Need high school advice; guides overlapping grades/behind.

[Tabitha]

I need some help from those that have gone before me. Everyone here has such a wealth of knowledge, and I can sure use some insight on high school planning for my oldest dd.

I hope I can make our situation make sense...here goes:

DD (15) is currently working on finishing up the WG guide (this should be 10th grade for her, but I consider it 9 or last half of 9th/1st half of 10th - more explained below). Our school year has always changed over between Feb-April of each year. I can never seem to get us out of that. This year due to various life/family happenings it is ending later (end of July). DD will be working through summer for her high school years UNLESS she tackles the beast and cranks out more to move things along. She is very capable of doing this...charging through and getting more done in a shorter time frame.

Dd wants to graduate on time and be done with her high school in two years. If she is to graduate 'on time', her grad year is 2017 and she will be 18yo that summer. Not on time, it will move back to mid-winter/early-spring 2018 (fall 2017 might be a possibility as well).

Anyway, I had it stuck in my head that each guide is it's own single grade and that we have to complete all 4 high school guides. However, I came across some older posts on this board the other week where it was mentioning a guide covering the last half of one grade and the first half of the next grade. I guess I did realize this could be done before, and just forgot about it. Again that 'stuck' mentality that I mentioned has always put me in the mode that 'we are behind...gotta catch up.' But, thinking the other way, we could end things after the next/3rd HOD hs guide, AH1, and just not do the 4th guide.

When dd was in MTMM, we beefed up Economics for 9th grade credit. She had (and still is) taken enough classes/lessons in art and music, and put in more than enough hours, that I will be counting something in music and art for her as credits for each high school year. This year she has learned her third instrument. In addition to 2 formal and 2 casual recitals per year, she played live this year for a school's art open house (same place she took art classes during the school year, Mona Brooks franchaise) and will be playing her instruments at the summer farmer's market with her music school. She also just had her third piece of artwork accepted for publication in a book. Going with Lee Binz and her thoughts on counting delight directed learning, dd definitely has enough time/classes/lessons in these areas to give her a credit in subject for each year that she has been doing this. I feel it is only fair to her considering the time, energy, and dedication involved. Those credits will free us up and allow her not to take as much her last high school year. I just need to figure out exactly what I want to call these subjects for her transcript.

My dd is not fond of Math. More than likely, unless things change, her h.s. math will cover Alg. I, II, and Geometry. Trig. can still happen.... Dh helps her with math. Him being an engineer sees that dd is not of his mind...she is definitely of an artist mindset. The math impresses him as even he struggles with some of the lessons and he uses math everyday! He is learning things he never learned in his engineering college days! He feels math is being well covered, and dd is doing well beyond what she will ever need. For science, she had the IPC with the WG guide, and will do Biology in the WH, and Chemistry in the AH1 guide. Science her 'senior' year is up in the air...pending what we have to do with the 4th guide.

Here is my pickle: figuring it all out. If we can use the MTMM guide to stagger and count for more of her 9th grade year than just Economics, can I go back now and add in something else into the American History she did at that time to cover for not doing the 4th high school guide that HOD will be coming out with next? Or is it too late to add more into the MTMM history work that was done?

Or, what can I add to/change about the history in the AH1 guide to count for more history credit....basically having AH time period all in one chunk and not divided up over two guides? With freed up time from counting her art and music for credits, I would think she could do a more intense History focus for the 3rd guide.

If I can modify either of these two guides (and if I am overlooking other areas/subjects please let me know), then dd can finish school and graduate in 2017 and not do the 4th guide.

If I can't modify those 2 guides somehow, or need to cover too much beyond what she is able to do, then I guess she will be going into the 4th guide. She will then graduate 'late' IF she can't move full speed (full speed = doing 5 days school weeks, some 1/2 days on Saturdays and summers).

Just so you can see inside our situation a bit more, and how one gets off an ideal schedule: I have a middle dd (13) starting RTR this week and a younger dd (9) half way through PHFHG. The middle dd is close to a year behind due to various medical issues. After 7 years of various treatments with a specialist for our middle dd, we are finally seeing the health/physical/mental results we have been after. Since Jan. 2015 we have been doing Neuro Optimal/HIRREM treatments for our middle dd. It has meant that half of my week for 4-5 months was taken up with her appointments. The improvements happening now will help her immensely in her school work with her improved focus and energy. Part of her issue is a severe sleep disorder, and it has affected the entire family. All 5 of us have dietary allergies/intolerances, so cooking is important and demands some extra time for food shopping because of where I need to go. In March our youngest dd was diagnosed as hypothyroidism and needs meds (going with a natural thyroid med right now). Then our oldest started having some issues. Lots of dr appts = lots of time spend with the back and forth of it all. DH has been in a high stress job for 10+ years. During the last several years there have been many times where I feared the stress would leave me waking to a dead spouse. I feared for his life. By God's grace and blessings, he starts a new position with a different department in the company July 1! An answer to years and years of much prayer. I even had my own time of adrenal/thyroid issues which required 18 months of treatment with our specialist. It took me 4-5 years of worsening problems to find out what was going on with me.

So...if you got through that, you can see all the stresses of where we are and why we are there. I have to shut out the world and focus on my family and what I can control, or the stress gets overwhelming. Changing guides mid-year and not being on a normal school year schedule always caused some pressure/stress, and now we're 8-12 weeks additional off course due to all the medical appointments since January. I am trying hard to get us back on course.

There are lots of things going on outside the family, but God is in control there. It brings in varying stress, but that just reminds me/us that I/we need to rest in Him more.

Whatever suggestions anyone has in light of the high school planning, please share.

Thank you for enduring this and reading through!

[StephanieU]

Where do you live? What are the high school graduation requirements for college bound students in your state? Also, does she have any colleges in mind? If so, what do they require for admissions?

You may find that you will have enough credits with WG-AH1 plus economics. Or you may see the areas where she might need to "double up" on credits. Most likely, she won't need another full year of history because you can count the things she did in MtMM when she is 14 (average age of a 9th grader).

[Tabitha]

We are in Michigan. I need to refresh myself on state requirements as I don't have them handy atm. She is not sure on college. She wants to do 'storyboarding' or use a combo of her art and music skills. We don't advocate for away colleges/universities, so local is what we would consider. There is a community college about 20-30 minutes from us that is a possibility, then transferring later. I was just looking over this college's admission requirements the other week. 'Storyboarding' is a new thing for me so I was trying to see what schools taught that. This comm. college has a placement test if you don't have a GED or SAT/ACT score. All other colleges ask for test scores. Dd is not a tester (so she says, and dh feels she is right), so we would possibly opt for college placement testing for her. I do have PSAT/SAT prep materials for her to cover, but she is not interested in those tests. She took a CollegePrep Genius seminar last year, and that did her in...she hated it. The instructor zipped through the material whipping out the answers and told them he would go back later and explain the why of the answers. He never went back and explained. Dd can't get passed that and it stumbles her mindset. In the end, this ball is in her court with our guidance. The comm. college has a sample Accuplacer test on their website, and I would like her to review it this summer. Just looking at what they have on this, and knowing what her English/math has covered, I think she would be fine. With no SAT/ACT test, and if college ends up being in her plans, then starting at the community college (or doing classes online, need to also look into CLEP testing) and transferring over to a 4 year college is what we would be looking at.

That is about the extent of college info here for now. I found a nice blog I need dd to read about the ins-and outs of the storyboarding profession. This may help her better define a college search, and get her searching. I gave her an assignment to list all the occupations storyboarding could be a part of, and then start researching them to see what jumps out at her. She just wants to do 'something she loves' which is art-art-art-music-music-music. She isn't thrilled with more general studies in college and would much prefer to just jump into her area of interest. It does look possible to go more of a 'trade' route, but you really need to have stellar talent to carry you through if you choose that path.

We also met an established musician that is self-taught. Some of his work is writing music/songs for tv shows and movies. He saw dd play at her art show and was greatly impressed with her skills. Meeting him, seeing what the Lord has provided him without a college degree, has been eye opening for all of us.

We have always told our children college is up to them. And these days, I'd much rather do as many online classes/CLEP as can be done for that education.

[LynnH]

Ok so looking at Michigan graduation requirements. I think you are actually in pretty good shape. She doesn't need 4 years of Social Studies/History, she only needs 3 credits. She needs 1 credit of World History and Geography, 1 credit of American History and Geography and .5 credit in Economics and .5 credit in Civics(Government). So here is what I would do. She will actually get 1 credit Geography for WG guide, 1 credit for World History in WH guide, and then she already has .5 in economics and she will get the Government and American History in the AH1 guide. If you want to make sure they know Modern American History was covered you could give her 1/2 credit for Modern American History for what she did in MTMM and call it an elective or just consider it along with the AH1 guide for the American History credit. It doesn't state it has to cover all of American History so you could just call it Early American History or American History 1 and not include the MTMM stuff.

For science she needs Biology, Chemistry and one other science so that is covered. For Math she needs Alg 1, 2 and Geometry and one other math. Honestly I wouldn't do Trig given what she wants to do as a career. I would do one of the Business math courses.

You may need to go at a faster pace through Spanish because she needs 2 full credits. The only area that may be a concern is English. She needs 4 full years of English that cover high school level lit, grammar and writing. It also says she needs an online learning experience or course. Not sure what they consider for that.

[Tabitha]

Thank you, Lynn. I was just popping in and lining up some reading for this afternoon.

Dd is doing German right now using Living Language. I think the set we have covers levels 1-3. We may utilize DuoLingo online just as a refresher and giving her something different to look at from time to time.

I did not think of a business math before. Thank you for that suggestion. I think that would be good for her. We do have Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace for high schoolers that we have yet to use. I am not sure if this is the same thing HOD will be implementing for Personal Finance. Anyway, I am not sure that can count as a math.

For the online learning experience or course, I will have to inquire. I have wondered about that for a while. Dd does her math online. She also has two music lesson courses that she is using that is done online, in addition to lessons she has taken at a local music school. We will be looking into some online art classes as well. Actually, we do have a few art classes/workshops we downloaded for painting and drawing that we will be using in the next year. I also wonder if using DuoLingo for German, or a second language, can count as well. Others say that by the time you finish a language with DuoLingo that you will have covered materials through 2 semesters in college (I need to research that further). DuoLingo also has a Proficiency Exam that you can take via their website. If any of these are acceptable for the online learning, it does look like we have plenty of options to pick from.

With Storyboarding, dd has goals of creating her own cartoon. She wants to develop the characters, story, and music herself. From what I see, Storyboarding is a class that is included in graphics arts/3d animation. That isn't what she is after, unless she learns more and finds out it is. She is also very interested in learning about those that have composed music for movies. We just found a dvd at Goodwill that is all about the behind the scenes for Composing for The Lord of The Rings orchestra. My inlaws just met a gal at a retirement luncheon, and her relative composed all the music for a Disney movie (I think it was Tangled). Dd is all over that type of thing. Before we stopped piano lessons for the summer, her new teacher was helping her with writing music. Dd had 2 very controlling piano teachers in the recent past that have 'ruined' her love of piano (ruined is dd's word). This new teacher has a great rapport with dd, sees the damage that was done, and is doing whatever she can to follow dd's interest. One of the universities here has a new music degree that is all about music for the movies, etc. With the new film studios popping up in Detroit, places are seeing the value is these areas of study/degree fields. There is also a movie filming institute that has filiming and acting classes. They work with highschoolers on up, and it is more of a trade certification that they offer. They have alumni that have worked on some big title films. Dh isn't too thrilled with this venue, though. Not knowing where dd's talents will lead, I am encouraging her to keep up with all her instruments. We honestly do not want our child going into what we feel can be a very corrupt industry. There is a flip side and Christian movies and audio dramas are out there as well. I choose to keep my eye on the latter.

Anyway, I need to continue refreshing myself with both the state and local college/university admission requirements this evening and see where gaps may lie between the two.

[Mumkins]

It might help, if you haven't, to write down all the credits you can assign and all the credits neededin total. Match them up where possible and see what's left. See what you can check off in the next guides you'll be doing and what, if any, you'll need to seek out on your own.

[Nealewill]

Did you do DITHOR with your dd when she did MTMM? How were the books? I think the analysis done in DITHOR would be fine for high school lit. I also know that the writing book used in MTMM is a book used for both junior high and high school. If you feel like you need to analyze a few more books I might do something over the summer with her for a few genres in the DITHOR at a higher level and use that for English 1.

As someone mentioned, science is totally fine as is. The science in WG is 1 of the sciences plus you will have Biology and Chem with the other two guides.

As for math, in Ohio you only need to go up through Algebra 2. It seems to me that maybe Pre-algebra could be the 9th grade algebra course and that you wouldn't necessarily need any other math. Someone else would need to confirm that for me but it seems like according to my assessor, she never said I needed anything more than Algebra 2 in Ohio.

I think that since you are adding in the Financial Peace University and you have your own language you should pretty much be good to go with what you are doing and you can just skip the last guide entirely.

[Tabitha]

Thank you to everyone for the replies and helpful advice.

I do need to sit down and get caught up on dd's credits/subjects. I had some things down, but need to go back over the MTMM year and see what additional might be applicable for credit. Dd also took 24 weeks of pottery that school year. I almost forgot about that. For several years the girls took a weekly 2 hr gym class. This year they only went every 2 weeks.

Dd, unfortunately, did not cover DITHOR that year. So, a literature (British) would still be needed. She did do writing and English. She was not happy with the writing program, so something still might be needed despite having done that (I don't remember how well she did. I just remember her strong dislike for each WWTB program). English should be in the clear as we plan to pick up the pace and cover through R&S English 8. We are through 1/2 of 7 now.

Pre-Alg. can't be counted for high school math here in Michigan. We'll look into a business math and see what might be a good fit.

There are 2 different grad requirement pdfs online, 2011 and 2014. The latter is weak. I will be looking at the local high school site tomorrow. In years past that proved to be more useful.

The online learning is covered. I looked it up and you need 20 hours from grades 6-12 of some form of online learning added into classes. There are other areas like gaming and blog writing even listed. Ummm...right. So, with things Carrie has in the HOD guides to look up, watch, do plus her math and music lessons, I do feel we have it sufficiently covered. Unless I am misunderstanding this criteria.

I looked online at a few local colleges today, and they did not list their admission requirements outside of a min. GPA and transcripts. That wasn't helpful as far as looking for their desired coverage in math, science, etc. I need to dig deeper through their sites tomorrow. Nice thing is I learned more of what a Fine Arts degree entails, so now there is something else for dd to look into and learn about.

[Tabitha]

I think I have my brain wrapped around things better now. Thanks again for all the help everyone has offered.

Quickly looking over dd's WWTB 2 work, there is possibly one thing not completed. I need to look more thoroughly at it this weekend to double check all the work against the MTMM guide, and then have her complete that one if it was overlooked. Would this be okay to do to count towards credit, or would more writing be needed?

Unless it's not okay to do so, I was leading towards having dd use DITHOR with high school level books for British Lit (allowing her to have a say in the titles) and then work on completing this over the summer. Since we have DITHOR I felt we might as well use it. Dd did start work in it, but it got lost in the shuffle that year. Dh wants to take a camping trip out west, so those long hours in the car may be useful to get good literature reading in. Having dd chose the books that most interest her would also help me with motivating her. I am hopeful! I could add guides for the books as Carrie is doing for literature in the other HS guides. I am not sure if DITHOR alone is enough, or if adding guides is overkill.

* * * * *

Here is what I pulled off our local high school website for grad. requirements. In state colleges just keep referencing this and min GPA/test scores.

LANG. ARTS (8 semesters) SOCIAL STUDIES (6 semesters) SCIENCE (6 semesters) MATHEMATICS (8 semesters)
9th Grade: LANG ARTS 1-2 WORLD HISTORY 1, 2 BIOLOGY ALGEBRA I
10th Grade: LANG ARTS 3-4 US HISTORY 1, 2 CHEMISTRY or PHYSICS GEOMETRY
11th Grade: LANG ARTS 5-6 US ECONOMICS ELECTIVE SCIENCE ALGEBRA II
12th Grade: LANG ARTS 7-8 US GOVERNMENT SENIOR YEAR MATH

WORLD LANGUAGE (4 semesters)VPA ART (2 semesters) Computer Applications Online Learning Experience
Arabic, French, German, Any visual, performing.or applied arts electives 1 semester of MS or HS 20 hours
Spanish or American Sign Language computer applications
2 years of the same world language

PHYSICAL EDUCATION (2 semesters)
PE 9 / HEALTH

[Tabitha]

Oh yay! I just found this in the #7 sneak peak for the WH guide:

Utilizing this below, we can get our Brit Lit in!!! I shall still let dd pick out a title or two either as a sub or alongside. If time allows, would it be silly to still have her fill out the DITHOR worksheets? If anything, having them on hand incase she gets mentally stuck isn't a bad thing.

I do apologize for so many posts. Storing my thoughts in one place helps. When I saw this, I just had to come share for others that may be reading along.

Ladies,

I wanted to update this thread for those of you who may have children who will not make it to the final guide in our planned high school scope of guides. Since correct placement is such a key to success with Heart of Dakota's guides, we don't want to automatically jump high school-aged students up to the first "official" high school guide. It is far better for us to place kiddos correctly using the placement chart and family dynamics instead. This means that there will be kiddos out there who will not complete all of our "official" high school guides.

For those who will not get to the final guide in our cycle, and miss the British Literature planned for that guide, I wanted to offer an alternative way of thinking of how to earn that credit. Since, we are not going with a World Literature distinction for the new World History Guide, and instead went more with titles I felt shouldn't be missed, ironically it ends up that there are 5 titles on the list that could fit in the British Literature category. The titles that would work to count credit in British Literature include Julius Caesar (unabridged Shakespeare), Pearl Maiden (by British author Haggard), The Story of King Arthur and His Knights, A Man for All Seasons, and the Scarlet Pimpernel. Often 4-5 novels/plays constitute a half-credit of British Literature. So, if you desired to give a half-credit in British Literature and a half-credit in regular literature (which we will still be titling course-wise), for the World History Guide's lit. you could do so.

Or, if you also did the World Geography Guide, and needed a full-credit of British Literature, you could also add the Brit. titles you read from the World Geography Guide to the 5 Brit. titles already in this new World History guide to gain a full-credit of British Literature instead. Typically 8-9 novels/play constitute a full-credit.

For example, from the Girl Set in the World Geography Guide, Pride and Prejudice and The Importance of Being Earnest fit into British Literature. From the Boy Set in the World Geography Guide, A Christmas Carol, Treasure Island, Men of Iron, Screwtape Letters fit for sure. Children of the New Forest and Captains Courageous are also by British authors and could be listed as well. When added to the titles in the new World History Guide, you can see where a full-credit of British Literature could be earned through completion of both guides.

In the scenario of awarding a full-credit in British Literature upon completion of both the World Geography and World History Guides, I would lean toward listing the credits on a transcript as 1 full-credit in Fundamentals of Literature for the first year and 1 full-credit of British Literature for the second year. That credit would include composition/grammar as part of the credit.

For those of you who will have students making it through all 4 HOD High School Guides, you will not have to worry about what I have shared above.

Blessings,
Carrie

[HisWay]

Just wanted to say we live in Michigan too and my son graduated from public high school last year. In their graduation guide it lists "Students complete the online requirement within their core classes." In his core classes he did things like look up info for reports, power point presentations, searching different data bases for information. It would seem if your dd has used the computer to gather information or for a course then she has fulfilled the online learning requirement.

[Nealewill]

So...since you didn't do DITHOR for lit when you completed MTMM, what did you use? If you did another literature program, then I would not have her fill out the DITHOR worksheets and I would count that for high school lit. If you didn't, then I would pick a book for each genre and have her fill out one of the entire DITHOR 6/7/8 student books. She could do this over the summer if you wanted. And she could do it over multiple years as well. I would use high school level books. But basically, once this is finished it would definitely be enough to count as high school lit IMHO.

[Tabitha]

Patti, thank you for sharing that. That makes more sense now. We definitely have the online experience thing covered then.

Daneale, dd did read some lit books and started filling out DITHOR pages for 2 genres. It just stopped there. I had 2 grandparents to die that year. My parents did in home hospice for one of them for several years. They ended up losing their home to foreclosure. Plus other family stuff. They are 750 miles away, but for 4+ years it was high stress emergency trips to help them which would take a couple weeks to recover from (and those events are still happening with them...it just never ends and does bring stress on me since they are my parents). Then we always have had a slew of dr. appts for the last, my gosh, 6-7 years. So, in this shuffle and with trying to stay ontop of things, DITHOR just fell to the side. I have always had a hard time fitting that one in, to be honest. We are at a turning point, finally, and I feel that from here on out there will be more time and energy in all of us which will definitely help in our school productivity and efficiency.

I am glad you asked more on DITHOR and suggested what you did. Dd is excited about reading Jane Eyre or Sherlock Holmes. With us being able to utilize part of the WG and WH guides for British Lit., this frees up time in not needing to do a whole 'nother separate Lit. program. Sooooo, I was thinking of having her do DITHOR with the books of her choice like above making sure different genres were hit. I think this will be a nice break for her doing something different than what all the other books are doing at this level. Your comment reinforces my decision.

Her WWTB2 was all finished. I had to check which lesson types HOD did not do, and gather the work dd didn't put in her binder. So, this is fine as well.

This dd is a 'highly sensitive child.' We are just understanding fully what that means. Her nervous/sensory system is overloaded and the slightest stray of something sets her off. We actually did genetic/methylation testing and her body feels things way more than it should. In addition to this her adrenal hormones, cortisol, and insulin levels are all very high, with thyroid issues in the mix. We have started treatment with her, using 2 doctors to cover it all. We felt she was always just a complainer, and now understand what is going on after the methylation and metabolic testing. It goes into her mood for sure, and affects her sleep. Mornings are hard she moves slow. Her mind doesn't come alive until close to lunch.

Anyway, it is easy for me to get frustrated with myself, and with the way we have had to work around so much to get things done. I have been having anxiety over her school stuff for quite a while. The other week when the lightbulb went off that there was more done in MTMM that we could utilize for high school credit I instantly was calmed and have felt great peace ever since. Then coming across the Brit. Lit solution Carrie offered, that made it all the better. Now it is just a matter of me getting it all recorded in the right fashion.

Another thing that helped me is realizing that I can use end dates of when a subject is fully covered to count that as when it was 'done', if I want to do so. So having the MTMM items spread out, while not stellar, works out okay. I must thank the recent Gold Rush High School Planning webinar by Lee Binz for that bit of peace. Since we are including some different electives than what HOD offers, it has been helpful to tap into a few other resources on how to make sure it is all covered and documented correctly.

One thing is for sure, this is my oldest and with all the things I have had to work out through her schooling with staggering guides, how to beef up, etc, I know more of what to expect, do, and plan for for my younger two. My middle dd will not go through all the last high school guide as well. I now know more of what to consider and not for her. My youngest is the only one who started with HOD's preschool guide. She will be the one who goes through every single HOD guide.

In the end, the hoops and stress are a blessing. I've been leaning on Him more than ever. I have learned a lot, all for the current and future benefit of my family.