FairProspects Posted February 4, 2015 Share Posted February 4, 2015 Anything? We've done or will shortly have done all the SOTW books. Ds has read & discussed most of the books in Athena's literature classes. He would *love* the content from G3 but is not yet independently writing a lot at a late jr high/early high school level. Are there online content classes that are between these two for the intermediate/middle school level kids? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
madteaparty Posted February 4, 2015 Share Posted February 4, 2015 My DS is taking literature with online G3 now and does not find the writing particularly onerous. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
crazyforlatin Posted February 6, 2015 Share Posted February 6, 2015 Look into clrchomeschool.com as they seem flexible. I'm planning to do some literature online class this summer but I'm going to wait for the final schedule from clrc before I decide. We did Shakespeare with them last summer and enjoyed it very much. No writing required unless you wanted to at the end of the semester for the teacher's comment. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roadrunner Posted February 7, 2015 Share Posted February 7, 2015 What is Athena's SOTW class like? No writing at all? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dmmetler Posted February 7, 2015 Share Posted February 7, 2015 3-5 sentence responses. Some kids write more, but the minimum is pretty low. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chiguirre Posted February 7, 2015 Share Posted February 7, 2015 The writing for the History of US classes at G3 is only a small step up from Athena's SOTW classes. They make trading cards occasionally or do other more targeted writing rather than just short responses, but it's not much. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roadrunner Posted February 7, 2015 Share Posted February 7, 2015 I was hoping for more intense writing. What is the benefit then of t class rather than completing it on our own? Debating how to allocate resources next year. :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FairProspects Posted February 7, 2015 Author Share Posted February 7, 2015 The problem is the content level he would be interested in is the Big History teen classes. But he is not yet a teen, nor does he write like one. I might stick with history on my own and do science with Athena's instead. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dmmetler Posted February 7, 2015 Share Posted February 7, 2015 We do it for DD for social reasons in the subjects that are "Get 'er done" and where she's closer to grade level. She has enough "hard" other stuff that having something that's fun and that she enjoys, especially something where she can be a silly kid with other silly kids is worth it. For SOTW 4, it's been a help to have the emotional support of other kids her age who feel deeply and get upset, too. It's been a good fit for her from age 7-10 or so, and has been a nice introduction to online learning, but I do think we'll be moving elsewhere next year because she's ready for more. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FairProspects Posted February 7, 2015 Author Share Posted February 7, 2015 So where are the 11 y.o. +? At G3? What about the classes listed jr. high/low high school level at Athena's? What is the age range on those? I think I may put my younger ds in Athena's SOTW. He's been asking to do Ancients again and he would love to talk to others about it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dmmetler Posted February 7, 2015 Share Posted February 7, 2015 I think the ones who start younger tend to move on by that point. G3 seems pretty common for history and sometimes literature. There may be older ones at Athena's, though. DD hasn't done any of the science classes, for example, because by the time they started offering them, they wouldn't have been a good fit (she'd started auditing college classes the semester before). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chiguirre Posted February 7, 2015 Share Posted February 7, 2015 T did biology in the fall and is doing biomes in the spring at Athena's. The biology covered an on level high school biology book in a semester, but didn't include labs or much written work. Biomes has more forum posts and using an online college resource, but it's not too difficult. She's also doing G3's History of US 1-5 classes this year. There are forum assignments every week. I sign T up for these classes for the live discussions more than the written work. It's nice for her to have a place to throw around ideas with kids her age instead of me. Both Selene and Galahad are very good at leading discussions and keeping chat focused. T is also doing Latin, Spanish and 8th/9th grade English at Landry Academy. Those classes have homework, tests and papers (depending on the class of course). Most of the students are traditional high school age. We're using Virtual Homeschool Group's Saxon Algebra 1 at your own pace class. There are video lessons and automatically graded assignments and tests, but no interaction. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roadrunner Posted February 7, 2015 Share Posted February 7, 2015 Would you consider a literature class if you kid already read most of the books? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chiguirre Posted February 7, 2015 Share Posted February 7, 2015 I was hoping for more intense writing. What is the benefit then of t class rather than completing it on our own? Debating how to allocate resources next year. :) The Writing With Skill 1 class at WTM Academy has been an excellent experience for T. If your child can type and use Word at a basic level to write compositions as well as handle writing a 300-400 word assignment every week, I'd recommend this class. I think most of the students are middle school aged. T's 11 and in 6th grade so your son would be young, but not too much younger than the typical students. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
madteaparty Posted February 7, 2015 Share Posted February 7, 2015 I sign T up for these classes for the live discussions more than the written work. Regarding the literature G3 classes, agree completely. I consider this my DS's fun class. He is also taking 4 other classes elsewhere which are much harder so something close to his level was key. He had also not read most of the books in the literature G3 classes (just a couple) so I view the class as a nice little book club ;) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FairProspects Posted February 7, 2015 Author Share Posted February 7, 2015 Would you consider a literature class if you kid already read most of the books? Good question. I was wondering this too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FairProspects Posted February 7, 2015 Author Share Posted February 7, 2015 So if you have a very asynchronous 11 y.o. who could handle very high level input and discussions but was really lagging in written work, would Athena's be a good fit? Or should I look at G3 instead? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
quark Posted February 7, 2015 Share Posted February 7, 2015 We opted to do lit/writing/book discussions at home on a leisurely basis because: 1) DS has already read so many of the books 2) he is asynchronous with regards to writing (and if I paid that much for any class I would want to see more writing than a few paras or sentences) 3) he was already spending so much time on math and science 4) he likes our informal but sometimes very probing discussions -- I don't think that would be possible in a class on a very consistent basis I do know G3 and Athena are very, very popular for good reason. :001_smile: We only made the decision above because time and money were already being stretched to the limit. He did enjoy Mythgard for LOTR when he was 10-11. He did the audit option. It was his first intro to Tom Shippey and DS enjoyed the Great Courses lectures by Tom Shippey afterwards (Heroes and Legends)...but without writing, only discussion. His asynchrony is pretty frustrating (to me!). ETA: he did a summer with Classical Learning Resource Center too. But I don't normally mention or recommend it because his experience wasn't satisfactory. The class did get him writing for which I am grateful but we decided to stop using them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nutella08 Posted February 7, 2015 Share Posted February 7, 2015 We've never done Athena but G3 sounds like it could be a good fit for you. DD took lit classes at G3 from age 9-11. Although she had already read a few books herself, she still thoroughly enjoyed the high level input and discussions. While some assignments gave the student opportunities to express more, there wasn't much required writing, and many kids seemed to submit the bare minimum 1-3 sentence answers. Things have supposedly changed this year but back then, it seemed too light for a solid high school course especially wrt writing. But it was perfect for a strong pre-teen reader who wanted to engaging content and peers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kiwik Posted February 14, 2015 Share Posted February 14, 2015 Would you consider a literature class if you kid already read most of the books? I was thinking the other day that might be better because the first read wouldn't be damaged by having to do analysis. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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