mostly thought I might clarify about Starting Points. Julie