Jump to content

Menu

How many credits do your children complete each year?


How many credits does your child complete each year during high school?  

3 members have voted

  1. 1. How many credits does your child complete each year during high school?

    • Less than 5 credits per year (child will "graduate" with less than 20 credits)
      0
    • average of 6 per year (child will graduate with 20- 26 credits)
      24
    • average of 7 per year (child will graduate with 26-30 credits)
      33
    • average of 8 per year (child will graduate with 30-34 credits)
      18
    • 9 or more credits per year (child will graduate with 34 or more credits)
      7
    • other...
      7


Recommended Posts

. . . I've ever answered "other" to a poll here.

 

My daughter more or less completed high school in three years with about 25 "official" credits. She had taken algebra before we started counting up credits, and it didn't appear on her transcript.

 

So, she had a pretty normal number of credits to graduate, but carried more credits per year.

 

As of this week (because, you know, plans change), my son is planning a similar path, with some variations.

 

With the credits he's earning this year (8th grade, more or less), he will need only 20 more to match Florida's graduation requirements and to have the courses he needs to apply to the state schools. So, he, like his sister, is planning a slightly heavier than average load for each of the next three years, but will graduate with a normal number of credits.

 

And, yes, I know some colleges don't accept high school credits earned before high school or limit the number. I'm not terribly worried about it, party because I suspect my son will take a year or more of community college before he heads to a four-year school.

 

If he changes his mind and strongly feels he wants to go directly to a university and we find the ones he likes won't accept what we're planning, we'll just have him do one more year of school to meet those requirements.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Our local high school requires 26 to graduate so we are planning on about the same. I believe the difference will be where the credit came from. I know high schoolers who use sports or cheer for 2 PE credits and 2 Elective credits. They also include drivers ed and typing on their transcript.

 

So really that is about 20-21 hours of real academics. Hmmm.... Maybe I should change my plan?:confused:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Ds will have 8 credits next year because he's going to be able to really whiz through two of his electives...not because they aren't rigorous...he's just quite talented in those areas and real natural. So he'll of the core four subjects plus our core must haves for freshman year, Logic and Latin, and then Art History and Practical Drafting. After that, he'll likely carry 7 his 2nd and 3rd year, and 6 his senior for a total of 28. The plan is for a little lighter senior year so that he can accomodate some national and international travel opportunities with 4-H plus some volunteer work and job shadowing. Hopefully, this will help the three of us decide if he is going to have a gap year or not.

 

Faith

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My daughter graduated with 26.5 credits. Her yearly credit earnings were 7.50, 6.25, 6.25, and 6.50 for each year of high school. Others might have calculated her credit earnings for 11th and 12th grade differently than I did. I gave 0.50 high school credits for each 3 to 5 quarter credit class that she took at the local community college. Had I given her one high school credit per community college class she would have had about 10 credits for each of those two years.

 

As an aside, I did not give credits for either of the high school level classes that my daughter took in 8th grade.

 

Regards,

Kareni

Link to comment
Share on other sites

For Ds:

8th grade completed: 2 credits

9th grade completed: 6 credits + 1 dual credit + 1 PE credit for a total of 8

10th grade doing: 5 credits + 1 PE credit for total of 6

 

For Dd:

8th grade completed: 2 credits

9th grade completed: 5.5 credits + 1 PE credit for a total of 6.5

10th grade doing: 7.5 + 1 PE credit for total of 8.5

 

This summer they will likely do 3 credits

 

11th grade will likely do 6-7 credits and if all goes well... they will graduate then. I doubt though that Ds will since he is often not completing his courses on time and has to overlap into next school year or we have to "drop" a course that he wil have to make up later so he can get the previous year's work completed.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I am curious about this. Some posters have listed 7 credits during one year. I would like to know if the year is nine months and if these are textbook courses? In other words, does your student complete 7 high school textbooks -- BJU for example -- in nine months? If so, how much time does your spend per day on school and on each subject?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

No highschooler yet, but I will in a few months. I answered "other" so I could monitor the poll. :lurk:

 

9th grade this year...

 

We have 9 credits on our transcript, but only currently working on 8 for the school year. One credit was carried-over from 8th grade.

 

I have heard (and fully suspect it to be true), that each subsequent year earns fewer credits as the material gets harder and more time-consuming, the child gets a job/apprenticeship/etc which takes time, and time to study for SAT/ACT/CLEP etc. uses up study time. So I am front-loading our high school credits due to this.

Was Algebra carried over? I know dd has to have 3 math credits to graduate, she's taking Algebra I this year (8th grade). I did not know I could carry credits up. How do you do that?

My daughter graduated with 26.5 credits. Her yearly credit earnings were 7.50, 6.25, 6.25, and 6.50 for each year of high school. Others might have calculated her credit earnings for 11th and 12th grade differently than I did. I gave 0.50 high school credits for each 3 to 5 quarter credit class that she took at the local community college. Had I given her one high school credit per community college class she would have had about 10 credits for each of those two years.

 

As an aside, I did not give credits for either of the high school level classes that my daughter took in 8th grade.

 

Regards,

Kareni

Was Algebra I one of them?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I am curious about this. Some posters have listed 7 credits during one year. I would like to know if the year is nine months and if these are textbook courses? In other words, does your student complete 7 high school textbooks -- BJU for example -- in nine months? If so, how much time does your spend per day on school and on each subject?

 

We don't use a lot of textbooks. But, yes, we do a fairly typical nine-month academic year. For some of my daughter's courses, mostly the ones I was concerned about being "enough," I kept records of hours spent. But I didn't bother for most of them.

 

What I usually do when I "design" a course for one of my kids is I search online for syllabi of similar courses at the same or similar grade level. That gives me a feel for how much is usually accomplised in such a class, and I generally aim to do at least a little more.

 

So, for my daughter's ninth grade year, she had the following classes on her transcript:

 

American History / English 1

- Followed the WTM approach (loosely), including reading lots of books, writing context summaries about half of them and writing longer papers following each “unit†(2.0 credits)

Anthropology 1: Intro to Archeology

– Read a college-level textbook, watched accompanying video lectures, did a variety of activities with a local anthropology club. (1.0 credit)

Art History: 19th & 20th Centuries

– Read appropriate sections of Annotated Mona Lisa and excepts from another history of art, visited a couple of art museums, did a variety of projects (0.5 credit)

Biology 1 W/Lab

– Read a high school textbook, answered review questions, did quizzes, did some field trips, did a series of labs I pulled together from various sources (1.0 credit)

Geometry

- Florida Virtual School (1.0 credit)

Latin 1

– Completed her text (1.0 credit)

Music: Choir

– This is one for which I counted hours, using Carnegie units (130 hours) as a guide. Although she logged over 140 hours, we gave only 0.5 for the year.

Music Appreciation

– For this one, we did a combination of looking at syllabi for similar courses and counting hours. (0.5 credit)

Theater Arts 1: Theater Survey – This is another one for which we did a combination of comparing syllabi and counting hours. (1.0 credit)

 

She did spend a fair amount of time at her desk, probably comparable to what students spend in traditional schools. We also spread out a lot of subjects so that she was doing things that "counted" on weekends and evenings.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I am curious about this. Some posters have listed 7 credits during one year. I would like to know if the year is nine months and if these are textbook courses? In other words, does your student complete 7 high school textbooks -- BJU for example -- in nine months? If so, how much time does your spend per day on school and on each subject?

Not always a packaged single-curriculum textbook course, but most of ours are at least semi-textbook (with some standard of completion, grades, etc.)

 

Our subjects are in my sig file.... everything is one credit except History of Science (possibly one credit spread over three years, but it might not make it to the transcript - it's fairly light), and Spanish, which is two. His language and math classes are online with textbooks, economics is videos and textbook and extra reading and a class, marine biology is only loosely tied to a textbook but plenty of work... lit/comp is "sort of" textbook with two classes.

 

Our school year this year is late August to early June, nearly ten months in all, and for our first semester (August to now) has been an extremely heavy load.... usually 9-10 hour days with some longer, because he was doing both of the math classes concurrently - basically getting a really intense year crammed into a semester. Second semester will be heavier on the marine biology as the weather warms up, but should have fewer days that go long. He also does music, but I count that as an extracurricular activity.

 

On a per-day basis... well... he doesn't do everything every day. We schedule a "class" or two each week in each subject (either because it really is an outside class or because we need a regular time to make sure we've sat down to discuss new material), and then he does "homework" the rest of the time. Homework is variable depending on deadlines. But he starts at 7am and last semester he was usually done by 5pm with a couple breaks in there... except two nights he had a late online class. VERY long days. This semester I think it's going to be more like 7a-3p, and no evening classes.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

. He also does music, but I count that as an extracurricular activity.

 

This comment reminded me that I perhaps should have commented about "extras." As I said in the post above, my daughter got half a credit for choir in that year. We did that because the choir she begain singing with that year is a pretty rigorous, teaching one. It is affiliated with the Royal School of Church Music and includes a specific curriculum about singing and music theory.

 

She also did a variety of things that we listed as extracurriculuars. That year, for example, she took piano and then classical guitar lessons. She also started doing a fair amount of community theatre. And she was a founding member of our church's youth group.

 

Similarly, my son now sings with the boychoir of the same organization. He also takes private voice lessons. So, assuming he continues with both next year, he will get half a credit on his transcript.

 

However, he also takes several dance classes a week, performs with a Glee-style show choir, takes theatre classes and does community theatre, beongs to our church youth group, and (when he's not otherwise busy Saturday mornings) does model rocketry with his dad. All of those things would get counted as extracurriculars.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This comment reminded me that I perhaps should have commented about "extras." As I said in the post above, my daughter got half a credit for choir in that year. We did that because the choir she begain singing with that year is a pretty rigorous, teaching one. It is affiliated with the Royal School of Church Music and includes a specific curriculum about singing and music theory.

In that case I would count it as a credit. Just regular lessons and "hobby" playing I count as an extracurricular. Same with DS's dabbling in electronics and learning to solder. Next year it might be his science course (with plenty of physics, math and background reading) but this year it's just what he does for fun.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My dd15 is in 9th grade and is on track to earn 6.5 credits. I held her back a year in math and grammar, so I'm only counting Saxon Math 8/7 and Saxon Grammar 8 as 1/2 credit each. Since next year's English and Math will be required components, we'll count those at a full credit, so she'll be up around 7.5 or 8. The English credit for this year comes from her Literature course.

 

I'm a little baffled on how to count her Math, because in addition to Saxon Math 8/7 (which is almost finished) and MUS Stewardship, she's working through an Introductory Algebra college textbook. I'm giving Stewardship (business math) a full credit, and at this point 8/7 and IA a 1/2 credit each as if they were electives. I'm not sure if that's the right way to do it....:confused:

Edited by Abigail4476
Link to comment
Share on other sites

With the electives that do not have tests, do you assign grades, and if so, how? Do you ask for an evaluation? When our son took choir is p.s. high school, there were tests on theory and evaluations. Credit wasn't just earned through participation.

 

Also, for those of you using partial textbooks, how do you assign grades? Do you test or just assign reading and papers that are graded?

Edited by 1Togo
Link to comment
Share on other sites

With the electives that do not have tests, do you assign grades, and if so, how? Do you ask for an evaluation? For example, from a choir direction. When our son took choir is p.s. high school, there were tests on theory and evaluations. Credit wasn't just earned through participation.

 

Also, for those of you using partial textbooks, how do you assign grades? Do you test or just assign reading and papers that are graded?

For me, if there isn't a test there are papers and/or projects. Frequently there are competitions related to the work, and while they don't actually contribute to the grade (it's not like "first place = A, second place = B or anything), his success in competition does tend to support his transcript full of good grades. So I don't worry too much about the subjectivity of grading projects and papers. Also... I keep the best work (projects, research papers, videos or audio recordings of performances and events) in a portfolio, in case anyone wants to see it for themselves.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

We school from August through June taking July off for the County Fair and extra 4-H preparations because dh and I are county science superintendents and our kids enter a lot of projects.

 

My high schooler spent from about 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. with a lunch break, potty breaks, water breaks, but not really long breaks included and occasionally, when dd was in tri/pre-calc, she worked with her dad on math in the evenings. He relieved me of this subject because of the intensity of homeschooling her younger brothers and my brain was starting to turn into mush! She would then usually spend an hour at the piano and then 45 minutes exercising unless she was farm sitting, in which case she was out hauling water and hay bales at 4:30 p.m., bringing horses in, and taking care of sheep.

 

Yes, these were textbook (except the Great Books study/Home Economics/Art History) based courses and unless I found extraneous, unnecessary material in a book, they were fully completed.

 

My now 8th grader works from 9:30 a.m. to 2:30/3:00 p.m. - Algebra, Latin, Fallacy Detective/Thinking Toolbox/Critical Thinking puzzles, Spelling, Grammar and Composition, Great Books, History, Apologia Physical Science, and minor geography studies. Additionally, he spends an hour a day formally learning Visual Basic Programming from his dad, but he doesn't consider this school...but fun. What he does resent is his required 30 minutes of Wii Fit Aerobics/Yoga/Strength training which he must do in order to earn his computer time.

 

Faith

Link to comment
Share on other sites

No, I wasn't counting Algebra I as the carry-over course. The boys did AlgI in 8th grade, but I figured that "they" would figure out that Algebra I was taken in 8th grade when the transcript says Algebra II was taken in 9th.

 

Our carry-overs were classes that they did pre-high school that I feel deserve credit but that would NOT otherwise show up on the transcript. I awarded 0.5 credit for their finishing up the entire "Hey Andrew, Teach Me Some Greek" series. I'm calling it "Intro to Koine Greek". And I also gave them 0.5 credit for doing both "Introductory Logic" and "Traditional Logic I". I'm calling that "Intro to Formal Logic". Those both took a lot of work, and I want colleges to acknowledge their efforts. All that work would be invisible otherwise.

 

ETA: Keep in mind that the method to my madness has NOT been tested and true. We're just starting down this path, and I don't yet know what's the wisest course of action. I would take the advice of parents who have completed high school at home with their kids over my advice any day! :lol:

I hadn't even thought of including Hey Andrew! or Logic.

 

Are you worried about them getting enough math credits, or are you planning on doing higher level math?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Eight is what we shoot for, since thats what you can get at the local ps, although on their system that's 40 credits in a year. Last year, though dd only got 7 because she refused to do an elective the second semester, even though it's one she had agreed to. However, the ps gave her 7.5 credits when she transferred at the mid term point in the fall, so I'll have to add health somewhere if she applies to state schools, since the ps gave her credit for it (we did it before high school, but she has credit for it there.)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Another "other" voter (lol) here for 2 reasons.

 

One reason is that it will depend on what I decide to include on the transcript. Older DS is a senior this year, and will have 26 credits for sure -- BUT, could have 28 credits if I decide to include the 2 credits of "Biblical Studies" from family devotional time, Bible study time, etc. (Our state's Board of Education requires a total of 22 credits for graduating seniors.) Also, some activities (such as participation in Youth and Government) I could have counted towards a credit, but I will instead include under the also very important heading of extracurricular activities. And some things I just don't count as credit or extracurricular; they are just educational "chores" that have to happen (i.e., learning how to use basic computer software, PSAT/SAT/ACT prep and practice testing, etc.).

 

Another reason is that it all depends on *how* you count a credit. I've been seeing people on this board talk about the trend in some midwestern public high schools to switch towards block scheduling, and to require much larger numbers of credits -- BUT they earn those larger number of credits through block scheduling and/or fewer total hours overall (i.e., 180 class meetings -- but a class may only be 40-45 minutes long. And/or the student takes 7 classes -- but only 6 classes meet per day in a rotating schedule, so each class only meets 155 times in the year rather than 180... etc.). Our state calls 1 credit as a minimum of 120 hours instruction. I am holding us to a slightly higher standard by counting a credit as 150-180 hours of instruction; OR completion of the one-year textbook and tests with proof of understanding; OR completion of a 4-unit community college course with a grade of B or above.

 

I feel for those homeschoolers in the states where they are moving to large numbers of credits! I guess the best thing to do is to explain on the transcript what counts as a credit and how a grade was arrived at...

 

 

End result: while on paper it looks like older DS averaged 7 classes per school year, because he carried forward 2 credits from 8th grade, and because we sometimes finish up some work in the summer, realistically, we do an average of 5-6 credits per school year.

 

BEST of luck to all of us homeschoolers when we have to wear that "administrator hat"! ;) Warmest regards, Lori D.

Edited by Lori D.
added info
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm sure we'll do four full years of math in high school. I have a math degree, and my husband has a math background, so we're good on teaching it.

 

My plan (so far) is this, using Saxon:

 

9th = Algebra II

10th = Advanced Math (first half)

11th = Advanced Math (second half)

12th = Calculus

 

If math just ain't their thing, we'll leave off senior year calculus. And I have heard from many people that Advanced Math takes two years to get through. I'll just have to be creative in how I word it on the transcript.

 

Again I will say that this isn't tried and true. I really don't know what I'm doing yet with this whole high school thing. :tongue_smilie:

Okay, another question... I thought that Saxon Algebra I and II covered Geometry, but now on their site they have Geometry separate....... so does she take Geometry next year?

 

Va requires 4 credits of math Algebra I and higher for an AP diploma and I've been a little sick thinking about it :p I imagine we could make it "Higher Math I" and "Higher Math II," but dd wants to go into animation and from what I've read math skills are very important...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My oldest has had more credits her junior and senior years than in her freshman and sophomore years because of her cc courses.

 

She did just 5.5-6 credits each for her 9th and 10th grade years. She has had 7-8 credits for her 11th and 12th grade years. College courses usually count for more credit (often one semester is worth a full year of high school credit, but not for all courses).

 

My dd will graduate in May with 26.5 high school credits and 50 college credit hours. She will have finished all the math and science she needs for the degree she wants to pursue along with freshman English and 1.5 years of foreign language (not required for the degree she wants).

 

I did not give credit for the Algebra course my dd completed in 8th grade.

 

I gave 1/2 credit for one semester of Intro to Psychology, Drawing I, Drawing II, Elementary Statistics, Trigonometry, English Composition I, and English Composition II at the cc.

I gave 1 full credit for one semester of Japanese I, Japanese II, Japanese III, Digital Imaging I, College Physics I, College Physics II, and Introduction to Chemistry I.

 

The only differences between the way that I awarded credit and the way that the local ps awards credit are that I gave just 1/2 credit for each semester of drawing (local ps gives one full credit for each semester) and I gave 1 full credit for completely English Comp I and II (local ps requires one semester of literature also to get one full credit).

Edited by AngieW in Texas
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I am curious about this. Some posters have listed 7 credits during one year. I would like to know if the year is nine months and if these are textbook courses? In other words, does your student complete 7 high school textbooks -- BJU for example -- in nine months? If so, how much time does your spend per day on school and on each subject?

 

 

Depends on the course.

 

I count PE as a credit. In IL public schools require 4 yrs of PE/Health/Drivers Ed credit unless the student can get a waiver and it isn't easy to get one.

 

Dd is getting credit for music application for her music lessons and band practice/shows. This is strictly based on participation credit as it would be if she was in band in school.

 

Ds is getting 1/2 credit for computer applications for Cyber Patriots training and competition. No formal text books, just what he does in C.P.

 

As for core courses... they have to do 75% of the text book to get credit. (Just don't tell them that as I schedule/encourage them to complete the text books :D.)

 

For Literature course... they must read a minimum of 5 books, complete 5 reading journals, write 3 reports to earn 1/2 credit. For full credit... just double that.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

With the electives that do not have tests, do you assign grades, and if so, how? Do you ask for an evaluation? When our son took choir is p.s. high school, there were tests on theory and evaluations. Credit wasn't just earned through participation.

 

Also, for those of you using partial textbooks, how do you assign grades? Do you test or just assign reading and papers that are graded?

 

 

In all my band years in school (5th-12th) I was graded only on participation. We had to keep a practice log that we were given grades on based number of minutes we practiced in a week, and then concert attendance. Every now and then we had a playing quiz on memorizing our scales. But that was it.

 

So it is basically what I do for my Dd and her music. I give her credit based on her private lessons for one hour a week and her band practice of 4 hours a week (which equate to my band attendance in ps) and her home practice time/log.

 

Home practices of 9-10 hours a week = A for that week. 7-8 hours a week = B, 5-6 hours a week = C. We don't allow anything below that and besides, she usually puts in more than 10 hours of home practice.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

With the electives that do not have tests, do you assign grades, and if so, how? Do you ask for an evaluation? When our son took choir is p.s. high school, there were tests on theory and evaluations. Credit wasn't just earned through participation.

 

When I was pondering the question of whether to give credit on transcripts for choir, I did what I mentioned earlier and hit the internet looking for syllabi.

 

What I found was the the majority of high school choirs (or of those for which I could find information, anyway) give credit almost exclusively on participation. It's daily attendance plus attendance at extra rehearsals and performances plus being on time and bringing a pencil.

 

Occasionally, there will be one that lists periodic quizzes and tests. But it's pretty rare, in my research.

 

Now, since I'm still sensitive to the perception that homeschoolers award credit willy-nilly, I tend to "overstuff" (or "undercredit?") these kinds of courses.

 

So, the choirs my kids sing with DO have music theory and a defined progression of levels for which the kids test about once a year. And, using the basic 120-130 hours per credit yardstick, my daughter logged one and a half times the number of hours to meet that requirement.

 

We gave her half a credit. I roughed out a guide to determing a grade that gave points for attending rehearsals and performances and so on.

 

My son isn't doing high school full time yet. But I expect we'll do the same kind of thing for him.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm not sure what to tell you. I had heard that a new geometry course was added when that major publisher bought out Saxon. It was not, however, written by John Saxon.

 

So far, from what I have seen, Algebra I and II include application geometry, but I have not seen "proofs" yet. I don't know if that comes later in Advanced Mathematics or not. But I had heard that geometry WAS included in the Saxon sequence, so I am listing it on the transcript as "Algebra I with Geometry", "Algebra II with Geometry". (I got that idea from someone here, but I forget who it was.)

 

I really don't have a solid answer for you about the geometry stuff. Hopefully someone who is more knowledgable will chime in.

Thanks for all your help :D

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

 Share

×
×
  • Create New...