I plan on homeschooling my 4th-grade son through the end of 8th grade. Please tell me what you think of this History curriculum: History 4th grade: US History (Houghton Mifflin, Build Our Nation, 2001) 5th grade: World History (Holt, World History: Student Edition, 2008) 6th grade: European History (textbook TBD) 7th grade: Comparative Government, culminating in AP test (textbook TBD) 8th grade: US Government and Politics, culminating in AP test (textbook TBD) Some questions that come to mind: -Is there anything wrong with targeting the Comparative Government and US Government AP tests in 7th and 8th grades, provided my son is bright and hard-working? -Does the above curriculum leave out anything important? Would it be better to focus on, say, Geography than, say, European History?
Are you talking about College Board AP tests? AP classes need to be taught at the college level. I can't think of any 7th or 8th grader going through puberty who I would do that to (or, frankly who would have success). But there are certainly very talented kids who are exceptions. I believe 8th graders are allowed to sit for AP tests in rare circumstances, but I'm not sure about 7th graders. Home school parents cannot order AP exams themselves. They must be coordinated though schools. Contact AP coordination to get a list of schools near you that are willing to arrange for your child to sit for the test. Unless your child is VERY gifted, I would caution you to reconsider dedicating this amount of time in his schedule to history. A serious focus on English and Math should be the core of education 4th-8th. (In my opinion).
Wow, that's pretty heavy for one that young. This looks good if he is gifted and planning to graduate early. If not, what will he take in high school? That is generally when students start taking AP exams. We have always done history, but mostly basics. Our high school plan is government, world geography, American history and World history.
Whatever you use as texts for your AP courses, my daughter really liked the 5 Steps to a 5 series. She used them for AP Bio, AP English(both tests), AP Economics(macro and micro), and AP Calculus. Not sure how good they are for the Histories....but for the above classes, she said they were invaluable study guides.
I agree with Crazy. While I don't know your kid, that's a lot for even most gifted children Is there a particular reason you want to do that? .
My daughter is bright and hardworking, but a load such as this would have made her hate learning. The goal is to create a love of learning. I am wondering why you do not want to wait until your son is in high school.
Thanks for the feedback. "Love of learning" is your goal, not mine. I want my son first and foremost to achieve academic excellence, i.e., mastery of core academic subjects. If he enjoys the material, that's great but it is not my primary objective. He is currently in 4th grade and averages about 4-5 hours of academics per day. He is largely done by noon or so. He doesn't feel that this is excessive. If he did complain, I would respond, "tough cookies." If he's capable of mastering college-level material as a 7th or 8th grader (and I'm pretty sure he is), I see no reason to wait. Perhaps the Advanced Placement tests will motivate him.
No matter your goals...you need to check and see if he can sit the tests at any school in your area. Here, the private schools have criteria for their students to sit the tests and they do not let homeschool students sit b/c it could pull down their statistics as they have no way to verify the student knows the material and they don't want to take the time to verify your portfolio. Public school normally lets homeschoolers sit the tests but they are very grade specific. They do not let middle schooled homeschooled students sit the tests. You can sit them in high school. They do not have to let you sit them at all. So you may want to start calling around to schools and seeing their stance on AP exams. No offence, but burn out is real and just because you are working an academically rigorous program at home does not mean they will pass the AP exams. AP courses have to be approved and deemed college worthy before you can sit the tests and AP is very regulated so the schools are supposed to send in the course syllabi and have them deemed AP level. I would suggest you look on the AP site and other sites. You would be better of trying to CLEP tests and I believe they have to be 14 to CLEP.
I agree. New homeschoolers do tend to get a bit ambitious sometimes. On paper, I'm sure this looks ideal. I wish you well, OP, but this outline doesn't seem very attainable. (I have a gifted child and wouldn't dream of this - and I've been homeschooling for 9 years). I'm curious to see the rest of the curriculum through 8th grade. OP?
I am curious, what is it that you are asking of us? You sound like you have a plan, whether it honors your child's individuality or not. It doesn't matter what we think of the curriculum. What do you think of the curriculum?
Yes. You asked our opinion, and we gave it. Obviously, you know your child better than we do. But there's more to life than academics, and pushing too hard too soon often DOES have a way of coming back to bite.
I'll admit...we don't know your kid...or how gifted he is. And that's a big factor that I didn't mean to negate in my comments.... But!.... one thing we do know...is that setting yourself up to have a power struggle with your kid is the worst thing you could possibly do as a home school parent. Not listening to your kid is another cardinal sin. You're in it together, you have to communicate and respect each other's wishes/abilities/stress level. Have compassion for each other's experience as both student and teacher. Good teachers listen as much as they instruct. When you want someone to learn, positive reinforcement goes a lot farther than negative reinforcement. Preserving a natural "love of learning" is going to serve your child immeasurably better in life....than any academic accomplishment you can force a child to make under pressure. If you make learning unbearably demanding...why on Earth would your child continue his education at 18? If you make it a miserable demanding experience where his wishes and limitations are not heard....he's going to run away from it, and away from you. You may find yourself begging your child to continue his education in college....only to have him respond, "No. I'm not going, and I'm 18, so you can't make me. Tough cookies." And I doubt that's what you want. Do some research on learning objectives for 4-8th grade. If you want your child to "achieve academic excellence" you might want to focus on the core objectives of reading, writing and math in these years. Instill a virtue of reading for pleasure and provide generous amounts of time for pleasure reading. Studies show that kids who test the best in reading comprehension are serious pleasure readers. Want an academically excellent kid? Foster a LOVE of reading at your house. "love of learning" as a previous poster pointed out, is markedly linked with academic success. Of all the AP topics you could have chosen for early study...I'm sort of baffled by your choice of history. If you'd chosen math or English....at least those are foundational. But in all honesty, the higher history classes are a bit like art classes. They're great if you want to go into teaching art or history...but if those are not your career goals, they're pretty supplemental. (optional) They're not going to help your kid get a good score on the ACT and get into a good college. If your fourth grade son lives and breaths history...(my daughter was insanely crazy about science at that age)....I could appreciate the idea of looking at the advanced courses......but ultimately, you really want to think about time management.....and the more pressing objectives of those ages. Would my daughter have been willing to look at an AP bio curriculum in middle school? Yep, she would have. I could have forced her through the points, unpacked the chapters with her, and turned her favorite topic into a nagging performance push. I'm incredibly glad that I had sense enough to keep her focused on foundational reading, writing and math, instead....while leaving Science her pleasure topic to explore however she wished. Ultimately...it paid off. She has excellent foundational skills that got her a great ACT score, and an intact and enthusiastic love of science that has carried her to a premiere research university to study this fall. I really don't mean to pick on you for being so enthusiastic about wanting to accomplish as much as you can.... but seriously...you might want to look at the bigger picture of what's on your son's plate (or what should be, and maybe what shouldn't be).
And that is fine. But if someone mischaracterizes my educational goals, I need to correct the record.
My son is happy when he is productive. He isn't complaining about the workload. As to your broader point, I feel that I am the teacher/parent so I am ultimately responsible for the content of my son's curriculum. It is a responsibility I take seriously. Of course I listen to my son. But if he wants to play video games all day, obviously I am going to tell him that is not an option. Ultimately, it is not his decision. He asked to be homeschooled. And if he doesn't like how I run things, he is welcome to go back to a public school. And, yes, we are focusing primarily on reading, writing, and math. I won't bother to post our math curriculum because if I do so I'm pretty sure everyone here will freak out and say I am guilty of child abuse. By the way, history and reading are not mutually exclusive. My son learns history primarily by reading a history book. The reading comprehension skills he is developing are even more important than the history itself.
You know, we really are an eclectic mix here. We have different views on just about everything. Some of us are very strong Christian hs'ers, some are very secular. We have some very strict, by-the-book folk, and others who are unschoolers. Usually if you ask a question, you'll get a dozen different opinions. The fact that EVERYONE seems to be saying the same thing in this situation tells me something....
You know your son, if he's capable of handling the load, then by all means, give it to him. Yes, it sounds rigorous and tough to me, and I know MY child could not handle it. All kids are different. All home schools are different. I don't shy away from history, though….History is the CORE of all of our curriculum except for math. I wrap as much as I can around the history to enhance the learning of that. History is VERY important. Those who do not learn from history are destined to repeat it. I also think that teaching this at younger levels does not negate the need to teach it to them again in high school. As they age and become more "aware" they learn more from even the same source. I've noticed that with my oldest so far. She learned many things over and over over the course of her career, and each time, she's taken something new from the experience. How long have you been homeschooling? I believe if your child asked for homeschooling, he's probably very academically motivated and takes responsibility for his education. I find kids that ask for it are much more motivated because they are aware of how much wasted time there is in the PS system. Would I do this with my child? No. Could you do this with yours? Only YOU can answer that.
