Targhee Posted May 3, 2015 Share Posted May 3, 2015 Does anyone have a compiled list of national exams and academic competitions which you can participate in as a homeschooler? I'm thinking of doing this, unless it's already done. It would be nice to have a reference of which exam/competition, levels, ages, reg. requirements, costs, reg. season, exam/competition season, etc.I've seen so much benefit for my kids doing Science Olympiad and First Lego League, and I'm now looking at Mathcounts and National Mythology Exam. I'm just wondering what else is out there to help motivate them to do well in their studies. And it always feels nice to place, get an award, and feel the spirit of friendly competition. I'm thinking of a list/table of these things to show my kids now so they can pick things out for next year.ETA: If you don't know where a list like this is already done, I would love it if you would Please list in this thread AN EXAM OR ACADEMIC/CREATIVE COMPETITION (link preferable) you are familiar with that is homeschool friendly, and I will compile and share with the group. ETA: Running List I will add to. I am trying to compile them in a spreadsheet with more specific info, but for now let's just get the names out there MOEMS AMC-8 MathCounts Noetic Math Contest Math Kangaroo Purple Comet Math Meet Math League Science Olympiad Science Bowl National Ocean Sciences Bowl SeaPerch First Lego League Jr FLL First Tech Challenge FRC Odyssey of the Mind Destination Imagination NaNoWriMo Young Writer’s Program National Mythology Exam Medusa Mythology Exam Exploratory Latin Exam National Latin Exam National Classical Etymology Exam National Roman Civilization Exam National Latin Vocabulary Exam HSLDA Essay Contest HSLDA Art Contest HSLDA Poetry Contest HSLDA Photo Contest National Spelling Bee National Geography Bee Kids Philosophy Slam Stock Market Game Poetry Outloud National History Day Boys/Girls State (American Legion) Model United Nations Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
arliemaria Posted May 3, 2015 Share Posted May 3, 2015 I think I once saw a list you could purchse from The Bluedorns http://www.triviumpursuit.com but can't seem to find it on their site. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Targhee Posted May 3, 2015 Author Share Posted May 3, 2015 I will go look there, thanks. In the meantime, can the hive help me out by listing competitions/exams they know that are homeschool friendly, with links? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mohini Posted May 3, 2015 Share Posted May 3, 2015 Math Kangaroo of course and other than that :bigear: 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Targhee Posted May 3, 2015 Author Share Posted May 3, 2015 Math Kangaroo of course and other than that :bigear: Have you heard of Purple Comet Math Meet? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FairProspects Posted May 3, 2015 Share Posted May 3, 2015 National Geography Bee. You must have 6 participants to register as a homeschool site. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Targhee Posted May 3, 2015 Author Share Posted May 3, 2015 moved to the top post Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Targhee Posted May 3, 2015 Author Share Posted May 3, 2015 This website was helpful, though some things only occur on a national level, which might be prohibitive for some. I am thinking more things you could do in your community. http://www.handinhandhomeschool.com/resources/contests.php Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Targhee Posted May 3, 2015 Author Share Posted May 3, 2015 National Geography Bee. You must have 6 participants to register as a homeschool site. Are you familiar with History Bee or History Bowl? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Targhee Posted May 3, 2015 Author Share Posted May 3, 2015 Kids Philosophy Slam - never heard of it before today, but sounds interesting http://www.philosophyslam.org/index.html Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
4ofus Posted May 3, 2015 Share Posted May 3, 2015 Stock Market Game...right? Poetry Outloud (I don't know what this is, but I belong to a hs support group that participates.) 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FairProspects Posted May 3, 2015 Share Posted May 3, 2015 Are you familiar with History Bee or History Bowl? Nope. National History Day is the one I usually see as the history competition. Also Girls State & Boys State and Girls Nation/Boys Nation for high school students. Model UN too. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FairProspects Posted May 3, 2015 Share Posted May 3, 2015 Oh, don't forget Destination Imagination and Odyssey of the Mind. I would love to see one of those get started for youngers. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Farrar Posted May 3, 2015 Share Posted May 3, 2015 Future City http://futurecity.org/ All homeschoolers should think about doing Destination Imagination! ;) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
arliemaria Posted May 3, 2015 Share Posted May 3, 2015 Nope. National History Day is the one I usually see as the history competition. Also Girls State & Boys State and Girls Nation/Boys Nation for high school students. Model UN too. I participated in Girls State in WV for many years as a camper and counselor, but I was not aware that homeschoolers participated in this. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
4ofus Posted May 3, 2015 Share Posted May 3, 2015 Future City http://futurecity.org/ This looks GREAT! I'm totally forwarding this information to my homeschool group to see if we can get a team together :). Thanks for the link! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
4ofus Posted May 3, 2015 Share Posted May 3, 2015 Here's a hacking contest: https://picoctf.com Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FairProspects Posted May 3, 2015 Share Posted May 3, 2015 I participated in Girls State in WV for many years as a camper and counselor, but I was not aware that homeschoolers participated in this. There have been some threads on the high school boards. That said, I've never tried to send a homeschooler or anything since my personal kids are not old enough yet, so I don't know what the difference in procedures would be. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
arliemaria Posted May 3, 2015 Share Posted May 3, 2015 There have been some threads on the high school boards. That said, I've never tried to send a homeschooler or anything since my personal kids are not old enough yet, so I don't know what the difference in procedures would be. When I was sent our high school got to select three girls to send. It wasn't a large high school, my graduating class had under 120, but it was something of an honor to get selected. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FairProspects Posted May 3, 2015 Share Posted May 3, 2015 When I was sent our high school got to select three girls to send. It wasn't a large high school, my graduating class had under 120, but it was something of an honor to get selected. I went in high school also, but my largish high school had never heard of it or had anyone attend (or if they did it had been years). My mom walked me through the application on my own because she had attended and felt it would be a valuable experience for me. I'm might have had to get a high school counselor or something to sign a form, but we did the entire application process as a family. Since I applied and was accepted as an individual, I don't see how it would be any different for homeschoolers and I don't see anything on the website stating homeschoolers can't participate. It just states that you must have completed your junior year of high school to be eligible. I assume homeschoolers would just have to be selected by their American Legion. I think I recall an interview process outside my school but it has been a long time now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JDoe Posted May 3, 2015 Share Posted May 3, 2015 Marked for future peeks Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dmmetler Posted May 4, 2015 Share Posted May 4, 2015 Continental Math League and subject exams (science, language arts, current events, history) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SeaConquest Posted May 4, 2015 Share Posted May 4, 2015 The National French Contest: http://www.frenchteachers.org/concours/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kuovonne Posted May 4, 2015 Share Posted May 4, 2015 It isn't national, but Texas has a *very* homeschool friendly academic competition called PSIA for kids in 1st - 8th grades. It was designed for private schools, but welcomes homeschoolers. They offer 19 different academic contests: writing, math, art, music, speech, geography, spelling, vocabulary, science, etc. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Seasider Posted May 5, 2015 Share Posted May 5, 2015 I participated in Girls State in WV for many years as a camper and counselor, but I was not aware that homeschoolers participated in this. I also did Girls' State when in high school, but that was looong ago. When my oldest was a junior I looked into Boys' State and was given a cost of $760 for him to participate! We decided to pass. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dmmetler Posted May 5, 2015 Share Posted May 5, 2015 National Number Knockout http://nationalnumberknockout.com/experience-n2k/ Free competition (but if you pay money, you get information earlier and more information, which is a definite advantage), and definitely homeschool friendly since it was founded by the Bortins and most of it's sponsors are things like Classical Conversations, IEW, HSLDA, etc World Education Games-http://www.3plearning.com/worldeducationgames/ 3 day competition, homeschool friendly, free (but is a fundraiser for UNICEF), International. This is an online competition, where kids compete head to head with other kids from different countries. Uses the same game engine as Mathletics, Spellodrome, and IntoScience. Usually can be accessed on any computer or tablet. There are sometimes other events within the year as well. My DD just competed in a UK Chemistry event through the same company-she saw it on their website, e-mailed and asked, and they added her to the homeschool team from Great Britain. Trimathlon http://www.mathnasiumtrimathlon.com/ Free, but you have to go to a participating site to do it, and there seem to be fewer each year. :( 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MomsintheGarden Posted May 6, 2015 Share Posted May 6, 2015 These are great! Thanks for collecting them all in one place. If anyone has any questions about the Scripps National Spelling Bee, or about running a local homeschool spelling bee, please feel free to ask me. Our family will have a fourth child competing in Scripps in three weeks. I've also run our local homeschool bee for the past 11 years (do I get a prize for that?), and pronounced for another homeschool bee, so I am familiar with the competition at all levels. Competition can be very inspiring for homeschooled students. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Corraleno Posted May 6, 2015 Share Posted May 6, 2015 National Greek Exam National Biblical Greek Exam Signet Classics Essay Contest 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Targhee Posted May 6, 2015 Author Share Posted May 6, 2015 We are in the thick of tech week for a Shakespeare production, so I will have to get to compiling these next week. But thank you all for the ideas, and keep them coming! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raptor_dad Posted May 7, 2015 Share Posted May 7, 2015 USA Computing Olympiad/IOI http://www.usaco.org/ Great contest, great online training pages. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Corraleno Posted May 7, 2015 Share Posted May 7, 2015 North American Computational Linguistics Olympiad 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Luckymama Posted May 7, 2015 Share Posted May 7, 2015 Envirothon---high school, teams of 5, state/provincial then national competition http://www.envirothon.org 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
arliemaria Posted May 9, 2015 Share Posted May 9, 2015 Which competitions are for young academics like K-2? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MBM Posted May 10, 2015 Share Posted May 10, 2015 The Concord Review is an academic journal of history research papers written by high schoolers. Getting published by them is considered quite an achievement. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LiverpoolFan Posted May 12, 2015 Share Posted May 12, 2015 Abacus Math International Challenge. You submit your solution once a month. Participants are grade 3-8 around the world. http://www.gcschool.org/Page/Shortcuts/Abacus 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Farrar Posted May 12, 2015 Share Posted May 12, 2015 Which competitions are for young academics like K-2? Both Destination Imagination and Odyssey of the Mind have special non-competitive categories for K-2. My kids did DI's Rising Stars and it was a great experience. You may know you won't be "judged" at the end, but it's still a lot of work and nerve wracking to go before the appraisers. At least in DI, you can also opt for kids that age to compete for real in the elementary level, though it's pretty unlikely that they'd win, it could be a good experience. Not sure about the OM policy. I *think* Lego First has kids that young. I know Math Kangaroo begins in first grade. Technically the National Mythology Exam is for grade 3 and up, but I saw someone mention that they had younger kids do it too. I know when our co-op did it, the younger siblings also took it "for fun" and two of them could have medaled so you could look into that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Farrar Posted May 12, 2015 Share Posted May 12, 2015 I just remembered this speech contest that I did as a middle school student. It seems to still exist, though I don't know a ton about the organization - it was just something we did as a class. But I won two medals and I remember that writing the speeches was a really great experience. It looks like they may have other contests too. http://www.optimist.org/programs.cfm Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dmmetler Posted May 14, 2015 Share Posted May 14, 2015 Continental Math League (and most of their subject tests) begins at 2nd grade, and a younger math student could do the test if they wished. CML is a really good one for young kids to do as their first competition, because if you register as a homeschooler, you're automatically a school and they send you a "school award" for your highest scorer-just as they do for a school of 100 kids at a grade level. It didn't take my DD long to realize that 1/1 isn't exactly a big accomplishment and to start working towards the National awards (which basically require a perfect score), but she was really excited at age 6 :). The World Education games begins at K/Reception, but that's one that can be very, very frustrating for young kids because it's speed dependent (and I swear, when my DD was in that age group that some of those kindergartners could type faster than I could!). 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Targhee Posted May 18, 2015 Author Share Posted May 18, 2015 Still working on compiling this. Life just keeps happening even though I have all these things I want to do! I will post when finished. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pitterpatter Posted May 18, 2015 Share Posted May 18, 2015 Perhaps not entirely academic, but IFAW has an art and writing (two separate categories) contest that spans ages 4-18. http://www.ifaw.org/united-states/our-work/education/art-for-animals ETA: Maybe you could have a category for these more low-key type contests. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
arliemaria Posted May 28, 2015 Share Posted May 28, 2015 Here is one I just came across that I don't think has been mentioned: Google Science Fair https://www.googlesciencefair.com/en/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
merylvdm Posted May 29, 2015 Share Posted May 29, 2015 I just remembered this speech contest that I did as a middle school student. It seems to still exist, though I don't know a ton about the organization - it was just something we did as a class. But I won two medals and I remember that writing the speeches was a really great experience. It looks like they may have other contests too. http://www.optimist.org/programs.cfm They have speech and an essay. I have had 3 of my co op students (one being my daughter) win this at State level - a nice $2500. I posted contests on my blog (fundafunda.com/blog) for a number of weeks - for a while I shared one contest a day on social media and then blogged about all 5 at the end of the week. Then I got too busy doing contests (I coach our Science Olympiad team) and so that fell by the way but there may be a few listed there that haven't been mentioned yet. Our homeschool group, and my own kids have done a lot of the ones mentioned (including the hacking one!) and I can say the benefit the kids derive is enormous, even when they don't win. But the kids in our homeschool group do win. Many of them have won or placed in contests - and a wide variety of contests! It would be great to see more homeschoolers doing contests. Almost all are homeschool friendly. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Penguin Posted May 29, 2015 Share Posted May 29, 2015 Allow me to pout for a moment. So many of these require that you be a U.S. resident, and are not open to U.S. citizens living abroad :( 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
8filltheheart Posted May 29, 2015 Share Posted May 29, 2015 http://thechallenge.dupont.com Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
arliemaria Posted May 29, 2015 Share Posted May 29, 2015 http://thechallenge.dupont.com Looks great!, BUT: Note: Home schools, online schools, after-school programs, clubs and associations, gifted and talented programs, and other non-classroom groups are not eligible at this time Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
8filltheheart Posted May 29, 2015 Share Posted May 29, 2015 Looks great!, BUT: Note: Home schools, online schools, after-school programs, clubs and associations, gifted and talented programs, and other non-classroom groups are not eligible at this time I took a sec to look bc we have had a child win an honorable mention. Homeschool students are eligible for the upper level division (the only one I looked at bc that is what we have done. http://thechallenge.dupont.com/essay/rules/eligibility.php ) I wonder if you looked at the teacher awards? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
arliemaria Posted May 29, 2015 Share Posted May 29, 2015 I was looking at their K-5 elementary program: http://thechallenge.dupont.com/elementary/rules/eligibility.php Thanks for making the distinction. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
8filltheheart Posted May 30, 2015 Share Posted May 30, 2015 I was looking at their K-5 elementary program: http://thechallenge.dupont.com/elementary/rules/eligibility.php Thanks for making the distinction. I went and looked at the site. Their distinction actually makes sense bc at the younger ages it is an entire classroom creating a single project. I don't even remember a younger age category. I just asked ds and he said that there wasn't anything younger than 6th grade the yr he submitted his entry. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heidi Posted May 30, 2015 Share Posted May 30, 2015 Following. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kubiac Posted May 30, 2015 Share Posted May 30, 2015 Don't know if this is current, but here's a list I found while Googling: Hand in Hand Homeschool: Educational Contests Open to Homeschoolers Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.