Help! With 10th grade schedule

[srainbow]

This is her schedule:

 

English 3 TPS online (covers writing, grammar, some lit)

History is American Gov. maybe with Notgrass, just doing piecemeal right now.

Apologia Physics

Saxon Advanced Math 2nd half of book

Latin year 3 online Memoria Press

Spanish finishing RS 2 (in a week or two) then starting RS3 or doing BJU year 2 to shore up

 

Piano approx 45-60 minutes a day

Speech class every other Wed. plus speech work approx. 30 minutes a day.

I am also trying to add some art every other week or so for about an hour.

Am I crazy. Some of my friends say I'm doing too much with her. I have cont4mplated dropping Physics, I have stretched Govt. out so essentially she is covering it in a year instead of half a year and I could stretch it even farther if we do Early American History next year they could go together too.

 

I am just tired because I can't do the Physics with her like I would like. She is self taught in that right now. I did buy some DVDS but she doesn't like the speed, wants to do it herself. Am I just being too controlling? I am not feeling peace with her schedule because I am afraid it is too much, that she will burn out, hate school. I just can't seem to let go of anything? Any feedback? Just to add Math and languages are her strong suit so that's why I do focus on the math, sciences and langauges. She does love to read though. Anyway. 11th and 12th grade would be just as full except she may drop Latin at some point?

I am proud of her abilities but also stressing for some reason.

[caroljenn]

Haha! I am always wondering if I am doing too much with my dd, who is also in. 10th grade. Look at our list in my signature!

 

I think we want to do so much for our kids that sometimes it's too much. If you take out Physics, will you have room for it next year? My daughter is taking Chem this year, Physics next, and Biology with CLEP or something else with CLEP senior year. She took Biology as a freshman. Will your daughter have 4 yrs of science if you take it out? My daughter is going for an engineering career, so she needs 4 yrs of science.

 

It doesn't look like so much to me, I think maybe you need a better idea for physics because that seems like what you're stressed about? Can you co-op it out next year and forget about it this year?

[snowbeltmom]

Does your daughter think her schedule is too much? How many hours per day is she spending on school work? I would not drop the physics since imo, science should be studied every year in high school.

[srainbow]

Thanks for the replies! It looks like we are going to stick with Physics. I would like her to do Science every year especially since we don't know what she wants to do yet and science comes fairly "easily" to her and may go along with her math likes. We talked some more today. She wants to do it. I did ask her to be willing to watch the DVDs with me maybe a couple times a week to maybe cement the concepts and do a couple problems together. It is hard to say how long she spends on school. It seems like she starts at 9 AM, takes an Hour lunch break (long IMO) then is done generally around 3-4 PM. She's fairly quick at her work. I'm hoping to see her take a little more time as classes progress. She took Bio. in 9th and the plan is she will take chem in 11th and then 12th will be an advanced science class like physics w/ calculus or chem or bio? This is the "paper" plan anyway. Feeling a little less stress.

Welcome to homeschooling CarolJenn (is this your first?). I'm learning a lot.

Edited September 25, 2012 by srainbow@sonic.net
Add a thought.

[AngieW in Texas]

She has two foreign language programs. Can she drop one? Spanish is good to keep because colleges generally want to see 2-3 years of a modern language. Latin would be the one that she could drop with no repercussions.

 

My kids generally did about 6 credits/year. They did one each of English, history, math, and science every year. That left two other credits each year.

 

My 12th grader is taking

Chemistry I over the summer at cc - 1 credit

Chemistry II fall semester at cc - 1 credit

Government I/II fall/spring semesters at cc - 1 credit altogether

Programming spring semester at cc - 1 credit

Calculus - 1 credit

English - 1 credit

Personal Finance - 0.5 credit

This makes a total of 6.5 credits for her senior year, but one of the credits was over the summer.

 

My 9th grader is doing

English - 1 credit

math - 1 credit

history - 1 credit

conceptual physics - 1 credit

sign language - 1 credit - haven't started this yet, but will soon

She is also taking voice lessons and guitar/banjo lessons and spends at least 1 hour/day practicing. I actually doubt that she will go to a 4-year university, although I do want her to at least get an associate's degree. Her interests are country music and photography and neither requires a college degree. I want to have her prepared to be able to go to a 4-year school in case she ends up finding a passion that requires college.

[caroljenn]

Thanks for the welcome, Srainbow! Yes she is my first and only- I am blessed with a stepson who is almost 19 and about to join the navy. My daughter has been raised as kind of a half-only, since I haven't had any say in my son's education, I haven't had the chance to obsess about it- haha! In a way that's been good, since he's really bright but doesn't like school.

 

With my daughter having Chronic Fatigue, and making the decision to pull her out of school permanently, a heap load of stress has been dumped on us! Too much, too little- who knows? It didn't matter as much when i had to homeschool her in 7th grade, but it matters now that she's in high school, and that's a big stress. I just hope doing what I think is best will be enough!!

[Jean in Newcastle]

It doesn't look too much to me. It is around the same number of hours and classes that my 10th grader takes. But my 10th grader does not have chronic fatigue.

[Jenny in Florida]

English 3 TPS online (covers writing, grammar, some lit)

History is American Gov. maybe with Notgrass, just doing piecemeal right now.

Apologia Physics

Saxon Advanced Math 2nd half of book

Latin year 3 online Memoria Press

Spanish finishing RS 2 (in a week or two) then starting RS3 or doing BJU year 2 to shore up

 

Piano approx 45-60 minutes a day

Speech class every other Wed. plus speech work approx. 30 minutes a day.

 

 

The way I count this, you have six solid credits and a couple of less demanding, possibly extracurricular things. That sounds like a fairly typical courseload to me.

 

Edit: Actually, I just realized it's only 5.5 credits, since you're stretching a half credit of government over the full year and not doing another history credit. This seems extremely do-able to me.

 

For comparison, my 10th grader is doing the following this year:

 

Modern U.S. History (1 credit)

American Government (1/2 credit)

Chemistry with lab (1 credit)

Algebra II (1 credit)

English (1 credit)

Foreign language (in the process of switching from Spanish II to Italian I, but either way, 1 credit)

Music/Art History (1 credit combined)

Creative Writing (1/2 credit)

 

We'll switch out the two half credit courses for different subjects in the second semester. So, he'll earn seven credits for the year.

 

For extracurriculars, he dances a few times a week, volunteers at the local science museum, does youth and community theatre and participates in our church's youth group.

 

He's busy, but not overwhelmed.

Edited September 26, 2012 by Jenny in Florida

[at the beach]

This is her schedule:

 

English 3 TPS online (covers writing, grammar, some lit)

History is American Gov. maybe with Notgrass, just doing piecemeal right now.

Apologia Physics

Saxon Advanced Math 2nd half of book

Latin year 3 online Memoria Press

Spanish finishing RS 2 (in a week or two) then starting RS3 or doing BJU year 2 to shore up

 

Piano approx 45-60 minutes a day

Speech class every other Wed. plus speech work approx. 30 minutes a day.

I am also trying to add some art every other week or so for about an hour.

Am I crazy. Some of my friends say I'm doing too much with her. I have cont4mplated dropping Physics, I have stretched Govt. out so essentially she is covering it in a year instead of half a year and I could stretch it even farther if we do Early American History next year they could go together too.

 

I am just tired because I can't do the Physics with her like I would like. She is self taught in that right now. I did buy some DVDS but she doesn't like the speed, wants to do it herself. Am I just being too controlling? I am not feeling peace with her schedule because I am afraid it is too much, that she will burn out, hate school. I just can't seem to let go of anything? Any feedback? Just to add Math and languages are her strong suit so that's why I do focus on the math, sciences and langauges. She does love to read though. Anyway. 11th and 12th grade would be just as full except she may drop Latin at some point?

I am proud of her abilities but also stressing for some reason.

 

She's doing a solid course load IMO, including several online/outside classes between the Latin, English and Speech and those can be big time-takers. IMO doing credit comparisons isn't necessarily helpful in determining if a schedule is manageable. It really depends on what each course requires. Latin via Lone Pine vs Rosetta Stone would likely be a different time commitment. English with LLATL would be different than TPS English (and IMO either is acceptable depending on your goals). If you discover TPS English takes 2.5 hours daily, maybe that's too much and you can find something more efficient.

 

Because foreign language is one of her strengths, I would not drop Latin, especially since she is completing her third year at this point. I would not drop Physics, either.

 

BTW, my daughter is doing US Gov this year. I'm counting it as 1 credit. There is plenty there to make it a full credit course.

[Jenny in Florida]

BTW, my daughter is doing US Gov this year. I'm counting it as 1 credit. There is plenty there to make it a full credit course.

 

Oh, absolutely. I was responding to:

 

1. srainbow saying she was spreading out half a credit over the full year.

2. the fact that, in most high schools, government is a half-credit course.

 

I don't doubt that you could easily spend a full year studying government, but it's one of those cases in which I, personally, choose to put it on the transcript in a way that will look familiar to college admissions officers.

 

It's just like I've said several times about English at the high school level. The fact is that most students are likely to spend far more than an hour a day on English, especially if they are reading challenging materials and have a good number of Great Books on their lists. However, typically, English is a one-credit course. So, that's how it goes on our transcripts here.

[srainbow]

She's doing a solid course load IMO, including several online/outside classes between the Latin, English and Speech and those can be big time-takers. IMO doing credit comparisons isn't necessarily helpful in determining if a schedule is manageable. It really depends on what each course requires. Latin via Lone Pine vs Rosetta Stone would likely be a different time commitment. English with LLATL would be different than TPS English (and IMO either is acceptable depending on your goals). If you discover TPS English takes 2.5 hours daily, maybe that's too much and you can find something more efficient.

 

Because foreign language is one of her strengths, I would not drop Latin, especially since she is completing her third year at this point. I would not drop Physics, either.

 

BTW, my daughter is doing US Gov this year. I'm counting it as 1 credit. There is plenty there to make it a full credit course.

 

I so much appreciate the feedback,discussion and IMO's. English 3 will NOT take 2 1/2 hours a day, of this I am sure. In fact it seems light on the reading(although there is some) but we'll see as it is still just getting going. This year I think may actually be lighter than last year. I am still mourning our departure from great books but may get back to it next year.

The biggest time crunch is probably speech because it is 1 hour away (we live in boonies) and is 3 hours long. We meet every other week and there are speeches to write and a minimun of one tournament in March.(we did this last year too). My husband insisted we do it again this year for both of our daughters sake. It is a great group of homeschooled kids but overwhelms me if I think about it too too much.

That being said, I do think the schedule is a little tight but doable. Feedback helps so much (and sometimes work on Saturdays).It is so hard to judge sometimes what is acceptable and good.

 

I wish I could squeeze in more Government. We'll see. Ca only "requires" 1 semester but of course there is so much more to study.

For other extracurriculars she helps at our church once a week for AWANA and goes to YG every other week.

I guess looking at all of this I can be pretty grateful for all the good things in our life even if it feels overwhelming sometimes.

Edited September 27, 2012 by srainbow@sonic.net
correction