This isn't a new occurrence for our daughter, she's been asking to be a grade level lower for about 3 years (not sure exactly when it started but we've had this conversation for several years). During that time, she has seen the interests of friends change as they have become teenagers. From my perspective, I've noticed the biggest changes in those kids over the past 12-18 months. Most of her friends are within +/- 6 months of her. She is mature in terms of being responsible, working independently, doing what she is supposed to be doing, etc., but I have also noticed that she hasn't always been very good at recognizing and dealing with manipulative or jealous people. She has gotten better at this over the past year or so, which makes me wonder if it is an age thing / different kind of maturity that kids just naturally grow into (and has perhaps worked against her being younger). As you mentioned in another post, a year can make a difference in elementary / middle school.

I suspect that could be part of her issue in some regards and she hasn't been in a class with other kids in 4 years to realize if anything is different or if it's really not an age thing, or if the age thing really isn't that she's younger but that she's more mature, as you mentioned. She is quite mature in certain aspects, and I guess if I had to describe her general character I would say she's mature and responsible for her age and always has been. When she was in school, she was the one the teachers always gave extra responsibilities to or put with the disruptive kid because she'd calm him/her down and help them. She's not really fully & clearly articulating to us exactly what it is that she feels the issue is (another reason to just forge on ahead). She may not even realize herself, especially since she hasn't actually been in a classroom for 4 years and our social circle is limited.

That was just an example - she may never be interested in those things, you are correct. That won't bother us a bit. It's just an example of how she feels other kids in her grade are growing in a direction that she is not. It isn't the only aspect. She came to us with these feelings, it isn't something we're trying to force on her (husband and I don't totally get it, in fact).

I have 2 kids who are 2 years apart too, although mine are slightly older (12 & 14). We've also been doing this for 4 years and I also feel like I should be more of a "pro" / have a better handle on things than I feel like I do at this point. We do not always get everything done that I wanted to every day either, but I agree with the other posts about getting them to work as independently as possible is helpful. That's not as easy at those ages though. I work full-time from home on top of homeschooling, so I've had to learn to be as organized about it as possible in order to just keep it together every day. With my kids, I found that keeping them on the same topic with history and science helped, as well as with Art / Music / Latin. They work at their own level with things like math, grammar, spelling, etc. What I ended up doing was getting them both going with spelling on Monday - we did a pretest of the new unit at the same time, then the rest of week they work on their individual units independently & we did another test on Friday. History and science were done at the same time. I would start 1 kid off with Math (do through their lesson, then turn it over to them to do the work - we use Saxon so lessons are broken up in a way that works with that) while the other was working on spelling, then do math with the 2nd kid. Once I was done going through the math lesson with kid 2, kid 1 was usually finishing up the lesson practice from their math lesson and we then did a pause on math and I went through grammar with them, then did the same with kid 2. They had writing & logic to do during the day, but they did those when I was either working with the other kid or after they completed all of the work they needed me for. We did history on M/W/F after I finished working with them on the other topics, and science on T/Th. My 1 "rule" had to be that I needed to finish everything they needed me for by lunch time so I could work. We took a break at lunch and then they finished up their work independently after lunch, usually finishing anywhere from 2-3:30 (depended on how early we started - as you mentioned, I was more motivated to get going on some days than others). We're approaching HS now so I'm still trying to figure out how that is going to work and what our schedule might look like, but that is what worked for us so far. Having said that, I feel like I'm barely keeping it together most days, but that has more to do with trying to work on top of everything else - homeschooling is a full-time job on its own. :huh: On the days that I feel like we've barely done anything and I start feeling guilty about it, I just remember how much time is wasted in the school system every day, how many days they have assemblies and other activities that take away class time, how many times the teachers pull out videos & movies for them, how many distractions there are in a class with 30+ kids, etc. and I feel a little better.

Excellent point, I'm laughing! I am totally fine with her never arriving at that point. She is mature in some ways and not in others (we leave baskets out for the Easter Bunny, shoes for St. Nicholas (she was born in Belgium), our stockings for Santa Claus, etc.). There's an innocence there that I imagine is more to do with homeschooling than anything else. Her friends that are into similar things as her are not the majority either. We're all good with that. :)

This sounds like my daughter - she wants to run and play, not walk and talk (or walk & text, as is often the case). She has drifted away from a few friends who are 14/15 going on 20, and held onto a couple who are still like her & not into the shopping, gossiping, and dating yet. We'll see how things develop - hopefully this will just be her difficult transition year and she'll get over it quickly. No matter what, being a teenager is just awkward.

Our daughter is definitely not struggling with the academics, but rather with the social side of things. I mentioned in another message that she's not quite where the other girls seem to be in her grade and she notices this. They are mostly interested in boys, dating, clothes, shopping, makeup, social media, etc. and she's not there yet. I was not considering her request simply to make her transcript look better. It's already going to look good. However, she does have gaps that I am trying to fill from her years in the public school system, gaps that her brother who is 2 years younger doesn't have since we started homeschooling him earlier. An extra year would allow me to fill some of those gaps - ex: so that she gets a full 2 year history cycle vs. having to cram in modern history over the summer so she can have a full cycle through high school. My point about the transcript was just that if she still ends up wanting to hold off a year because she doesn't feel that she's there developmentally, it certainly isn't going to look bad if she has more early HS credits. If we had wanted to hold her back simply to avoid being the youngest in the class, we wouldn't have enrolled her in school when we did to begin with. There is more to being "ready" than just being able to keep up with coursework.

Agree :) I have been talking to her quite a bit about it and we agreed to stay on course with her work as if we are going into 9th grade and if she still feels this way in a few years, we can go back and adjust what we call next year on her transcript (probably not declare all HS credits or call them "early HS credits" on the transcript) and she can have the extra year she feels she needs. Since we are home schooling, she isn't facing the kind of peer / social aspect she would at a school so this "solution" seems to have calmed her down.

I am trying to plan out high school & middle school now and figure out how much time is realistic. The suggested schedule in WTM for high school is daunting as I'm putting everything on paper with our schedule. We did try to follow it as suggested when we first started (3rd & 5th grades) but quickly changed things around and figured out what worked for us. Ex: an hour of logic was way too much for my kids; they were bored out of their minds. We reduced it down considerably and found that ~20 minutes was enough and they seem to be getting what they need with that (and more importantly don't despise it). We're venturing into high school for the first time in the fall and I can already see from my daughter's schedule (using the WTM recommended times) that we are probably going to have to cut back the amount of time spent on subjects to be able to fit in everything we need to be doing. I don't think that we're going to be able to devote 2 hours to history, 2 hours to lit, 1 hour of free reading, logic, 1 hour of math, 1 hour of science, writing, 2 language classes (at an hour+ each), etc. every single day without completely stressing and burning her out. I'm not sure where our balance will end up. Preparation for HS has been stressful & time-consuming for me so far, but I don't know what I'm doing. I think once I have the plan set out for the next 4 years, preparation in the years to come will be minimal - mostly just deciding on what curriculum options to go with if we make any changes. I agree with SilverMoon though - I love WTM and it has made this whole home school journey possible and doable for us, even if I'm not Supermom and can't seem to accomplish everything it lays out that we should be doing in an ideal day. :)

I just stumbled on a couple of free online courses through Yale that I was considering. Both are free and self-paced. Introduction to Classical Music https://www.coursera.org/learn/introclassicalmusic Listening to Music http://oyc.yale.edu/music/musi-112

Thank you for the input, we are looking at that one too for next year. It sounds like an interesting course. :)

Hi everyone, I was wondering if anyone has experience with GaVS - particularly with the science, Latin, or modern language classes? If so, what did you think - do they offer quality classes and did your kids enjoy them? If anyone has experience with the level I HS language classes, did you have the impression they would be too advanced for a 7th grader? Thanks in advance for any input. :)

That's on the to-do list. We went to an open meet & greet night on DE here last month, and talked to the admissions people at several universities, but it was crowded and their answers did not make sense to me. They just kept saying they can take advantage of the program when they are juniors (I asked what that meant and they did not give a coherent answer). We are new to high school home school so I don't fully understand how it all works - just looking at her declared year or how many credits she has. I would assume if they just look at credit hours, most home school students will be "juniors" well before their public school peers as it seems home school students tend to rack up more credits than public school students. I'm not sure about what we have to count either (also on the to-do list) - I would assume I have to count her math credits because colleges are expecting to see a certain progression on the transcript (Algebra I, Algebra II, Geometry, Calculus). History / Lit - could probably count or not count all of that and as long as she has the # of hours needed, she'll be fine. It seems like it would be a good idea to count everything though to make her transcript look more robust.

Agreed! :) We talked to her about all of these things. It seems like the best thing to do is forge ahead and if she still doesn't feel ready in 4 years we'll have to figure it out - adjust the transcript to reflect "early HS credits" for some of her work, or consider a gap year, etc. As much as I'd love to have another year to explore areas of interest and beef up her knowledge base to make up for her years of public school, it doesn't really make sense to hold her back when she's at & above grade level in everything she's doing. I think she will be fine the further into high school she gets, and if / when she starts DE classes. She's oddly fine with potentially starting DE classes locally in a couple of years, it seems like it might just be the idea of leaving home that is scary? We have some very good universities that are close enough to commute to when the time comes if she doesn't want to live on campus or go further away, and she was fine with that idea.

We are in a state that just started paying for DE classes last summer, starting in 11th grade. We are looking at taking advantage of it with both kids. They could potentially have 2 years of college credits upon graduating high school, which would be great for us financially and gives us other options for some of the advanced high school classes (I'm pretty sure taking a chemistry class in a college with a cool lab will be more interesting than trying to do it in our kitchen). The cons are that part of their education would be outsourced and if we take advantage of this program, and we must report the grades on the transcript so if they perform poorly in a particular class there are no additional attempts to achieve mastery. In our state, it is listed as Dual Enrollment on the transcript (or so I have been told). On the other hand, if they do well in those classes it looks great on the transcript. I'm not sure how they determine the grade level to start that in though - look at the # of credits a student has or what grade is declared for that student.