Oh, Dearest Mother, Sweetest Virgin of Altagracia, our Patroness. You are our Advocate and to you we recommend our needs. You are our Teacher and like disciples we come to learn from the example of your holy life. You are our Mother, and like children, we come to offer you all of the love of our hearts. Receive, dearest Mother, our offerings and listen attentively to our supplications. Amen.



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High School Years and Beyond
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donnalynn
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Posted: April 28 2009 at 5:15pm | IP Logged Quote donnalynn
..and signed my dd up for Kolbe 9th grade. I am nervous (and excited) - my dd really wants to do this though I'm not sure why.   

It looks like a lot of work - that's fine except how to keep her on track to get it all done? She really wants to go for the Summa dipolma and the person at the conference I attended said you have to meet all honor requirements for all courses - that is not how I understood the catalog and information I looked at - but could not find what I had read previously while I was talking to him.

I am pretty sure I understand that of the Core courses you are required to meet the honor requirements of one of those courses as a freshman. Is this what others understand or did I just sign my daugther up for what will be a year chained to her desk???!!! EEK!

I am interested to hear how other students have found the Summa work load. (I'm also interested to hear how it is on mom too!!). Any tips for keeping up with the work would be most appreciated.




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teachingmom
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Posted: May 05 2009 at 10:52pm | IP Logged Quote teachingmom
Hi Donna,
My oldest dd is doing Kolbe this year. It's the first time I've used a pre-packaged curriculum ever. She is using their plans for History, Literature, and English and working toward honors in all three areas.

We are using other resources for the rest of her courses. (Teaching Textbooks for geometry, a local homeschool biology class with labs, online Latin through Lonepine Classical, the Didache series for religion, and local music and art classes.)

I will say that Kolbe is a lot of work. Thankfully, my 9th grader is very self-disciplined and I don't have to oversee her Kolbe work at all. She gets it all done in her own timing, sometimes working late a night.

My biggest problem with Kolbe, which I recently wrote to their guidance department about, is the tests. I find their history and literature tests to be filled with obscure questions, while ignoring main points. In many ways students are not expected to make connections or see the big picture. The questions are often not based on the study guide work that the students have done. I always have to do some teaching to the test right before quarter testing to be sure she will be prepared. When I wrote to Kolbe about it, I was told that this is a problem that they are attempting to address with new lesson plans that will come out in a few years. (Not much help now, I'm afraid.) She did say that they have some review sheets that I can request for our next quarter exams, so I am hoping that will be helpful.

All that said, I think Kolbe can be a very good fit for strong students who are high motivated and self-directed.

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sailormom
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Posted: May 06 2009 at 12:22pm | IP Logged Quote sailormom
teachingmom wrote:
All that said, I think Kolbe can be a very good fit for strong students who are high motivated and self-directed.


I'm so glad to see this!! I'm also strongly considering Kolbe for my oldest, who will be a 9th grader in the fall. She's followed a latin-centered approach for a couple of years now, and is both highly motivated and self-directed.
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