Starting high school courses

[Hazens]

I am new here on the forums, a mother of 4, and I have a ton of questions.

 

My daughter is currently in 7th grade, but we're currently doing 7 and 8th grade work together. We don't use a packaged curriculum, but kind of compiling our own based on the World Book grade standards.

 

Looking at the pace she is doing her work right now, she might be done with 8th grade end of this year or even sooner.

 

My questions:

 

 

 

• If she's ready to start high school courses, how do I go about doing it?
  
• How do I document her finishing 7th and 8th grade, or don't I have to do that?
  
• If I start her on high school courses, how do I document that? Do I start recordkeeping for her transcript immediately?
  
• I noticed that 9th grade science usually study physical science. Can she start with biology instead?
  
• if we don't follow the public school's calendar, how do we document our children finishing a certain grade? What if the child finishes a certain grade in 6 mths?
  

 

Sorry for the many questions, but I'm so confused.

[Starr]

If she's finishing a grade quickly you might want to consider more difficult work for her, something more in depth.

[Brindee]

I don't have answers for all your questions, just some answers and comments.

 

First of all, my dd is doing 7th & 8th in this one year as well. I have a transcript template that a friend shared with me. I can just go in, fill in the info. for the right year and save/print. Anyway, I'm making an 8th grade Transcript, since she will be doing 9th grade next year. That's just to organize what she did. I have most of the curriculum she will be using next year, so have already filled in the blanks on the transcript, though it, obviously won't be finalized until the end of next school year. I still need to work through each thing and figure out a schedule for the classwork.

 

Do you have curriculum you're planning on using next year? I agree with the above poster--highschool is not easy, and takes a lot of work. There are set numbers of hours they are supposed to put in to get a highschool credit. There's usually lots of reading, writing, and work to do. Depending on how thorough you want to go, you'd probably want them to take longer than 6 months for a grade. I know some people try to rush through, but the kids'll grow up fast enough, let them expand and learn more, not rush through! Just my opinion of course.

 

A large number of homeschoolers do Biology in 9th grade. My dd will be doing Biology in 9th and Chemistry in 10th. Apologia sciences, which many homeschoolers use, are set up that way as the norm. I think many public schools do that as well these days.

 

I would check with your state and see what the requirements are, then go from there.

 

I'd also figure out what you need/want generally for 9th grade, then look around on this site to see what others are using and what they suggest. You can come up with an outline and say, this is what I want my daughter to do for 9th, how does that look? I have learned sooo much from being on this board!

 

Keep asking questions here, we're happy to help!

[Ellie]

I am new here on the forums, a mother of 4, and I have a ton of questions.

 

My daughter is currently in 7th grade, but we're currently doing 7 and 8th grade work together. We don't use a packaged curriculum, but kind of compiling our own based on the World Book grade standards.

 

Looking at the pace she is doing her work right now, she might be done with 8th grade end of this year or even sooner.

 

My questions:

 

 

• If she's ready to start high school courses, how do I go about doing it?
  
• How do I document her finishing 7th and 8th grade, or don't I have to do that?
  
• If I start her on high school courses, how do I document that? Do I start recordkeeping for her transcript immediately?
  
• I noticed that 9th grade science usually study physical science. Can she start with biology instead?
  
• if we don't follow the public school's calendar, how do we document our children finishing a certain grade? What if the child finishes a certain grade in 6 mths?
  

Sorry for the many questions, but I'm so confused.

Some answsers:

 

No one cares about 7th and 8th grades.:)

 

When your dd does a high school-level course, you put that on a transcript. Some people do transcripts with subjects and grades only, not with the year the courses were completed.

 

At the high school level, it doesn't matter if a child "finishes" a grade. It only matters if he has enough credits for...whatever he needs them for, such as college admission.

[Teachin'Mine]

Good advice already given. Another thing to consider is not only the academic level of the work in high school, but the content as well. Sometimes it's better to hold off to allow your child to be older before dealing with some of the subject matter, or the content in some books. For us, math was easy to advance in since the content is never "age inappropriate", but we chose to spend more time on a "grade level" than to advance too young in most other subjects. Has she already done physical science or earth science? I know that Apologia recommends that it be taken in 8th grade, and Biology in 9th. I don't know what your daughter's course load is like, but maybe you can add a language this year to make it more challenging for her.

[Brindee]

Hey, Hazens, How's the planning coming? Hope you come back and see the answers people gave to your questions! :)

[mcconnellboys]

"If she's ready to start high school courses, how do I go about doing it?"

 

Choose your curriculum, open your book, and begin, LOL - it's that easy! You're already choosing your own curriculum, and you can continue to do that.

 

"How do I document her finishing 7th and 8th grade, or don't I have to do that?"

 

No, there's no requirement regarding that. I don't think any states have an official "eighth grade graduation". So you just begin high school when you're ready for that. I started doing hs level courses with my older son when he was in middle school, too.

 

"If I start her on high school courses, how do I document that?"

 

Cafi Cohen (among others) has written several good books about documenting hs level work in order to keep track of credits. According to Inge Cannon's High School Boot Camp, which I attended, there are several ways to do hs level coursework:

 

1) Find a hs or college level text at a local library and copy their index if you don't want to use that actual book but want to cover substantially the same material to make sure you've done a kosher course. Find your own materials that cover the subjects from that index and complete your course.

 

2) Use a hs or college level text. Completion of the entire text equals completion of that hs level program and its assigned credit.

 

3) Make up your own course work totally on your own and keep a diary of the time your daughter spends working on that course. Number of hours for a high school credit now vary wildly, from about 120 (even less, sometimes), to 180 (the old Carnegie unit). Cafi Cohen's books give good info for doing school this way.....

 

"Do I start recordkeeping for her transcript immediately?"

 

Yep, I would. It's a lot easier than trying to remember or recreate later.....

 

"I noticed that 9th grade science usually study physical science. Can she start with biology instead?"

 

Certainly, and I think that's changing at least for some states, anyway. Here, they now typically either do an earth science or biology class as freshmen, followed by chemistry, physics, and some higher level science course if they are interested in science as a major.

 

"if we don't follow the public school's calendar, how do we document our children finishing a certain grade?"

 

If they've finished the coursework, they've finished the grade. Time spent is irrelevant.

 

"What if the child finishes a certain grade in 6 mths?"

 

In elementary? Then you move on. In high school? Then you let them begin to specialize by doing more classes in their area of interest after the basics are covered. If they continue to fly through courses, then maybe you look at enrolling them in some AP or college courses online, or look to courses from a local community college if you have a good one nearby.

[Julie in MO]

requirements! I just checked mine (MO) and foreign language and math are the only two subjects allowed to count for HS credit in 8th grade - and only if the continuation course (such as foreign language II, algebra II) is taken during the 9-12 grade years.

Blessings,

Julie