One Year Before MFW AHL

[SnMomof7]

If you had one year (8th) left before tackling MFW AHL, would you do ECC? Or something else? For an independently working 8th grader.

[SnMomof7]

Also, for those who have used AHL - what sort of skills are prerequisite to completing the high school level work independently?

[cbollin]

In the case of my oldest and middle dd's, we were already using MFW, so we just used the program next on the list. For oldest, that was CTG in 8^th. For middle daughter she was in 8^th grade in 1850MOD. Oldest was fine doing CTG in 8^th and AHL in 9^th. It just meant more time to do other things and not get too worried on history.

 

You can do ECC if you want. I have one friend who starting homeschooling his third child in high school and started with AHL in high school. So it doesn't have to be ECC is my point. But I like having a foundation of geography and current cultures, and my oldest used ECC in 7^th so I think there's plenty of stuff for jr. high students.

 

For getting them ready for AHL, it looked different for each daughter. My oldest is very strong academically. She was able to pretty much do the readings on her own and just see me for office hours at fixed points in the day. We tried the once a week style of conference, but she needed more time each day. Middle daughter is not as strong in academics so she needed more time from me in the first semester.

 

During jr high years, to get ready, we had them working more and more on their own in math and science and a few things. Then in 9^th, they were doing more on their own from the whole mfw grid. I still helped middle gal with audio books (especially with doing audio bible on biblegateway) so that we studied together. I had regretted not doing more with Bible with my oldest.

 

So, some of it was getting supports and supplements that each person needed whether it was lesson plans to have check list, or audio books, or office hours, or in some cases, even teaching something before sending them off.

 

AHL week 1, MFW recommends that parents work with the student to get the hang of it all, so they don't have to be 100 percent on their own in week 1. For my oldest we weaned and she was more on her own by week 3. For middle, it took longer due to her needs.

 

Academic skills to be ready for week 1 include the ability to write a quality paragraph with all of the standard topic sentence, supporting sentence, closer. Then they'll use that info to put together 5 paragraphs on a topic of their selection to present an argument. My oldest went with something hot topic like should Christian high school students read Harry Potter? Or something like that. It was that or Percy Jackson, whichever series she had enjoyed reading that summer on her own. Middle gal did the topic of Cats Make the Best House Pet.

 

Keep asking because it seems so long ago to me now that I need more prompts to remember what it was like.

[cbollin]

ah, I thought of some other things to get ready for AHL:

 

my middle daughter needed a study method for retaining new vocabulary, so we did practice in Vocab Cartoons to do that style since it fits her.    Then, when we got to the vocab in the AHL LIt/Comp/Grammar guide, she was applying that technique to the remember the vocab words. 

 

so from that, I guess the general idea is to take time in 8th grade to find where they need study skills.   and work on time management issues.  In general, high school school day time should be longer than younger years.  Begin to makes sure they meet deadlines.

 

not all children will be as ready for full independent as others... so it's ok to take a little extra time in 9th grade. or at least I haven't regretted it with my middle daughter.

[SnMomof7]

Thank you so much for taking the time to type this all out! DD works independently now, but largely with work texts. She's using her first textbook this year.

 

As I look ahead to 8th and the MFW plans for ECC, I'm wondering if I could have her use ECC independently using the Teacher Plans grid. That is similar to her weekly assignment grid that I give her. I would modify/fill in subjects as needed.

 

How long do you think the beefs up advanced level assignments would take her? We had our own Bible/LA/Science etc. Mainly looking at the geography/missions focus for her.

[SebastianCat]

This is a great question - and very helpful responses.   We are leaning towards starting MFW AHL a year from now.   My current 8th grade DS is doing Sonlight Core H for history/literature this year, Analytical Grammar seasons 2 & 3, an IEW book for writing, and a Bible class through a co-op.    He does work mostly independently, so I think MFW will be a good fit for high school.

[cbollin]

How long with ECC jr high assignments?   I'm not a good clock watcher.  I have one child who worked quickly. One who doesn't.   Maybe if I describe the assignments, you'll know how long your student will need? 

 

1. one of the jr high extra assignments is to read the assignments from Properties of Ecosystems as a way to enrich geography/earth science/ecology.   It's not their science course in jr, high.  I'd estimate slow to average reader could do those chapters in 15 minutes or less?  probably less.  not every day.

 

2. Chapter a day in the advanced biographies.  but that's not every day either.

 

3. in each country focus, the jr high student will need to spend time to look up basic facts on the country and write a paragraph on each subtopic given in the intro of the teacher's manual.  They have 2 weeks to complete about 7 paragraphs with independent research.  mfw sells that world book dvd/cd rom thing..  or you can use other sources.   And the do that for each country in the program. 

 

4. A longer research paper on any other country.   4-6 weeks to pull that together.. .working steadily in short burst each day. 

 

hmm...   mfw blocks out a 45 minute time block for geography, and then I'm thinking plan for another 15 minutes of focused work?? but I'm a terrible clock watcher.

 

can an 8th grader do ECC all on their own?  probably.   The program is designed for more interaction.  So I personally wouldn't do all of ECC independently.   But it could be done.   They can quiz themselves while playing the geography game if you're not available for that, or no other siblings.  

 

The way my oldest did more independent work in ECC was with the research writing, and country summary sheets.  I also had her gathering supplies and cleaning up.  Some books she'd take and do it on her own and summarized everything out loud to me in 5 minutes while I was getting lunch ready. 

 

I know parts of the lesson grid, I definitely handed over to her to get it done.   but other parts we enjoyed the interaction time with next sibling, and even youngest.  .. oh wait... my memories were in photos on mfw's board... hold on let me find it....   there it is..... where Oldest and Middle each made their own costume for their stuffed animals, and worked on the terrarium... 

http://board.mfwbooks.com/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=161&p=65898#p65898

 

such sweet memories....  I don't have a picture of the two of them with dad on the making a river activity...    But yeah... I think my oldest probably remembers the fun of playing in ECC.   I remember she was wound tight over having to do the stupid summary sheets, so getting short breaks to do a craft once a week, and play songs was a needed break. 

 

but yes, they can do a lot of the grid by themselves.  I know when oldest was in 8th grade and in CTG, it was the year we had moved to new state and I had limited options on getting all done...  so she took the grid and did her stuff without me.  worked great. 

[Blossom'sGirl]

I have two so far that have gone through MFW AHL.  My plan for my next ds is to do a comprehensive year of American history (maybe CLE 8th grade).  My previous ds did a full year of geography and cultures using PAC Geography.  My oldest did SL Core H in 8th grade then on to ancients with MFW.  For me it depended where they were in the history cycle. 

[SnMomof7]

It looks like we will be going with another year of Notgrass, ATB, for 8th. I am planning to use WWS1 for composition as MFW recommends it's completion in 7th and 8th. I will also have DD do some full Progeny Press studies with the lit choices to gear up. We are currently moving to a MFW style grid that I fill in weekly for her. I love that format.

[ThisIsTheDay]

My ds successfully transitioned to MFW AHL after a very relaxed couple of years in middle school.  He had no troubles with working on his own off the schedule (in fact liked it very much). We'd informally used IEW for many years in the past, and he had no problems with the writing assignments.

 

The one thing that he said made a huge difference for him was that he was already familiar with the Greek Gods through his reading the Percy Jackson series the year before.  I know that sounds silly, but he easily kept track of, and already knew backstories of, a number of the Greek gods covered in the Bullfinches book.  Reading it was the highlight of his day, and he practically begged me to not sell it when the year was through.

 

So take that for what it's worth, but he felt that was the key to his successful year, lol.

[scrapbookbuzz]

I'll pipe in here to say that we are using MFW Ancient History and Literature (AHL) for my daughter who's now technically

a junior in high school. And she finds it pretty rigorous. She's not a self-motivated, independent learner at all, unless it 

comes to science!, so I have to spend quite a bit of time with her. Thank you to a previous poster who mentioned that MFW

even recommends starting your AHL student a week before any others! I'd forgotten that and didn't do it. Think I'll let my 6th grader

be on his own this week and focus more on dd! 

 

I do like the fact that we'll be going through, after Ancient Egypt, Greek and Roman history, so we can see how that history

affects our US Government. I'm also adding in American Government this year. Hopefully by the time we get to the election next year,

by which time she'll be old enough to vote!, she'll have a better understanding of the process. But I digress from the OPs original question.

I don't think your kiddo needs to be previously prepared for any of it really. It's laid out very well.

 

Your daughter may enjoy facets of it more if she's really into Ancient History and/or mythology, but honestly I really wouldn't worry about it.

Everything is pretty much step by step. The one thing I would change about it is the examples the give in the Ancient Lit supplement for 

thesis statements, etc. I didn't understand the examples half the time so I wasn't sure how my daughter was supposed to! Just my  two cents.  :coolgleamA: