So if we do high school level stuff now, what do we do later?

[tabmtbc]

Hi everyone,

My name is Tabitha and I frequently post on the Sonlight forums and recognize some of you from there. I haven't posted here since September (or much of anywhere really) because I have a 20 month old ds that keeps me running.

 

This post is about my 11yo dd going into 6th grade. She read on a 10th grade level in 2nd grade. I let her help pick her curriculum to a certain extent each year but I told her that her father and I have the final say. Just to give you an idea of what type of child we're talking about, she was extremely sad last night that Eldest by Christopher Paolini only had 600 something pages in it and wasn't longer. She started it last week and will finish it this week.

 

We have about "60 days' worth" (according to the schedule in the Instructor's Guide) of Sonlight Core 5 Eastern Hemisphere left and she will probably finish these this summer. Since school is out for the summer (meaning all our classes and commitments are finished and the pool is about to open next week), we were sitting up last night trying to decide what to order for next year. She just loves going through catalogs with me and will frequently take the catalogs from me and read them cover to cover first before I even get there.

 

She said "oooooooh I like the looks of SL Core 6" but then she said she REALLY liked the looks of the high school level Cores.

 

The thing is, I can't count on a curriculum purchase to last us a full school year, even with supplementing, drawing it out, following rabbit trails of her own interest, etc. This is not a new problem and it's a great problem to have. At some point during her jr. high years (grades 6-8), I fully expect her to switch to high school level work in all subjects and to do so WELL before the 9th grade if she continues how she currently is.

 

So that brings up some questions:

(1) Do I give high school credit for high school level work done in middle school? IE if she completes SL Core 100 in the 7th grade, do I give high school credits for that?

 

(2) I know zippo about credits, how do I figure out how, how many, and when to award them?

 

(3) I have no intention at this point of letting her graduate before her age appropriate school completion date of 2016 for social, emotional, etc. development reasons. She may be gifted but she's still only 11yo. Dual enrollment, yes, more than likely, but graduation no.

 

SO THEN..

If she completes high school level work in middle school, what's left to do for the high school years?

 

TIA for any help.

 

Tabitha

[joannqn]

You do more...either before, during, or after.

 

There's always harder words for spelling/vocabulary. There's always more books to read and analyze. There's always more papers to write. Find interesting and different courses to add like Literary Lessons from Lord of the Rings.

 

There's always more math to do. You can do deeper, more into problem solving, stats and probability, business/consumer math, budgeting/stewardship, college level, Singapore or Russian math, or whatever you choose. I'm looking at what to do with my 7 year old in math...a 7 year that could very well finish calculus by 13 but just found more than enough math at artofproblemsolving.com to keep him busy and learning.

 

There's always deeper in science. Go into honors/AP/college leve courses. Study topics of interest in depth.

 

Same with history. Study topics of interest in depth. Instead of spending a year in medieval history, spend two years; there's plenty there. Instead of a couple weeks on WWII, spend months. Learn about the war from the perspective of different countries. Study major figures in detail...find everything you can on Hitler and Rommel, on Churchill and Montgonmery, on Hirohito and Yamamoto, on Roosevelt, Eisenhower, Patton, and MacArthur. Study the major battles, their outcomes, and what they meant to the war overall. Go in depth on the contributions of women.

 

Add another language.

 

Just some ideas. Make sure you keep on eye on the credits she will need as many colleges will only look at the previous four years on her transcript.

[Anne]

Many people list classes taken by subject, rather than by year on their transcripts. Classes taken before the actual high school years are asterisked with a notatation that they were taken prior to high school. Grades for such classes are not figured into the gpa. The advantage to listing classes this way is to provide colleges with a true picture of what the student has accomplished and to document their achievements.

 

Anne

[melissel]

Sorry, this may be way off base because I've only recently begun lurking here, but what about community college courses? I know many of our local HSers begin taking some CC courses when they're 15 or so--in fact, there was a big to-do over one of the CCs not admitting high-school-age homeschool students, and enough HSers fought back that the decision was overturned last year.

 

Otherwise, I agree with Joann. I bet your DD's hard to keep up with, though! She sounds like a real go-getter and a terrific student to have. Have you asked her what she thinks about the situation?

[EKS]

We're doing high school level stuff now, mostly. Next year ("8th grade") will be all high school level. I am planning 5 years of high school, starting next year. The high school level courses he has already completed will also go on his transcript.

 

When he's done with high school level materials, we'll just move on to college level stuff. So what that will look like here is college level science and history starting in 9th grade, college level math starting in 10th or 11th grade, and if he doesn't graduate first, college level literature in 12th grade (he has dylexia). I have also planned to have history and science come to a logical conclusion by the end of 11th grade just in case we decide that early college is appropriate.

 

Of course, I haven't implemented this yet. But it sure looks good on paper!

[KAR120C]

And I think they kind of have to be addressed separately...

 

The first thing is the level of work... High school level or not, accelerated or not, I have a hard time making a case for not letting a kid go at his or her own pace. So if your DD is enthusiastically pressing onward, you've got to run with that. As long as she is developing the skills she needs and not floundering, I think you can't go wrong. I'd be worried if, for instance, you said that she was struggling with skills while wanting to rush ahead in content... not that it's a complete dealbreaker, but that it makes it harder to balance what she wants to do with what she needs to do. But if the skills are there, have at it! :)

 

The second thing is "running out" of work to do. Impossible! There is ALWAYS something more. It can take some creativity though... That's why I'm a stickler for the "skills" point above -- once you have the skills to work in any one field (math, science, history, literary analysis, writing, languages), you can apply those skills to any subfield -- do historical research on a favorite topic, expand your math work into economics and financial math or computer programming, do a year of marine biology or electronics for science, read more books -- there are always more books! But you do have to make sure all the skills are coming together on the way to that point. If you're not up to winging it on that end, I'd try to organize your use of curricula to make sure you've covered all your bases before you branch out.

 

The third thing is credits and transcripts. That's up to whomever you're submitting the transcript to... so you won't really know until you have a college in mind. Until then, I'd advise just keeping all your records in order so when the time comes you can pick and choose what goes in. Some colleges are going to want it all, some will have specific requirements for what has to be there, and some will only want the last four years no matter what you did before. The only thing you probably can't do is pile four years of high-school-level-something (like math) into the early years and then drop it altogether after that. But if you're on to Number Theory and Statistics and Financial Math in the four years before college, they might want to hear about how you handled Algebra and Geometry before those.

 

The way we're handling acceleration in our house is to try to alternate years of traditional progress with years of interesting tangents. So math goes Algebra 1 (last year), Statistics (this year), Geometry (next year), something else like Number Theory, Algebra 2/ Precalculus, something else like Financial Math, then Calculus. Subject to change of course, but with the idea that we could extend this almost indefinitely sticking Calculus at the end. That gives us plenty of "meat" in the work (not just killing time), but also means he gets a chance at more topics than most people ever get in school -- a good use of his "extra" time, IMO.

 

Hope this helps!

[MicheleinMN]

Literature is wonderful because you can read, read more, and then re-read. I don't think there is any way to run out of great literature. History, again, I think the read and read more theory will hold. For math and science, move ahead, dig deeper, etc.

 

And you may find (as I did with my eldest dd) that at some point she may slow down on her own.

 

HTH

[Storm Bay]

There's always more. Here's a cool page of math things you can do with senior math students that they don't get in ps (the one about shoe laces requires a basic knowledge of Calculus). http://www.ams.org/bookstore/mawrldseries

 

There are also many cool math texts there for undergrads (that's university undergrads) that go into neat areas most high school kids never see.

 

It's the same with any subject. We tend to go deeper here, but I have one who is interested in the Mathematical Ciphers book there, and I've emailed them to find out how much math she needs first. She's already invented her own language with her own alphabet (I know that other dc do that too.) I don't know how fleshed out it is since I don't read that script--it's defnitely her own invention. I suspect that my middle dc will be interested in the Geometry of Conics. And on and on.

[Laura Corin]

SO THEN..

If she completes high school level work in middle school, what's left to do for the high school years?

 

TIA for any help.

 

Tabitha

 

Calvin took his biology IGCSE (SAT subject test equivalent) at eleven and will be taking geography and classical civilisation at thirteen. He may well then take classical civilisation AS level (the next level up) at fourteen, if he's interested. There'll be lots of time to do other high school level subjects later, but by having the exams we have documented his interests and precociousness.

 

Best wishes

 

Laura

[Pamela H in Texas]

There are all sorts of things to do.

 

There is SO much to learn that the Bible tells us we will NEVER (including when living forever!) know ALL the works of God. Then there are "things of men." Grasping that concept allows for SO much. If you want to spend years on Horticulture or six different languages or whatever, you can. We found that if we had 10-12 classes plus LOTS of physical activity, art, programming, field trips, etc we could make curriculum last a year (well, we did have a little shortened school year and some things that still went faster).

 

And there is no reason not to do college (or further) levels of subjects even in jr high (or before!).

 

And there is dual enrollment. But there is also the possibility of distance learning. Maybe she'll graduate high school with a master's degree (or two). Whatever works.

 

Then there are "gap years." Sometimes things just come up. We WERE willing to graduate daughter early. However, we were hesitating a couple years. The first year, we did lots of different learning, volunteer work, etc. The second year, she got REALLY sick. Though she went into remission easily, the meds made her "crazy." She spent the rest of that school year doing VERY little schoolwork, but lots of volunteering, lazing, etc. I wouldn't let a kid JUST laze at 14yrs old but our circumstances were a little different. Then she started college at 15 and we graduated her officially this year. She'll have her bachelor's before she would have graduated public school (late bday so that gave her a little extra time too).

 

But don't borrow trouble. I had a REALLY tough time with that myself. Just carry on each year, enjoying it.

 

As for credits. I would just journal what you're doing. If it turns out she needs it for a transcript (the last 3 or 4 years of homeschool), then you'll have the information so you can appropriately assign credits. But if it turns out that you really DON"T allow her to move on before she's "of age" (which is appropriate for some kids but is REALLY inappropriate for other kids), then those jr high "credits" won't matter. She will count the ones done as a high schooler instead. Her maths may not say Algebra I and II, Geometry and PreCalc, but instead Calculus I, Calculus II, Calculus III, Multivariable Calc I and II, and Linear Algebra. Any admissions officer will be able to figure out that a child who scored 5's on the Calc AB/BC tests then took the higher maths obviously did the basic high school sequence also. But if you were REALLY worried about it, you could add a note saying that those classes were completed in 7th and 8th grades.

 

Anyway, relax and make decisions as you go. Some my worrying paid off (she audited some classes as a preteen but started college later than I worried). But mostly, I wish I hadn't spent the time and effort on the concern. Maybe she would have started college or graduated earlier. Or maybe she wouldn't have.

[Misty]

My daughter is exactly the same and I've been pondering this exact issue. I've been browsing the high school credit forms on Donna Young's website trying to get an idea of what I can count as high school now and what can be recorded as such. She is 11 years old, completing 6th grade this year. She is beyond high school for most everything except math, handwriting, and science (and maybe something else I'm not thinking of at the moment).

 

So if she finishes early, my plan for high school would be to let her pursue her passion (writing) and become as good as she can possibly get. She wants desperately to be a writer/successful author. She reads voraciously and writes almost as much. She has written several books already.

 

I also plan to put her through my old medical terminology text from my college years (I saved it just for that reason!).

 

We also may learn another language. And we will probably also spend extra time on math since that is her weakest area.

 

She wants to do volunteer work with animals so that is something we will also pursue.

 

And she may also end up with dual enrollment, so that will keep her busy as well.

 

My daughter loves the Sonlight catalog too. She would love to read every book in there. We have quite a nice Sonlight collection (I've been collecting for several years) but we do not follow Sonlight's curriculum.

 

Our daughter's sound very much alike! Send me a private message and maybe we can get a penpal thing going or something!

[Irene Lynn]

I found that it became clearer as we kept going. :) Personally, I would not count SL100 as highschool credit, unless it were supplemented. I used to try to figure out if something was highschool level or not in the earlier years. The thing is that it might be the level that "someone" did in highschool, but was it the level that I desired for my dd? As time went on I could see how her thinking deepened and matured and I could see how the work was done on a different level later. My dd is nearing 16 right now. I believe she could succeed in college classes currently, but I also think that she will do better in a couple more years. We still plan for her to take a few college classes her senior year, but they will be classes that are more fact oriented to ease her into the feel of college.

 

Here are some random thoughts:

 

Our dd took and enjoyed Core 300 as a 13yo (a young 8th grader). I feel confident that she did highschool level work, but we are not going to count it. In fact all her courses were highschool level. I feel good as a parent to know that she has covered the 20th Century. If a Core looks like a good fit now, don't wait until later, just so you will have the appropriate credit. If you wait those same books might be past their prime. There is always another way with more depth around the corner, that will be wonderfully exciting, too. If you could afford it, buy Cores 6&7 and let her go through it all in a year for a fun year. Or you could get one Core to do as written and add in the reading from one of the higher Cores that you might not plan to do completely. Or... Oh, there are so many good books! :) We have 2 coupons for 40% off one book at Borders that I simply must use today.

 

Since we were ahead, when puberty hit our dd, we were able to ease our way through a couple of years without torturing either one of us. She was just more stressed and closer to tears. Those perfectionistic tendencies kicked it up a notch, so I chose ways to learn that didn't add more stress. We didn't test as much and we chose some more relaxed ways of learning things that might not have come up in school anyway. Once those years were done (11&12), she was ready to jump into a much more rigorous study.

 

If you run out of ideas of things to study, take a look at the Teaching Company videos. There are so many interesting ideas that you'd never have enough time to see them all. Again since we were ahead we have been able to add things like Astronomy and Chinese history (We added some other things to make it more of an Asian history year.). I would love to add African history, too. And there are so many literature and fine arts courses, and economics and math and science courses to keep the the juices and creativity flowing.

 

You never know what types of things will blossom in your dd in the coming years. I loved being ahead just for that reason. Our dd now loves cooking, especially Japanese cuisine. She has spent a great deal of time learning terms and techniques and philosophy of cooking. She also loves to write and draw and spends time with that, too. This next year we will have a foreign exchange student from Thailand, who also loves to cook, and will spend time helping with a charity. Our time will still be filled with learning, just not in a way that will count as a credit. DD will have her school work, then go on to pursue other things. In those early years, it seemed that all her learning just made the next school step easier or faster. Sometimes I would go off on rabbit trails as a way to stretch things, then find out that our next year overlapped some of our rabbit trail, so it was more review that I had expected. Now her rabbit trails don't overlap with her school work.

 

To find out what credits are usually needed, you could Google your state's graduation requirements. We decided to do everything that is required for an Honors diploma as our minimum.

 

We could have counted everything dd did in 8th grade with confidence, but when I evaluated whether to count them as credits or not, I had to factor into the equation all the courses that she wouldn't get to take. She would not have taken Astronomy. She would have had 1 credit of World History instead of 2, She wouldn't be taking a full credit of Government and Economics, which she finds interesting. Those would have been cut to half credit classes. She wouldn't have be able to take Statistics and Probability. And a year's worth of literature would have been cut. Using those very good credit worthy classes in 8th grade just was not worth the sacrifice of future courses. Another child with a different personality might have preferred to take college classes earlier and forgo the time at home. Our dd wanted to take these courses in her own way.

[VanessaS]

You do more...either before, during, or after.

 

Exactly. And go back to original sources.

 

After she finishes Calculus go back and read Newton's original (and compare it to Leibnitz). Study Euclid and Luther's original writings. Read Einstein's original papers. Make sure you study each historical period from various viewpoints (like read "All Quiet on the Western Front", "The Tin Drum", "Bury Me Standing" "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" (the whole series), "Cry, the Beloved Country", and "Disgraced", etc.).

And read everything in the original language.

 

And, I hate to say it, but what about hobbies? We have a flourishing vegetable garden that required a lot of research and planning. And sourdough bread baking is a science in and of itself. What about art and music? Accounting? Statistics and engineering? Have her come up with her own science experiments. Have her create some software for you (databases with a .NET front end are always good for starters).

 

As for college: The first 2 years of college are easy for a gifted homeschooler. Why not just teach her at home what she can learn on her own and then CLEP or AP out of everything? Then she could start college at the normal age and just skip most of the first 2 years. It'd be cheaper, that's for sure.

 

Or she could take a year off after high school and do something INTERESTING in the real world, like spend a year in Europe or Asia perfecting a language, joining the Peace Corp, or an internship. She might enjoy a break in-between and a year off is a great way to discover your specialty. There's nothing worse than spending a small fortune on college and then watching them switch majors every year because they don't know what they really want to do.

[Storm Bay]

As for college: The first 2 years of college are easy for a gifted homeschooler. Why not just teach her at home what she can learn on her own and then CLEP or AP out of everything? Then she could start college at the normal age and just skip most of the first 2 years. It'd be cheaper, that's for sure.

 

.

 

 

One thought--if you CLEP or AP out of too many subjects, it might hurt chances of an academic scholarship if that's something you'd like to do.

[Storm Bay]

Here's what you need to do some of those cool math books I linked the other day. I emailed them (and have been promoted to Professor ;) because that's how they addressed me in their reply. Even though I was asking about high school books, they must address mainly profs. Nothing like a nice chuckle.) There are a few things about other subjects below--we're not only about math.

 

Mathematical Ciphers. High school Algebra is enough for most of the book.

 

Mathematical Circles (I'll quote) "...very little is needed, but the book is aimed at clever students."

 

Mathematics and Sports-- almost nothing as it's "very elementary" (remember, this is for high school students, but there are gifted dc who could do this younger, of course)

 

Geometry of Conics--high school geometry and some algebra.

 

They have other books, too, but these are the ones my dc appear to be likely to be most interested in at the moment. There is another about shoe laces, but the printed catalogue said that you need some basic calculus first, so I didn't need to ask that one.

 

Another thing to study in math is the history of math, which we're going to do.

 

In addition to some of the other great suggestions, one idea I have for my history loving dd when she gets to high school is to read old histories of the world along with SWB's books (eg Snorri Sturluson's history of the world, Usher (sp), Josephus, et al). It would be very intersting to see how views on history may have changed. Plus, Sturluson was the first to actually research (how many know that he's considered one of the top 2 historians of the middle ages?) You can get his book from the library, most likely.

 

Science--there is so much you can do besides bookwork. Plus, the history of science is fascinating; not just for the development of science, but for the ties between science and philosophy, religion, etc.

 

Extra curricular stuff is great learning, too, but so much has already been said.

 

Then there's Real Life. All of my dc are going to learn how to manage their time, balance a chequebook, budget, take care of a house (there are no boy/girl jobs there), sew on a button, hem pants, launder, change a tire etc. Many dc leave home with no idea how to cook a balanced meal, handle their finances, change a tire, etc.

[VanessaS]

One thought--if you CLEP or AP out of too many subjects, it might hurt chances of an academic scholarship if that's something you'd like to do.

 

I hadn't thought of that.

 

The history of math and science is a really good suggestion. My DH is currently reading "Fermat's Last Theorem" and says it's really good. And reading about how discoveries are made really makes them more understandable. And if you read original works then the scientist/mathematician really comes alive for you.

Also, it's one thing to read about evolution in your science text and another to read Darwin and Dawkins and really hash it out and compare it to your religious teachings.

Sociology and anthropology are interesting fields for a high schooler, as well. And what about economics?

 

I just can't imagine how anyone would run out of material. There's so much to learn. And when you know more than one language there's EVEN MORE. LOL! I thought I knew all about history and then I moved to Germany. They learn about periods I hadn't even heard of!

[tabmtbc]

Hi ladies and gents,

It has taken me till today to get back over here. Wow, what a treasure trove of material in these replies. I want to thank you all so much for taking the time to reply to me. As I digest the replies, I might need to ask a few additional questions but it is such a comfort to hear that others are walking the same road.

 

As to extracurriculars, she is REALLY into music. She's been in the homeschool band since she was 6. She also does a lot of other things, which I'll post later.

 

The thing is, trying to find the balance between boredom, being too busy, being challenged enough, and being TOO challenged can be, well, tricky at times.

 

I have posted this on other forums for homeschoolers and the advice was always "Don't accelerate her" even from other homeschoolers. And I'm thinking, "But what if she accelerates herself and I can't keep her from it?"

 

Since I posted this, they have changed the laws in my state. A child, regardless of schooling choice (ie public, private, other) including homeschool, must now attend between the ages of 7 and 17. And they have added some sort of legal language to the new law addendum (which goes into effect with the 2009-2010 school year) which seems to say/imply that in order to graduate high school prior to 17, a child must follow the ps curriculum to a tee, even if homeschooled. So I'm sure if that's the case, that will influence my decisions as well. At least that's the way it read to me when I read it.

 

Thanks again, and if anyone has any other ideas I'd be happy to hear them.

[Storm Bay]

 

Since I posted this, they have changed the laws in my state. A child, regardless of schooling choice (ie public, private, other) including homeschool, must now attend between the ages of 7 and 17. And they have added some sort of legal language to the new law addendum (which goes into effect with the 2009-2010 school year) which seems to say/imply that in order to graduate high school prior to 17, a child must follow the ps curriculum to a tee, even if homeschooled. So I'm sure if that's the case, that will influence my decisions as well. At least that's the way it read to me when I read it.

 

Thanks again, and if anyone has any other ideas I'd be happy to hear them.

 

 

Can she finish hs curricula and simply dual enroll at a CC before 17? That might be preferable to following ps curricula to a t. However, doing ps currciula to a t might be easy and something you'd like to do and you could always add in many other things on the side to make it better. It there are things you disagree with in it, you can always explain it as you go.

 

My younger dc are doing 2 and 3 math programs (depending on which ones) concurrently and we're not following ps curricula, but are simply going deeper. Math would be easy to do--do a good program, and then simply do the problems in the ps curricula on the side.

 

Either way, I'm sure you'll be able to figure out what will work best for you. This depends in part on whether or not you think she'd be ready for college early in other areas such as socially and emotionally. My eldest won't be so we've switched to deeper rather than faster (plus her motivation isn't there to go faster right now.)

[Maus]

I don't know why we are thinking about this already, since the kids are 6 and 4, but we're considering using online college classes and possibly even online high school courses as offered by some universities.

[Moni]

Start College.

 

Either local CC and/or night school, or distance ed if preferred.

 

:seeya:

[mel66susan]

What about some life skill type of courses? CPR classes, woodworking, accounting, canning/preserving, auto repair, piano tuning, photography, nutrition, etc. My kiddos have really enjoyed these hands on courses while I got their noses out of the books and into the sunshine! Just my .02..

Susan

[Brooketopia]

Our girls are still so young, but we want them to learn a trade before they graduate from high school. When I was in college there were a few peers who had done the dual enrollment and learned a trade--welding, cosmetology, dental hygiene, etc. and they had a reliable source of income that actually paid worthwhile $$ for their effort while they were in school. The rest of us had to fight over the employment crumbs that are available to college students--summer employment, waitressing, and many resorted to donating plasma just to pay their bills.

 

Perhaps learning a trade skill would be advantageous. My husband learned drafting and then went to college for engineering...and it was his drafting certificate that got him hired in his first engineering job.

 

Many technical schools and CC will even allow high school age kids to attend for for drastically reduced prices or even for free.

[Reya]

Sonlight;s HS program is not on par with an Honors/AP high school curriculum. In your shoes, I'd change.

 

After high school level comes college level. There are lots of ways to do it. It needn't be scary or intimidating.