College Credit By Exam

Burning Question: Where to take CLEP/DSST while stationed here in the Kanto Plain of Japan? Do you have a high schooler, especially a Jr/Sr level schooler and wants--nay, needs to take the CLEP/DSST?

Well I found info... Que audience applause... Thank you, thank you.

Now, as I had discovered through half a school day spent on the phone being bounced around from one office to another, not much help is available to us through college hill on base if you are not active duty military or a high school graduate dependent of a DOD sponsored individual. Thanks to the lack of support and services, I have been keeping this pot simmering on my back burner to find a way around this quandary and have been richly rewarded.

I recently (as of this morning) came across information in how to get CBE: Credit By Exam. This is done via CLEP or DSST. While in Japan, you can take CLEP without constraints (ex: must be military or already enrolled at the college etc...) at Temple University, Tokyo; and DSST also in Tokyo at CAS and Temple University. 

I hope this helps out. Below are the links of where I garnered this informaiton along with the addresses of the two sites in Tokyo. 

Good Fortune and Happy Monday--oh, and Holidays too!

Article concerning CBE http://www.rosettastone.com/homeschool/articles/new-approach-to-college

CLEP in Japan http://apps.collegeboard.com/cbsearch_clep/searchCLEPTestCenterResults.jsp?searchCategory_country=Japan&DBACTION=SEARCH_TC&clepSearchType=International&x=35&y=10

DSST in Japan In the search criteria box enter "Japan" and for Region select "International." http://www.getcollegecredit.com/search.html

CLEP and DSST

http://www.tuj.ac.jp/default.html
Temple University - Tokyo

3F, Test Center
2-8-12 Minami-Azabu, Minato-ku
Tokyo,   106-0047
03-5441-9877

DSST 

http://www.cas-jpn.com/aboutus-en.html#en2

CAS Center for Advanced Studies 

Sanei-Hoshino Bldg., 3F, 

10-2 Sanei-cho, Shinjuku-ku, 

Tokyo, 160-0008, JAPAN
International Phone : (+81)3-3226-7462　

Fax : (+81)3-3226-7465　E-mail :info@cas-jpn.com

Where to Put the Homeschool Stuff

We had a homeschool space challenge a few weeks back. Mommy To Bees was sweet enough to post some photos of her dining room to show how she's arranged homeschooling stuff in their Ikego home.

She also has some cool pics of the homeschooling files and their contents.

Anyone else have photos they're willing to show off of how you keep homeschool stuff in your home, either military housing or Japanese homes?

Not necessarily a School Room Challenge

The Kanto Plain Home Schoolers presents the Not Necessarily a School Room Challenge

Few of us have enough space for a dedicated school room. But that doesn’t mean we don’t have tons of school “stuff”. So how do you have your school stuff stored, arranged and organized so that you can find it, use it and still eat dinner at a table?

Share your school space ideas and pictures. If you have a blog, you can post ideas and pictures there and post a link in the comments section.

If you’re like me, you might work better with a deadline, so send in your submissions by 27 August.

I'm looking forward to seeing our own little version of an HGTV special.

Having Your Own Summer Homeschool Conference

Again on the organizational front, I found this blog post from a homeschool mom who is having a personal homeschool conference (would this be home conferencing?). This is something that she started doing last year and you can also read about that here.

I've been listening to some of the Peace Hill Press conference lectures as I plan what we're doing this year. Susan Wise Bauer also has some cool classical homeschooling Q&A videos on You Tube.

There are also some helpful (and even some free) lectures available at Word MP3.

If you think about it, a typical school year would program in several days for the teacher to prepare for the beginning of the year, calculate grades and give feedback to students about their progress, transition to a new semester and even learn about and practice a new educational program. I don't think that it is unreasonable for us to take some of that same time to plan for our homeschool year.

Homeschool Organization

Organizing everything for homeschooling can seem like a Hereculean task at times. You might have some subjects planned out in neat lessons like math and grammar. But then you add in books that have to be read a chapter at a time, science programs with reading and experiments, spelling lists, etc; and it quickly runs out of control.

If all of your material comes from the same source, you might have a couple over arching schedules to follow. But start pulling from different curriculums or doing one pace for history and another for science and again it runs off the rails.

And all of this isn't even touching on what you do with multiple kids doing different things. Or keeping records for the end of the year. (We're likely to move to a state that requires at least some record keeping AND those high school years are looking.) It seems like this time every year I find interesting discussions online about planning and getting organized.

Last year was workboxes. The idea is that each student has a set of boxes or drawers, one per subject. Each evening, the boxes are filled with work for the next day. Some get books and assignments, others get coloring pages or activities. The next day the student works through each box. When they are done, they are done with school for the day. The Workbox System is an idea from Sue Patrick. If you search on "homeschool workboxes" you can find a number of blogs with examples of how they are put to use. Here are a couple examples. Ice cube bins as boxes. Plastic shoe boxes on racks. Even more links and photos in this review of the workbox system. It might be too much for some families. On the other hand, it might be just the thing to get good activities out of the closet and drawer where you've been saving them and into the kids' hands. And it could be a real motivator for a dawdling student if he knows there is a puzzle or a game stashed in there after math is done.

What I'm seeing discussed this year is using file folders. The general idea is that you take a folder for each week and preplan so that all of the assignments and worksheets are already there. There is a long discussion of homeschool filing systems at the Well Trained Mind Curriculum Board. This blogger has modified the folder idea for use with 3 ring binders. I do like the idea of having activity sheets right with the schedule for that week. Too often I realize that I've forgotten to do mapping or coloring sheets that I'd intended to use. Or that all of the science readings had accompanying questions to answer in another binder. So there may well be an advantage to grouping by week rather than by subject.

Anyway, something to think about while you're lounging at the pool.