Please advise for next year......MTMM

[John'smom]

So first my dc have been in HOD since Beyond and are finishing up Rev to Rev right now. They are both heading into MTMM

So my dd (Gracie)will turn 12 in July, and start 7th grade when she starts MTMM. My biggest concern for her is that I am pretty sure that I don't want her starting the High School guides in 8th grade. What do I do? I thought about her doing it over two years, but my biggest concern with that is, would the first high school guide feel like an overwhelming amount of work compared to the half-speed of the two previous years? If she did half speed, I would definitely add things to her schedule like typing, possibly a home ec type thing, Right now she takes violin and to be honest she would love to do piano too, but our days are full of chores, school, violin practice and really just still being a kid. Her day starts and 7 a.m. and she has responsibilities til around 4. So going half speed would allow us to add in maybe the extra instrument. I am also open to any other ideas that you all may have.

My ds (John) is on the other end of the manuals. He will turn 14 in June and start 9th grade this next school year. After reading Carrie's response here (viewtopic.php?f=6&t=13259#p95624), I am pretty sure I want ds to use MTMM and beef it up for High School. So my questions for ds are as follows:
1. Ds will be finished with the first half of English 6 by the end of this year. What should we do for next year? Just the last half of 6? Will that be enough for a credit? or half of 6 and start 7 and finish half of it?
2. For Economics I read that Carrie said you will have to add to it for it to be credit worthy....does anyone have any suggestions of what to add?
3. I would assume we should definitely add a foreign language or no? I am not sure the requirements.
4. History-because of ds being young for the grade he is in, he falls under where he has never had to do the extensions....I am wondering if he needs to add the extensions for this manual to be credit worthy in the history portion or no?
5. Science-I assume you have to add something to the science to make it credit worthy????? IF so, what? Also he did the advanced version of the Science in Rev to Rev this year and I am pretty sure that counts as a science credit for high school. I think he only needs 3 science credits so would you just suggest doing the guide as written and not worry about getting a Science credit this year since her earned the one last year?

I think that was all my questions. Thanks for any help you can give.

[Nealewill]

I know your kids are older than mine but I had to develop some type of plan before I officially decided to combine my younger two kids back together again. My kids are pretty much the same grade difference too. My son will be in 9th grade when he does MTMM. I can share my plan with you and maybe it will or won't help. I can also say that my plan may change as my kids get older too. But for now, this is how I see my son's education panning out.

1. I read on the board that finishing the first 1/2 of 8 is fine. However, in MTMM, grammar is schedule every day. So finishing the last 1/2 of 6 and then doing the first half of 7 would align with daily grammar. The only thing I don't know is if you are really interested in following the guide's schedule for grammar when your kids get to the high school guides. For me, I really like following the guide. My plan is that my son will only finish the first half 8 when he does the first AH guide for his senior year. Since he won't be completing the final guide, I wasn't planning to have my son complete the final grammar portion. This decision is in large part due to the fact that my youngest and middle child are doing the same grammar program and are doing the grammar schedule in the guide they are in. They do grammar together to save me teaching time.

2. I have read on the board the Carrie recommended a few different econ programs but the one I remember the most is her recommending Notgrass. One thing though that I have prayed about is whether or not to have my son take Econ when he is in 9th grade. I remember taking it in college when I was a freshman and I remember struggling with it. My plan at the moment is to make him wait to take Econ until he is a senior. After I poured over the AH guides and while I would hate the miss the living library, I think that is going to be the area I will cut to fit Econ in. I plan to have my son take both personal finance and economics his senior year and I am waiting to see the resources that Carrie suggests for the final guide. One other option I see myself taking is cutting the art suggested in the WH guide from 1 credit down to 1/2 credit. You are required to take 1 credits of fine arts in Ohio but that credit can be received in grades 7-12. My son hates art LOL! If he wants to do the art or the art history only and receive only 1/2 credit for fine art, that is fine by me too. I would have to figure out if there was enough art in 7th-8th grade to award credit. In addition, my kids take piano lessons and they will probably take them for a while. I could always do music lessons for year to fit that credit. But I guess what I am saying is that if I cut the art volume down, I would then let him take economics in 11th grade. I have also considered having my son take financial peace university over the summer when he is a junior so that he can get that finance credit and then do the first AH guide as is for his senior year too. Either option work for us. And in Ohio, you are required to take both Economics and Personal Finance.

3. The state of Ohio doesn't say how many credit you need in language. It seems like most universities like seeing 3 credits. If that is the case, then I would plan to start Spanish next year. However, the state of Ohio only requires 5 credits of electives. Of these 5, econ/financial literacy is 1 and fine arts is another. So you only have 3 more credits to fill. That could easily be filled with Logic in WG and the Spanish the first 3 high school guides.

4. I had read somewhere that the history in MtMM is very meaty. You could add the extensions but from what I have read (scattered in the guide), you don't necessarily have to if it would be too much for your son to make it high school worthy. I could be wrong and hope someone else will weigh in. I do plan to add the extensions though for my son for his 9th grade year.

5. If he did the advanced science last year, then you could leave the science alone in MtMM and not worry about making it credit worthy. After that, you really have a couple of choices. You could continue on and do the science in WG, WH, and AH1 as is and graduate him just fine with 4 years of science. For me, I plan to assign the advanced version of science for my son in 8th grade in RevtoRev. That will count as his physical science credit. Then in MtMM (9th grade), I plan to have him complete the science in the guide as is. I also plan to have him watch the Chemistry 101 DVDs. There is another thread on the board where I think Carrie mentioned skipping the evolution book and then continuing on with the Ellen McHenry Series (the book that follows the Elements that is already assigned in MtMM). If you did those books with the Chemistry 101 DVDs, you could award High School Chemistry. I don't plan to go that route. I personally don't want my son to miss the Evolution book. I plan to have my son do MtMM as is but also work through the Chem 101 DVDs. I then plan to skip the science assigned in WG. My son is very mathy and science minded so while I hate to skip anything, I hate the thought of him skipping Biology from WH, Chemistry from AH1, and the final science more. My plan is that my son will do Chemistry for 10th grade when he does WG. He will then Biology in the WH guide for 11th grade. And then he will complete the final science when he does the AH1 guide. The reason I am assigning the Chem 101 DVDs in MtMM is to help prepare him for the full on Apologia Chemistry course that he will complete the following year. I don't know that I think it is fully necessarily but I have read wonderful things about the Chem 101 DVDs so I am thinking we will add them.

I noticed that you didn't mention literature. Now that....I have no plan for at the moment LOL. But that is truly the least of my worries right now LOL.

Hopefully something I mentioned might have helped your thought process and I look forward to reading what others recommend as well.

[John'smom]

Daneale,
I am so thankful that you weighed in. It is funny because this morning I was thinking I wish Daneale would weigh in. I will have to re-read through your post again to digest everything but from what I can tell, I like your plan. As far as Literature, I am not sure yet. He did DITHOR 1 year and to be honest I think he was just too young (he was fine age wise for DITHOR) and he doesn't have fond memories. I switched him to CLE and he loves it and has been in it since. My dd on the other hand has always done DITHOR and loves it (I started her a little later).

I had a couple questions, where did you find your info for what is required in Ohio? I would love to know. Also I would love to hear what you plan for your younger child if it is the same situation as mine or I would love to hear your opinion about my dd's situation.

Thanks again for typing all that out. I know it was time-consuming and I know you are a busy momma. I am going to read through it all again a couple times and if I have more questions, I will ask.

[John'smom]

Daneale, my ds takes violin lessons at NKU twice a week for 1 hour and he practices at least 30 min 5x's a week. Are we allowed to count that towards the fine arts credit?

Also just an FYI, on the English, DS is in Revival to Revolution now and it schedules English 6 half pace and thus finishes the last half in MTMM. In MTMM it is scheduled either full speed of half speed to finish up the last half of 6. I hope that makes sense. I am fine with him only doing the first half of English 8 as well but wanted to make sure it was okay to only do half of English 6 credit wise. KWIM?

[Nealewill]

Thanks Edwena. I sometimes feel a bit awkward sharing my plans, especially when you or others have kids older than mine and you are more familiar with the higher levels. KWIM? I think that is why I view my plans as tentative because once I get there, I may find my plan wasn't so solid after all. But I am glad you found it helpful!

As for graduation info: I found the info for Ohio graduation requirements at the Ohio Department of Education website. http://education.ohio.gov/Topics/Ohio-G ... and-Beyond (Admins - I am sorry if this link is not allowed. Please delete if I shouldn't have posted it).

Thanks for the info about grammar. I did not know that. I personally would probably just aim to finish 6 then. R&S 7 & 8 have a lot more writing in them is my understanding and the writing resources schedule in the high school guides line up nicely with the writing taught in the R&S books.

As for Lit, I do plan to use DITHOR for my son. I have only used DITHOR for my kids and they like it. Once my son gets to 9th grade, I plan to have him use the 6/7/8 book (again) and complete all 9 genres in that year and he just won't do the hands on project at this time. Because all he has only used is DITHOR, he will actually complete the three levels over 3rd through 8th grade. But for high school, I plan to use it with high school worthy books for each genres in one year. I also have seen in the files a book list for these genres but that list was created before the 2nd and 3rd high school guide were created. I wonder if Carrie or Julie might be able to make some updated recommendations. Are you going to the convention this year? You could always ask them at the convention or send them an email if they don't see this thread quickly enough. My son won't get to high school for several more years so I am guess that sometime more official may be published at that time.

As for my youngest, I plan to let her do MtMM for 7th grade and then she will do WG for 8th. She is a natural reader and she always want to keep up with her brother. I am fine with her (and my oldest) graduating school a year early. I was planning to slow my oldest down this year because it seemed like she struggled with CtC and RtR in the beginning of both years. But then I told my oldest I was slowing her down and she kind of flipped out. She works a lot harder than she was working before so as long as she wants to be where she is and she wants to put in the time to maintain it, that is fine. But I am NOT going to fight with her about it. KWIM? And I don't know that I will let either them go off to college early even if they graduate early. They may just spend a year at home, working and earning money, before heading off to college. I will also say - If it seems like any of the levels just get to be too much, then I will let each child slow down. But I don't necessarily anticipate it. My oldest is quite driven. And my youngest is VERY competitive, loves doing school work, and probably won't want to slow down if her brother is speeding along.

[John'smom]

Daneale,
Thanks so much for the link. Yes, I am going to the homeschool convention. I tried calling HOD and it says leave a message but no beep ever comes up to give me a chance to leave a message????? I would really love for ds to do DITHOR for 9th as I think it kind of would strengthen some weak areas for him but I will definitely need some ideas for book to use with it.

I have thought about it more and realize that I don't know that doing half speed for my dd in MTMM is super wise. It may be okay for her but it will make my life so much harder causing me to have to teach things like Creative Writing 2 times etc. Maybe we should just march along like normal next year and see where she is the following year with maturity etc and see if we want her to go into the High School level or take a year before tackling it all.

[momtofive]

The next post explains much better options!

[Carrie]

Edwena,

This has been such a good thread so far! I can see you working through many things. I only have a moment right now, or I would weigh in more deeply. But, I did want to let you know that we were changing over to a new telephone system on the 29th which is why you were not able to leave a message. The switch took longer than expected, taking two days instead of one, so I apologize that you couldn't leave a message. We now have it switched over, so please call and leave a message. We would be glad to return your call!

If your daughter is handling the volume of material in the guides well, I would be inclined to encourage you to have your daughter simply continue down the HOD path, moving from MTMM into WG without slowing MTMM down. I agree that switching to half-speed over two years and then trying to ramp up to high school level work the next year would be a tough transition. MTMM helps the kiddos practice so many skills needed for WG that the two pair well together. This would also allow you to keep your kiddos combined for another year in MTMM.

We found with both of our boys that the switch from MTMM to World Geography went smoothly. It didn't feel like the shock that high school can often be. This is because one guide prepares a child well for the next guide in line. If you needed to slow down at some point, you could do it when she hits the high school guides. You could always go to having her do three days of plans spread out over 4 or even 5 days if needed once she got to high school. It is a wonderful thing to have some wiggle room once you reach high school! She could potentially add in some of the things you were mentioning she desired too, if you had a bit slower paced schedule for her for high school. High school is a wonderful time to pursue interests unique to each child.

As far as your son goes, we would be glad to help you talk through possibilities for him. I have to run now, but we can return to the discussion another day!

Blessings,
Carrie

[John'smom]

Carrie,
Thanks so much for the reply and for the encouragement to continue on in the line of thinking we were going Thanks for the explanation about the phone. I couldn't tell if I was doing something wrong or not.....I will definitely leave a message so I can chat with one of you. We are coming to convention but I don't like to leave all these things undecided until then. It stresses me and I don't like to take up too much of your all's time at the booth as I know you're hopping.