x\post from Logic board: Panicked about highschool.

[5LittleMonkeys]

I've been looking at high school credits, college requirements, ACT\SAT testing, reading things about dc needing to take AP classes in order to be more desirable to colleges...ugh...I'm starting to panic because what she is doing this year seems so easy for her. I worry that I may not be expecting enough out of her, but when I have given her work that I think might be more of a challenge she balks and complains. Her reasoning is that it doesn't seem fair to her that I try to give her harder work simply because she is able to complete her work accurately and quickly.

 

This is what she is doing this year (8th):

 

Latin - Latin Prep 1 She has decided that she wants to do 4 years of Spanish so this will be the last year she does Latin. She is doing well with it...has gotten a little hung up on neuter endings but otherwise is progressing at a steady pace.

 

Grammar - R&S 6 She is moving through this pretty quickly and will probably be able to move onto 7 before the end of the year. She doesn't do much of the written work from the text but reads the text and then does the corresponding worksheet. She scores 100 on all worksheets and tests.

 

Writing - IEW SWI-B I think starting this week I am going to start to accelerate her through this...it seems, at this level, to be way too easy for her. I probably could have started her off in SWI-C but couldn't afford two levels. She isn't writing essays yet but I'm positive she could be without much trouble. She has no problems with grammar, spelling, punctuation, or style. I know that she doesn't write nearly enough for her grade level. My goal was to have her writing essays by the end of the year but I really think she is capable of being there much sooner.

 

Literature - LLfLOTR Doing well with this. She is doing this independently except for the comp questions, which we do orally, and I'm helping her study the vocab. I'm wondering if I should turn some of the comp questions into written responses. (?)

 

Spelling and Vocab- She is a natural speller and she gets lots of vocab from Latin and Literature.

 

Math - We started Chalkdust Pre-Algebra this year but it was a little overwhelming to her. She had come out of MUS and I think the biggest problem wasn't the concepts themselves but the way they were presented...the format. I picked up MUS pre-algebra and she is flying through it. I think she will be done by the end of January. I plan to pick back up with the Chalkdust at that point and have her finish it through the rest of the year and our summer break. My cover school requires Algebra be taken in 9th so there was no rush to get to Alg. this year.

 

History - Notgrass America the Beautiful This is super easy for her. She really dislikes history though so I'm not really wanting to push anything harder on her.

 

Science - She was doing So You Really Want to Learn Science in an attempt to give her a good overview of all sciences before starting highschool, but she has been complaining that the way it is worded is confusing her. In the meantime, until I get something else or until I decided to continue with SYRWTLS, I have been letting her do the middle school Aha!Science. This, however, isn't challenging AT ALL (would be for a child who has never had any science exposure). She will be doing Apologia Physical, Biology, Chemistry and Physics at a tutorial during highschool. She is also doing an interest project on the genetics and breeding of horses but has yet to produce anything. I need to sit down and help her solidify a schedule for this and give her some guidelines as to the types of output she could do for this topic. As far as the SYRWTLS goes, I admit I haven't even had time to sit down and really read through it so it may just be a matter of me needing to have her read the chapter, watch any videos\documentaries that could accompany the topic and then she and I sitting down together to discuss the chapter and go over the questions at the end of each section. I'm tempted also to have her start taking notes as I know this will be required next year in her science class. I've talked to the professor that will be teaching the science classes at the tutorial and he said that having a huge knowledge base coming into his classes wasn't necessarily a benefit. He said even students with very little science knowledge coming in did just as well as those who had done a lot of science up to that point. So, I'm not overly worried about this subject except for the note-taking issue.

 

Logic - Nothing. She did Fallacy Detective last year and while she understood it she did not like the way the book was written and didn't want to move onto Thinking Toolbox. I'm considering just letting this slide until next year and then starting Traditional Logic I. She already is really good at critical thinking and is very logical in her thinking.

 

She doesn't do a lot of free reading as she is very, very picky about what she devotes her time to. Although I would love for her to read more, it isn't a hill I want to die on right now.

 

Okay, so if you made it this far, tell me that this all looks at least average for an 8th grader. I think what is freaking me out is that she doesn't really push herself at all even though I feel confident that she could handle a much more rigorous courseload. However, when I push a little she pushes back harder and then we come to a standstill.

 

She thinks she is challenged enough, but I don't have anything to compare to what she is doing other than what some of your dc are doing. I know we shouldn't compare, but I need some type of baseline to make sure I'm not shortchanging her. She has some pretty hefty plans for her future (vet) so I don't want to waste time next year shoring up things she should have cemented this year.

 

Advice? I'm looking for your honest opinions on whether or not what she is doing is good enough prep for starting highschool next year or if we really do need to step it up this year.

 

Thanks for indulging me.