2ndGenHomeschooler
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Posts posted by 2ndGenHomeschooler
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We’ve done a variety of things over the years. When the DC were little we schooled year round, 3-4 days a week, with a longer break from Thanksgiving through New Year’s and a couple of weeks in the summer. One year we did roughly six weeks on, one off. Another year we took a cross country trip in September and October so we did school November through August. Now that DC are older and one has graduated it makes more sense with their activities to keep closer to a traditional school schedule. I’ll be down to two next year and I’m thinking of shaking it up again. My younger two didn’t have the laid back beginning to school that my older two did due to tagging a long with the older ones. So I’m looking for ways to give them that at the end. I’m going to bring them in on the brainstorming though because both of them really like a predictable schedule and may not want anything too flexible.
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9 hours ago, Arcadia said:
I think spring quarter/semester is when it starts hitting home (emotionally) that they are really leaving home for college in a few months. That their group of friends are likely going to be dispersed to various colleges.
Yes, this has definitely been a factor. She and most of her friends are staying local for school or work, but she’s feeling the change in relationships. Everyone is busier and it‘s hard to find time to get together with people. Also, their views on life are changing and those differences are sometimes hard to navigate. It’s been an emotional time.
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7 hours ago, Eos said:
Senioritis Is Real. You are in the midst of it now so I realize this is not helpful for you but I'm leaving it here for others who may come after.
I finally learned this lesson with fourth graduate - I made the junior and senior year plans for dd to be completely done with everything important by the end of fall semester senior year. My three olders taught me.
I had a melting down senior two years ago but assumed it was just her personality. DD2 jumped into senior year excited and on top of things. The complete opposite of DD1. She started weeks before I planned for us to start, was getting up a little early to get a subject done before work, and generally seemed to be managing it all just fine. Until the past couple of months.
DD3 will be a senior in the fall. We‘d already planned on a lighter year for her as she‘s already passed where her sisters were when they graduated in all but one subject and she has no desire (right now) to go to college. But as we make our plans, I will be extra aware that this is a “thing” senior year and focus on the fun stuff in the spring.
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5 hours ago, ieta_cassiopeia said:
Give her a day or two off with reasonable sleep, then discuss having a capstone experience that will mark a definite full stop to studies needed for graduation (the speech already organised is likely to be the most natural option, but consider other options such as this week's co-op presentations if she seems to need an earlier stopping point). If she's still not getting enough sleep, ask if she'd like you to get some sort of assistance for this and if she agrees, prioritise this over all academics. Under those circumstances, calling it done immediately would be legitimate even if she had done quite a bit less than she already has. (If she's improving after the 1-2 days but not 100% better, continue with the lighter workload because chronic insufficient sleep takes a while from which to fully recover).
Maths and theoretical science to prepare for college are probably better done with a little bit of daily review rather than doing the whole thing in a single week preceding a complete months-long break. It could be worth negotiating letting her do 10 minutes each per weekday all summer or to a specified point during the summer (with a weekly informal discussion on what she chose to read) in exchange for being deemed "done" in both subjects now for graduation purposes. It wouldn't have to be the set book as long as it was covering maths/science that was useful/interesting to her.
If there are any outstanding labs, pick the one you and she agree is the most interesting, do it, write it up and call it good. If she was really looking forward to other ones in the expected lab list, think of them as opportunities to make fun memories post-graduation.
If she needs psychology for college, consider treating it like maths and theoretical science. Otherwise, consider making it reading-only or just calling it done (experimental parts can be treated like outstanding labs).We came up with a plan similar to this. We found logical end points for Psychology and Chemistry and are dropping math for now. This summer she will spend a few minutes a day pinpointing the areas of Algebra that need review and working on them. We will end the school year with the big speech tournament. She’ll schedule some last minute coaching to prep for this.
We both feel better about this plan. I feel like she’s finishing what needs to be finished, and she feels like some of the weight is coming off. This leaves us space for some of the fun parts of being a senior that were starting to feel very stressful due to lack of time. We’ll go shopping for a dress for the co-op dance coming up, get some new suits for speech, schedule graduation pictures, and plan a graduation party for some point in June. She’ll have time to get some rest and hopefully be ready to enjoy her last trip to camp this summer. And I’ll have plenty of time to get final transcripts to the school by mid-July.
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10 hours ago, freesia said:
I am a major finisher. That’s for reference. However, with my third, he was soooo done in April of his senior year. I realized my nephews school let senior do an internship the last month of 12th grade. I thought that was a brilliant solution. 10 days more of chemistry will make no difference in her life. I would let her focus on her speech. It will be fine. Ds, who did not technically finish all of his classes ( except Dual enrollment and maybe one other) got a 3.6 his first semester and a 4.0 this one. So, if she generally doesn’t give up, I wouldn’t think twice. If this is a pattern, get her some support but even then this one semester won’t matter. Senior year is its own thing.
ETA: I didn’t finish my thought. I let ds go work for a tent company for the last 6 weeks and just finish his dual enrollment and physics 2 class. But I skipped the last tests and the final.
I am a major finisher too. Actually, until this year, I have insisted on finishing every book each year of high school. But that back fired because we would end up just rushing through the curriculum at the expense of comprehension. So this year I decided that we would slow down and focus on quality of work. We’ve roughly kept track of time spent as a way of determining when we’ve done “enough”. As we got closer to May, I looked through each subject and picked ending points that seemed reasonable. But the end of April/beginning of May got insanely busy with a musical, speech championships, and three weeks of a seasonal job for all three kids on top of all our regular stuff.
I’m going to sit down with her today to take a closer look at what she has left and see what our options are. She doesn’t usually give up when things get tough and I don‘t anticipate any problems when she’s in school. In fact, I think she’ll do much better in a classroom at this point. Homeschooling has been great but we’re both ready for her to move on.
7 hours ago, Farrar said:I'd pick one thing for each class and then just let the rest all go.
This is one reason I don't think parents should be left holding the line at the finish. It's one thing to drag a 10th grader through finishing and another thing for a senior. It's just too hard and most of us are used to being flexible. I'd just call it. It won't make a difference for college at this point. And mom letting go of some stuff is radically different from a college student and a professor and a firm deadline. It's just a different vibe.
Congrats on your soon to be graduated kid.
Thank you for this.
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42 minutes ago, cintinative said:
I'm not in a good position to offer advice with so little experience under my belt, but let me offer my encouragement. It really does sound like she has a lot going on. Is it possible she is overtired?
I will confess I am the absolute worst about box checking. I am working hard to relax my death grip on "my plans." For example. my junior is not going to finish the history I have scheduled and he has definitely not spent his time as wisely as he could have. That said, he has done a lot, and I think my schedule was just too much for him. So I am cutting bits out.
Another thing I sometimes do is convert that last chapter to read and do exercises only or just read. Or whatever seems less. Sometimes just dropping a test takes a lot of stress off.
Is it possible for her to cut back some work hours at all? My kids get super stressed with work and school if their hours go over a certain amount. That's going to be a YMMV depending on your kid, but I can totally see it when they hit the wall.
She is definitely overtired. And she’s not always great about going to bed at a reasonable time at night. She stays up later than she needs to. One job ended today so that will save her 20 hours a week.
I did convert some things to just reading. Those subjects are done now. I can’t do that as easily with Chemistry and math. Math has been review this year. She wasn’t as solid on Algebra as she needs to be so we’ve been going through the basics again. But it‘s all familiar so she doesn’t feel like she’s learning anything new.
31 minutes ago, EKS said:I think you should just let her figure it out.
I have thought of this too. She’s 18 and will need to figure out for herself how to balance everything and not over commit. I just worry because she’s had some mental health struggles in the past and I don’t want her to spiral back there. Maybe I’ll try to talk to her tomorrow (if her outlook has improved with some sleep) and see what she thinks she should do.
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My senior is starting to panic about finishing school. She had a mini meltdown during dinner tonight saying that she just needs to be done, she’s learning nothing at this point, her brain can’t do any more. She IS tired. The past few weeks she’s been working 2 part time jobs, plus babysitting several nights a week (only about 2 hours at a time), and cleaning a house every other week. She also had a multi day speech tournament in the middle of all that. One of the part time jobs was a temporary, seasonal position and ended today. That will help. Co-op is over except for end of the year presentations this week. I’m happy to let her skip that. She really doesn’t have much left to do. Three subjects (Science, Math, and Psychology) and 2-3 weeks left of each. But we were hoping to be done next week and she doesn’t feel like it’s possible to finish by then. I’m fine with her spending another week to finish. She’d still be done by the end of May. But she’s starting to come unraveled a little. I’m trying to figure out how to handle this. I already required what I consider to be the bare minimum this year to accommodate all the other stuff she had going on. But maybe it’s still ok to skip the last 8-15 days? Or maybe I give her a day or two to unwind and then we get back to tackling the rest with a plan to finish by the end of the month? Or do I just let her be done now? Then she can take the next couple of weeks to focus on her speech for nationals next month. Maybe that’s more important than finishing the next chapter of Chemistry? I feel like this should be an easier decision but math and science are her weakest subjects and I worry about how she’ll do when she goes to college in the fall. (But really, what will ten more days do?) Also, I’ve seen the times when she wasn’t using her time as wisely as she could have. I need outside opinions.
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On 4/28/2024 at 10:51 PM, Kristini2 said:
We are in a very similar boat except mine does want to go to college (eventually after she tries to pursue a career in ballet). She is 16 and will have finished all her requirements to graduate by the end of this summer, but isn't ready to be done. Next year, she is taking two online classes that she is very interested in -- neuroscience and French -- but otherwise we are both very tempted just let her really take ownership of her learning. She loves to learn so it could be a very good experience for her, but it is a huge leap from doing basically all AP and DE classes this year to completely self-directed learning next year so it's scary to contemplate (especially trying to figure out how to spin that for college apps). Good luck figuring it all out, and keep me posted. Nice to know we aren't the only ones considering this. 🙂
Yes! It’s good to know that someone else is considering something that might be a little “crazy”! I need to sit down with DD and talk about it but she just wrapped up a long week as part of a musical and now she’s working for a few weeks at a tulip farm. She’ll need life to calm down a little before she’ll be ready to think about senior year. But I’d like to have a plan soon! Even if it’s a plan to not have a plan. Ha!
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9th grade for my youngest. He would like this year to be 9th but I’ve pretty much decided that this year will be grade 8.5 and next will be 9th. He meets the age cutoff in our state but has a November birthday and there’s no need for him to graduate at 17 and a half. Also, this year wasn’t as strong as I would like for 9th grade. The 13/14yo boy brain fog has been pretty strong this year. Hoping that will lift by the fall. He also struggles with reading although I feel like I can finally hand him a book and expect that he’ll be able to comprehend it and learn from it. But I have to watch the reading level.
Math - We’ve been doing MUS Algebra 1 but have only made it about halfway through. He still sometimes gets confused by negative numbers although we’re making progress. So more Algebra 1 next year. Either with MUS or maybe switching to Saxon.
Social Studies - I think we’re going to do World Geography this year. Not sure with what. I have Notgrass but also plenty of materials to put together my own thing. I try to use a variety of audio and video sources with him in addition to books as his stamina for reading is still low.
Science - Biology probably. I have Apologia and will just use that. We’ll use the audio book and I think I have the video instruction somewhere too.
English - IEW has worked extremely well for him so we will continue with that. He’s finishing up Level B Year 2 now and we’ll probably do a Theme book next year. I’m thinking the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. We’ve been doing Fix-It Grammar and we’ll keep going with that. I need to choose some literature for him to read, a mix of lower level to practice reading and higher on audio book. We also need to keep working on spelling.
Electives and Extra Curriculars - Piano and Cello, Swimming, Karate, running club (hopefully. The woman who’s running it is moving and no word on a replacement yet). Other enrichment classes at co-op. We’re hoping for robotics and maybe exercise science.
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I usually have our next school year completely planned out by now. But not this year. I’ll be down to two 12th and 9th (ish) so it feels easier in some ways. But these two are also a little more complicated in some ways.
DD16 will be in 12th. She is quite bright, has a number of undiagnosed language based learning challenges, loves art and crafting and music, is an introvert who needs plenty of downtime at home, and has no desire to go to college. She has already done as much or more in all but one subject than my older two did. But I don’t feel the need to “graduate” her early as she’ll still only be 17 when she graduates next spring. So here is our “plan”, such as it is.
Math - She’s doing Pre-Calculus right now. She’s pretty much teaching it to herself but I think we’d need a class of some kind if she were to keep going. So maybe we won’t do math next year? I thought of a Consumer math but I think she’d be bored with it.
Social Studies - She’ll finish US History and do US Government and Economics. All with Notgrass. She’s doing US History right now but is a slow reader so won’t get through it by the end of the year.
Science - I have no idea. She’s done Physical Science, Biology, and is doing Chemistry now. She does pretty well at all of it but doesn’t really care for science. We’ll either skip science next year or I’ll see if maybe she wants to do something like horticulture or marine biology. Any other less traditional ideas?
English - No idea. She writes pretty decently actually, although spelling can be a challenge and she still writes some letters upside down or backwards. Maybe just read books and write about them?
Electives/Extra Curricular Activities - ASL class, karate, swimming, piano, co-op enrichment classes (hoping for baking, chorus, art, and drama), she’s also been doing a lot of sewing and crocheting lately.
I’ve thought about doing a completely out of the box year and just let her unschool the year and follow her interests. This kid is always busy and doing things. If I told her we were going screen free for the month of May she would be completely unfazed and find plenty of things to occupy her time. But she also likes to have a plan so no plan might be too scary for both of us.
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We have a Town and Country and find it works for our family of 6 adult sized people very well. DH is 6’3” and has plenty of space. DS14 is a little over 6’ and can still fit in the third row, although it is a bit of a tight fit now. We like that all of the seats in the second and third rows fold down into the floor. The seats fold very easily, in seconds, and we can fit a full sheet of plywood flat in the back, and have even moved a large couch in it with the back closed. We only have a cello to fit, but I think you could fit a double bass depending on which seats you fold down. I’m really not sure why the Chrysler minivans aren’t more popular. We’ve had several. They’re so much cheaper than the Odysseys and Siennas but we’ve found them to be very reliable. We’ve gotten all three of ours to 200k miles +. The last two were still running fine when we sold them, and our current one is at 210k miles and still going strong.
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12 hours ago, EKS said:
They are probably looking for her grades for the first semester of the current year. This is called the midyear report in the Common App.
What is the Common App?
I ended up just sending the transcript with all of senior marked “IP”. Oh well, if they want more than that I guess we’ll get another email.
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3 hours ago, ScoutTN said:
Transcript templates are not hard to find. There is good info on the pinned threads too.
Yes, show courses and grades for 9-11 and the first semester of this year. List current semester courses as in-progress if you need to submit now. Then resend with this year’s final grades and cumulative GPA when your academic year is over.
Yes, I have a transcript template that I’m using. It doesn’t feel like it should be this hard. I think I’m just feeling out of my depth. I was a homeschooled kid but my parents didn’t make transcripts for us and I didn’t go to college so everything involved with helping my kids go to college feels very foreign to me. I think I‘ll just submit what I have and mark this year’s classes as in progress. If they have more questions I’m sure they’ll ask.
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15 minutes ago, cintinative said:
The schools want the final transcript already? I thought I would be submitting that in June. Am I missing something?
They want her “current” transcript now, and then they want her final one submitted after graduation. I’m just not sure what they’re used to seeing as “current”. Up through 11th grade? Or the the first semester of 12th? I’ve asked a few people how to do things as a homeschooler but no one seems to know. So we’re just filling everything out the best we can. It’s a community college and I know tons of home schooled kids go there so they must not be too picky about any of it.
46 minutes ago, Tiberia said:With my dd I sent a full high school transcript, but all her "current" 12th grade classes were listed as "in progress" with a note saying they'd be completed May 2022. If you split the year into semesters, put her 1st semester grades, and then put 2nd semester grades as IP* (*in progress).
ETA This way the colleges can anticipate what her final credits will look like.
Could I do a mix of full year grades for 9-11 and then 1st semester for 12th? I’m just not sure what’s “normal”.
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My high school senior is making her college plans for the fall and the school wants her current transcript with the final, updated version sent after graduation. What does the “current version” mean and how would I format it? Just grades 9-11? Or should I send something for this year? Oldest DD took a break after high school so I just sent her final transcript. I’m not sure how to do a partial one.
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29 minutes ago, City Mouse said:
We have more cars than drivers, but the newest vehicle we own is a 2008, and some have very high mileage. Seems like there is always one or more vehicles needing some repair, but nothing outrageous. I know our way wouldn’t work for a lot of people, but we have gotten some great deals on older cars with decent mileage. I find it much less stressful to always be looking for the next good deal that when we had to purchase a car on short notice and take the best we could get that week.
We do something similar. We currently have three cars and four drivers, but one is away at school without a car. We have a 2010, 2002, and 1998. Two are currently over 200k miles and still running strong. Yes, they tend to need repairs more regularly, but we are careful to maintain them and will drive them til they die. We’ve found over the years that even with the repairs we still save money over buying newer cars. We look for good deals, my DH is particular about the number of owners, checking the car thoroughly, and trusting his gut. He always finds us great cars. We also save A LOT on insurance and taxes buying older cars. We live in one of the highest COL states and pay less than $2000 a year in insurance for three cars and four drivers (two of them teenagers), and our vehicle tax bill for this year was $112 total. Another advantage to having three cars is that when one needs work we can make do with two. We live rurally and having transportation is a must, so this meets that need while avoiding debt and keeping our costs low. Our minivan is one of our higher mileage vehicles so we’re looking for a replacement. But it still runs fine, and we have a back up car, so we can take our time.
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3 hours ago, TexasProud said:
What does it say when you try to load your taxes?
I only say that because I and a couple of other people I know had someone file taxes using our information. One person I know tried to claim a tax credit for her son and he had already been claimed. How that happened when he was their dependent I have no idea. For us, it said someone else had filed.
It says that I have to enter our AGI from last year’s tax return to confirm that it‘s me. Since we file jointly DH and I’s AGI should match. They do. I’ve double and triple checked. And it’s only 5 numbers; it’s not that hard to get wrong. But I keep getting emails saying mine doesn’t match his. I haven’t had time to try to figure it out today.
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I filled out FAFSA for my two older girls last week and have now gotten eight emails saying that they have requested my tax information. The emails are identical. I was expecting two emails, but eight is surprising. I’ve been getting two roughly every four hours since sometime yesterday. Is this normal? Or does it mean there’s some kind of problem? I’ve also been unable to file my taxes after trying multiple times on Saturday, and was unable to confirm my identity on ID.me to try to fix the tax filing problem. I’m trying not to read too much into any of this but I’m wondering if these things are all related….and not in a good way. Ugh.
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2 hours ago, freesia said:
I think I would just leave this year off and have 3 math credits on her transcript.
I might do this. I don’t want to put Algebra 1 twice, once in 9th and again in 12th. It’s what she needed and part of the magic of homeschooling is that we can do this. But it wouldn’t make sense to anyone else.
I wonder if we have done enough to cobble together a consumer math credit. Or even just half a credit. She’s done some stuff in co-op that could fit and she started working this year and has learned some stuff there. We’ll be working on taxes this week. I have a consumer math text. I’ll see how much we’ve covered and maybe switch to that through the end of the year.
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DD2 is a high school senior. Math is not her best subject and we’ve been a little all over the place with it. We did MUS Algebra 1 in 9th grade (she did ok with it but not great), MUS Geometry in 10th (she did fine with this), MUS Algebra 2 in 11th (we pushed through but it was a struggle), this year, for 12th, we’ve decided to just review Algebra and solidify as many concepts as possible. We’re using Saxon Algebra 1 right now. I was hoping to get into Algebra 2 by the end of the year but I don’t think it will happen. I’m not really sure how to list this year’s math on her transcript. I’d rather not list the Algebra 2 with the low grade it will have but I think I’m kind of stuck with that one. How would you do this?
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I’m giving Bullet Journaling a try this year. I’ll admit that I haven’t gotten far with it. The year started off a little rough and we’re just now settling back into our “normal”. I haven’t completely figured out how I want to do it but I’m attracted to the idea of it being whatever I need or want it to be. I’m doing a very basic version similar to the original, I think. I love the look of all the artistic ones but I don’t have the skill or time for that.
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We have a lot of activities as well. I’m homeschooling 3 who are in 12th, 11th, and 8th/9th. This year I made a conscious choice that each of our activities met a very specific need and would be valued pretty much equally to our book work. That means that most weeks are 4 day school weeks. I’m ok with that. The plan is that each of the four core subjects will be done for 150 hours over the course of the school year (one hour per subject, per day, for 150 days) and then we’ll be done with school. We started after Labor Day and will finish before Memorial Day. In reality, my oldest is a week or more “behind” the pace she’d need to be on to finish in May. She will likely get even further behind this spring due to speech tournaments and work. As long as she continues to work diligently in the time she DOES have available, we will still wrap up school about when co-op ends in May, even if we haven’t quite hit 150 hours. Co-op is mostly enrichment, but the music, arts, and other classes that feed their souls are important. My oldest has a part time job that is teaching her valuable skills not easily taught out of a textbook. All three DC will work 20 or more hours a week this spring at a seasonal job that will last a few weeks. They’re involved in a musical. Younger two are working hard towards their black belts and will hopefully achieve that goal in the next few months. There is church and scouting, and running club. But as I thought about how to fit it all in, I realized that I couldn’t fit it all in. I thought about dropping activities but decided that they are all important in different ways. So I scaled back on school work. Other families may have different priorities but this is where we ended up this year and it feels like a balance we needed.
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January pretty much disappeared on me. Spent a few days cleaning up and recovering from hosting 40+ for Christmas on New Year’s Eve, a week getting my daughter ready for school, another week driving her out there, came home and got the flu, recovered with a day to spare before taking another daughter out of state for a speech tournament. And now January is pretty much over.
My goals for these last few days of the month are simply to catch up from traveling and being sick. There plenty of laundry and house cleaning to do. Also need to check in with my younger kids on where they’re at with schoolwork and probably check a lot of stuff. I need to order groceries and restock. We start back to co-op this week and I have things to do to get ready for that. I had started getting my bullet journal going while we were stuck in our hotel room in a blizzard on the college drop off trip, but need to get the daily pages going. That should be helpful this week as I sort through what needs to be done to get life back on track and get the second half of our school year going.
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Week 2:
We are taking DD19 to school 1200 miles away this week so that’s where most of my attention will go. We leave on Wednesday so have a some shopping and packing still to do. I also need make sure younger three DC are set with what they need and which grandparent or aunt/uncle will be helping them out each day. So progress on yearly goals will be almost nothing. That’s ok. My goal for January was just to think through and prioritize so that I’d be ready to start really working towards some goals in February. I’ve decided to give bullet journaling a try. Nothing fancy or creative (although some people really do beautiful ones!), just minimalist and basic as a way to keep track of my schedule, to-do list, goals, habit building, and thoughts. I’m going to try to get that set up this week. I can maybe work on it while we’re driving if I don’t get to it before.
My goals for this past week were to return all the things I borrowed to host Christmas, and put away the Christmas decorations. Everything has been returned (but we broke a coffee pot and crockpot in the process. Ugh. Need to order replacements), and Christmas decorations are down and the tree is out. I still have a few things to box up though and the boxes need to be put back in the basement. I need to do that before I leave Wednesday.
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Law enforcement/protocol question (All the trigger warnings)
in The Chat Board
Posted
These kinds of decisions aren’t typically made by law enforcement. They’re made by the courts/judge/prosecutor. LEO’s find it completely frustrating and sometimes (often) can feel like their jobs are pointless because of it.