Too many credits with TOG? What do you do?

[Zee]

I'm looking at next year's courses and trying to get an idea of what we'll be doing for 9th grade. We will be on TOG Year 3 at that point and I want to take advantage of as many credits as we can get. I don't have down swanky course names yet, but hopefully this will give you the gist. Is this too much? It seems like a lot more than what I've seen elsewhere, but I'm not sure. I don't see how you can do much more than TOG if you take advantage of all there is to offer in it. I really want to give the integrated study it provides.

 

Here's what I have with credits:

History (Tog Yr 3) 1

Literature 1785-1900 0.5

Composition 1 0.5

Fine Arts (Tog +Co-op) 0.5

Church History/Bible 0.5

Philosophy 0.5

Government 0.5

Biology 1

Algebra 1

Piano/Guitar 0.5

Latin 1

P.E. 0.5

Traditional Logic 1 0.5

 

Total credits: 8.5

 

I would skip philosophy, but I really want the worldview study in Tog Years 3 and 4 especially. I would wait on Government, but Tog Year 3 and 4 are best suited for this study. What do your course of study and credits look like with TOG? Is this doable or am I totally dreaming?

[Photo Ninja]

History (Tog Yr 3) 1

Literature 1785-1900 0.5

Composition 1 0.5

Fine Arts (Tog +Co-op) 0.5

Church History/Bible 0.5

Philosophy 0.5

Government 0.5

Biology 1

Algebra 1

Piano/Guitar 0.5

Latin 1

P.E. 0.5

Traditional Logic 1 0.5

 

Total credits: 8.5

 

You know, 8.5 credits in one year, without any cc classes contributing to the number, is a bit high and could be questioned by a college, if that is in the future. Seven credits per year is common, but not more unless there is a summer school or cc class involved. Completing all this would be very time consuming, too. Just because TOG includes it doesn't mean you have to do it all, as valuable as the content is.

 

One idea (and it is certainly not the only way to do it):

 

Combine Literature and Composition into one English 9 course worth 1 credit.

History 1 credit

Algebra 1 credit

Biology 1 credit

Latin 1 credit

PE .5 credit

Logic .5 credit

 

Then consider accumulating hours/course work in Philosophy, Fine Arts, Government and/or music and actually award those credits when the other .5 credit is completed. Award those credits next year or the year after when your dc has a full credit. It would make the transcript look more usual to a college (I assume that is in the picture) because most high school courses for one credit last one year, not a semester one year and a second semester a different year. Your dc will still be completing that coursework, but if you find it is too much, you can drop it or put it off till the summer, or whenever is a better time.

 

You may consider not giving credit to piano/guitar, but list it as extra curricular. If your dc will be majoring in music in college, then absolutely include it on the transcript, but otherwise you have Fine Arts to meet that requirement (many colleges want 1 credit of the same fine art), so the music lessons/performance could be extra curricular, unless you have a requirement for a performance fine art course.

 

Here is something else to consider. While you can award .5 credit in church history/Bible, you don't have to. One thing I have seen is that hsers can award validly earned credit for far more than is necessary. Not everything our dc do needs to be awarded credit. If the credit is needed, then award it. Often there are other courses that will mean more to a college, so list those on the transcript and leave off the Bible credit. Yes, it is an important subject, as is church history, and my dc studied those also, but I didn't have room to award them credit on the transcript without making it overloaded. A college doesn't care if they study those courses, but your dc will still gain from studying them. I hope that makes sense. You have a lot of other courses you can award credit to.

 

If you accumulate credits, then 10th grade could look like (depending on when the other .5 credit is earned):

 

History 1 credit

Math 1 credit

English 10 1 credit

Science 1 credit

Latin (or foreign language) 1 credit

Fine Arts 1 credit

Philosophy 1 credit

 

Then in 11th grade, award the credit for Government.

[Guest Cheryl in SoCal]

We use TRISMS and have a similar credit load. However, TRISMS's credits are certified by NARS should they be questioned. Is TOG's certified or anything?

[Zee]

No, TOG is not certified. How much time do you spend each day on school? I'm worried the load will be too big for ds. I want him to be able to have a little down time each day, volunteer as he is able, and keep up with piano and the sports he participates in. What does your schedule look like?

[Zee]

I will respond to this later. Gotta head out. I'm thinking over your post. Two issues I see here: how many credits is too much on the transcript and how much work can ds handle.

[Guest Cheryl in SoCal]

No, TOG is not certified. How much time do you spend each day on school? I'm worried the load will be too big for ds. I want him to be able to have a little down time each day, volunteer as he is able, and keep up with piano and the sports he participates in. What does your schedule look like?

Then it would likely be more difficult to "prove" if questioned but my impression is that homeschool transcripts are often taken with a grain of salt and SAT/ACT/etc scores more heavily relied on.

 

I have a toddler and preschooler so we don't have a set schedule;) I think my 10th grader is doing 9 credits this year but both Bible and PE are 1 credit each (our ISP requires 1 credit of Bible every year) so I don't consider it a full 9 credits. This is his last year for PE so we won't have it in 11th or 12th grade. I'd say he probably works about 5 hours/day but it does vary. We do 4 day school weeks (still totals 180 days so our year is long) but he does math most days and will do anything he didn't finish on his regular days on the off days if he didn't finish something. A lot of his PE is also done on off days at horse riding lessons and Knight school. Bible is also done in the evenings on all evenings by my dh so it's not part of our "school day." Anyway, my point was that he works until things get done and a lot of his credits are spread over the entire week on days that aren't "school days" so that brings down the hour total on school days.

[Tokyomarie]

I will respond to this later. Gotta head out. I'm thinking over your post. Two issues I see here: how many credits is too much on the transcript and how much work can ds handle.

 

You've got good insight here, separating out these two issues.

 

Tackle issue #1 first. Know your child, and be prepared to adjust your expectations as necessary, so that he feels challenged but not overwhelmed. Don't worry as you're going along how you're going to account for the work on the transcript. Document the work, but focus on the learning.

 

As you get closer to the time you need to have a polished transcript, then tackle issue #2. A student who is a highly able and motivated learner and/or a student who works on an extended school year (we have usually done 40-42 weeks), can accomplish more than an average or struggling student. If a student processes information very quickly & can provide quality written output quickly, he/she can often accumulate more than 30 credits without being overwhelmed. That ability should be reflected on the transcript. A more average student or a bright student who processes information more slowly, will likely only be able to complete 5.5-7 credits per year.

 

We counted 0.5 credits/year every year for group music classes. My girls were both in a high level homeschool band & we counted it just as they would get awarded credit for band at school. It's a little trickier when it's private lessons as to how to award credit. In a classroom school situation, private lessons fall under extra-curriculars. It really could go either way, and it would probably be good in a year or two to contact any colleges on your radar and ask their admissions people how they would prefer it be documented. My second daughter was awarded credit for most of her private music study because she was applying to music schools and it seemed to be a clear way of accounting for the number of hours she put into her music study. Again, had she been in a classroom school, she wouldn't have gotten so many hours of credit unless she were in a fine arts magnet. We put it on and let the college decide how they wanted to view it.

[johnandtinagilbert]

I thought TOG offered .5 gov't credits for all 4 years? Same for philosophy and maybe church history? Am I confused?

[Zee]

Thanks for the description of your son's schedule. That was helpful. We'll be working a straight 5 day schedule and will want to minimize schoolwork on the weekends. My husband prefers school be left to M-F and up to now that's always been the case. I think high school will be harder to do that.

[KnitWit]

I gave my dd credit for all the work she did with TOG. It was no problem. The colleges we spoke with said they get concerned when the extra credits are elective type stuff that makes the transcript look *stacked*.

 

I DID provide a list of every single book she read and to which credit(s) they applied.

[Zee]

I haven't checked the Loom documents for each year of TOG yet, but for TOG 3 alone you can receive 1/2 credit each for philosophy, church history, and government. I assume it will be the same for TOG 4, but I haven't looked that year up yet. I don't own that year yet, and don't know if I can see it on the preview of the Loom for Year 4 or not. I do own Year 1 and 2 and will check that out as soon as I get a few minutes.

[Zee]

This is wise advise. I guess the tricky part is knowing that challenged but not overwhelmed place. :001_huh: I understand what you mean about dealing with that first and then figuring out what to assign as credit vs. extracurricular later. I don't want to overwhelm ds - he is used to working hard and long, but he doesn't come by it all easily. He's a bright student, but has his struggles and isn't a particularly speedy worker. He is able, but not necessarily motivated. BUT- he's a 13 yr. old boy, and I expect that to be normal. :lol: I'm not sure what another year of maturity may bring. I guess I'm seeing the need for flexibility as I seek to answer that first problem. Your post is very helpful to me. I'm going to think it over and may start a new post to see what other TOGgers are doing regarding course load and extracurriculars. Thank you.

[Zee]

Polly, what do you think of the classes I've proposed for 9th grade? You have done TOG. Is this too much? I know we can assign the Piano/Guitar as extracurricular, but he'll still have to do the work regardless of whether he gets credit or not. Can you give me an idea of what you did for one year with TOG? Also, what non-credit extracurriculars you did with it and how long it all took each day?

[Zee]

Thanks for your post. I've been mulling it over all day. As I said this morning, I think I've got two issues here: what can ds handle, and how should credits be assigned for what he does. I think I'll have to map out the remaining 3 years of high school to see where everything fits, while making sure we meet the minimum for our state's requirements. Maybe I should give up on the government credit and just do BJU down the road. Then we'd only have to do one semester of government instead of two with TOG years 3 and 4. Ds will not be a music major, I'm pretty sure, so the piano and guitar could go down as extracurricular. It is not uncommon where I live for homeschoolers to give credit for it, but that doesn't mean I have to. :) You've given me a lot to think about.

[choirfarm]

Hi Zee!!!

 

So this will be his first year as a rhetoric student, correct?? My boy just finished year 3 as a 9th grader. He is extremely bright. This is what we did

 

19th Century World History (TOG year 3) 1 credit

English I (consisted of TOG literature, writing, Analytical Grammar, IEWC and vocabulary) 1 credit

Chalkdust Geometry 1 credit

Apologia Chemistry 1 credit

Logic (consisted of introductory, intermediate and Teaching Company logic course) 1 credit

SOS Spanish- 1 credit

 

I had wanted to do PE, but he just didn't log enough hours. He takes piano, but I count that as extra-curricular. He did the Chuch history thread, but I didn't give him credit. I am giving him credit for year 4, but I am beefing it up with a CS LEwis course. The history on rhetoric level was not a big deal, but the literature was a very big jump form dialectic year 2...HUGE. He did it, but it was tough. So you might take that into consideration. After he does year 4, I plan to have him take AP Government. I just couldn't juggle dialectic and rhetoric to include philosophy and government plus all their separate math and science classes, plus finally teaching my 8yo daughter to read fluently ( vision problems and it finally clicked this past year) So I don't know if this is your only child or not, but for my sanity I kept it simple as far as TOG was concerned and just did history and lit/writing and kept church history for fun. Now next year since both my boys will be on rhetoric level and reading the same works I'm adding a church history credit.

 

Christine

I'm looking at next year's courses and trying to get an idea of what we'll be doing for 9th grade. We will be on TOG Year 3 at that point and I want to take advantage of as many credits as we can get. I don't have down swanky course names yet, but hopefully this will give you the gist. Is this too much? It seems like a lot more than what I've seen elsewhere, but I'm not sure. I don't see how you can do much more than TOG if you take advantage of all there is to offer in it. I really want to give the integrated study it provides.

 

Here's what I have with credits:

History (Tog Yr 3) 1

Literature 1785-1900 0.5

Composition 1 0.5

Fine Arts (Tog +Co-op) 0.5

Church History/Bible 0.5

Philosophy 0.5

Government 0.5

Biology 1

Algebra 1

Piano/Guitar 0.5

Latin 1

P.E. 0.5

Traditional Logic 1 0.5

 

Total credits: 8.5

 

I would skip philosophy, but I really want the worldview study in Tog Years 3 and 4 especially. I would wait on Government, but Tog Year 3 and 4 are best suited for this study. What do your course of study and credits look like with TOG? Is this doable or am I totally dreaming?

[Zee]

Hi Christine,

Yes, this is my only child, and yes, next year will be his first Rhetoric Year. Thank you for listing your course load. It's very helpful to see what you have done with TOG. It looks like you had a heavy load with some extras. Some of the things I've listed are "extra's," like the P.E., piano/guitar and fine arts. I'm going to do some more praying and reading up in my high school books, but I may just try things out focusing on the main subjects and keeping hours spent on the extras like church history and philosophy. If we can't keep up, then maybe what we cover for TOG Yr 3 and Yr 4 will add up to a half credit. I think flexibility and willingness to drop those extra's, if necessary, may be the key as I try to figure out what he can/can't handle. I'm also going to look at some of the Dialectic readings for Church History and may substitute some for the Rhetoric level (a few weren't that appealing to me from the first look). Not sure on that till I look it over some, but I already have the Dialectic book and it is high school level from BJU, so tracking hours may be the way to go for a subject like that. Then if we get overburdened by our main subjects, we can drop for awhile or altogether. The other discussions on credits and course loads that are going on right now, have been helpful as I try to sort this out in my mind. Thanks for your response. :)