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I've been reading several posts (actually any I could find!) about placement and highschool and beefing up guides. I just can't figure out what is best for my DD and DS, so I would really like some advice.
First a little background, I've been homeschooling all my dc from the beginning, but we have been using HOD for the past 2 years. (And absolutely loving it!! HOD has completely brought the joy back into homeschooling for us ) My oldest dd is doing RestoRef for 7th grade this year, while my ds is doing Preparing for 5th grade this year. (My younger two are in BLHFHG and LHTH, but I am not worried about them right now.) They are both doing very well. My dd works extremely well independently and is a strong reader and writer. My ds is also doing, he's improved so much from when he started Preparing! He works hard, but is a slow reader, and definitely works better with guidance.
So, on to my question. If I go on this way, both my dd and ds will be in MTMM for 9th, the new Geography guide for 10th, and so on. But I am worried that this will not be "highschool credit worthy" for 9th grade. I'm not good at piecing things together and with 4 dc to teach, I don't know if I would be able manage beefing up a guide that is not If I do the extensions with MTMM, will that be sufficient for highschool credit? I know I have seen several posts on this, so I am sorry for repeating, but I just can't wrap my head around it Would it be pretty simple to just do MTMM, Geography and the next 2 as highschool?

I was thinking that MTMM wasn't enough for highschool credit, so I was planning on either 1) skipping MTMM and using the next 4 guides for highschool or 2) doing RevtoRev and MTMM over 5 days and without taking a summer break to "squish" them in to our time frame. I had pretty much decided to go with option 2, but now I am having second thoughts. We pretty much school year round anyway, so that part doesn't reall bother me. But I'm just not sure "rushing" through the guides will be best, especially for my ds who is very artistic and doesn't pick up on new things as quickly as my dd.

I know in a way it seems early to choose, but I need to see what pace I need to go in the guides. As for other background or pertininent information, I live in Japan. I do think my children will go to college in the US, most likely Christian college in either VA or OK. I don't know for certain though, so I'm not sure about exactly what credits are necessary.

I realize this was very long, so I appreciate your taking the time to read it. I would love ANY advice on ANY of my questions.

Thank you so much!

Laura in Japan

*edited to change mistake in which guide dd is

If your oldest is doing REV2REV as a 7th grader, he would do MTMM as an 8th grader, and do the geography as a 9th grader. Am I missing something there? Or are you talking about the 5th grader? If that is the case, you have a lot of time to figure that out, and you will have had one already doing high school guides. If I were not combining, I would probably skip a guide (if my child were able) in order to have it all planned out for me. You can definately beef MTMM up though, just check out the sticky at the top of the page. The Bible and history with extensions are good to go. I will be beefing up MTMM next year for my 10th grade daughter. She is doing REV2REV beefed up this year for 9th. I would have preferred having the HS guides, but they weren't out yet....so...this is working.

Melissa,

Thanks so much for replying!! I mistyped She is doing RestoRef for 7th, and RevtoRev for 8th, which would make MTMM for 9th. We are on a different schedule, so we are finishing up RestoRef now. I have already ordered RevtoRev, so I can't keep skip that one. I think my dd might be able to handle skipping a guide, she picks up on things quickly. SO, it might be good to skip MTMM and got straight to the Geography guide after she finishes RevtoRev....

Since I do have the option of using the the highschool guides, I thought it would be easier not to HAVE to tweak them. I am not really good at that anyway. I'll check the sticky some more though. Sorry for rambling on, I'm just trying to process information as I type

Thank you SO much taking the time to reply!! I've been racking my brain for days, and since no one around me is using HOD, I really don't have anyone to bounce ideas off of.

My son is doing MTMM for 9th grade high school, and my daughter will end up in MTMM in 9th grade too. (And we are preparing our kids for college if that helps.) Now that we are nearly done with it this year, I am very glad I didn't opt out of doing it in search of something else. I have no trouble giving high school credit for it. As for history, it uses the All American History text, which is high school level, so it isn't even a stretch to give American History credit for the work he's doing in MTMM. We are using both the Storytime selections as well as the Extensions. The storytime books are just SO good, they are his "free" reading. He often finishes them in a weekend, and we have great discussions over it. He did a speech class with our co-op so the speech selections used in MTMM go well with that course, so that beefs up his 1 semester speech credit. There are workbooks to go with the Uncle Eric books to extend those books for high school credit as well, and they are not much extra work. Because we did Physical Science with Rev2Rev, we did Shepherd Biology instead of the HOD science, although we are doing the Grand Experiment as written in the guide as a supplement to his biology course because GE is just that good. Instead of DITHOR we are using some Smarr Intro to Lit and some other novels. Of course for math we are continuing what we've been doing, so that is high school level as well. Otherwise, we have stuck to the guide. Not much tweaking at all. It has been pretty seamless and independent. I have seen other high school programs, have seen what friends have used for high school history, and my DH has a history degree. We have NO problem granting high school credit for the work he is completing in MTMM. He will continue the HOD track, and just miss the last guide in the sequence. I am also seriously considering having him take the CLEP test this summer to get college credit because of the richness of the books he's read and the grasp of time/element/people/events he has gained. I think he will do well.

Double Post

Thank you so much, Astrephia That is really helpful information. It is nice to see how others are actually implementing it and how smoothly it goes. I still haven't completely decided what I will do But I like not feeling pressured to make sure my ds especially has to finish the guides at a quick pace to make sure he gets in all the others and starts 9th grade with the Geography guide....

Thanks again for your help!