Graduate a Homeschooler

Get It Over and Done: How Do Homeschoolers Graduate Early

July 22, 2018 | 2 Comments
This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

When one of my sons told me he wanted to be over and done with high school, I was setback. I felt like a failure especially because we’ve homeschooled from the beginning. I wanted him to love the academic part of high school as much as my other graduate, but he had a different mindset. I know homeschoolers graduate early all the time and it’s not a surprising fact, but my kid was not having any part of accelerated academics or it seemed like it at the moment. To me, he had the get it over and done with attitude.

Looking back now after my older sons have been graduated for a few years, I have a different view of the get it over and done with mindset.

At the time a kid cops this attitude, it seems like his whole future will be ruined. I’m here to tell you that is not always so. You need to look past your initial gut reaction if it’s negative; try to remember years later when you are having coffee together as besties this will be a memory for the right reason.

Your kid’s journey can still go from mediocre to memorable, but only if you handle this stage reasonably.

Moving Past the Four-Year Homeschool High School Plan

Look at these 3 points you need to think about. Then, I have a few tips and tricks.

One/ Try to understand what your teen is thinking about regarding his future.

Don’t jump to the conclusion that get it over and done means laziness or lack of motivation. It may be right now, but your teen’s maturity level is still changing.

Too, after I had an in-depth talk with my son, I understood his reasons for wanting a simple framework so he could graduate early.

At the time, my husband had just suffered a terrible health set back and all of my kids matured significantly that year. I have mixed feelings on my kids giving up some of their carefree childhood years, but that is another thread.

All of my kids understood the fragility of life and my son was ready to navigate his future. He wasn’t content for choosing subjects each year for a four-year high school program. He wanted to plot what was absolutely essential so that he could graduate.

I needed to focus more time on letting him explore what he wanted to do for the future. Doing that partially satisfied his feeling of uneasiness.

Have you seen these two great resources, Career Exploration for Homeschool High School Students and What Color is Your Parachute for Teens?

That brings me to my next point which is you have to be ready when homeschooling high school to decide what is your bottom line.

Two/ Rise to the occasion and decide what is your bottom line for graduation requirements.

I’ll admit it. I was unprepared for my minimum requirements because for so long my son was filling all of my requirements. I want you prepared.

Here is a general rule of thumb;

A graduation certificate is generally awarded when a teen has between 18-19 credits at the minimum. I’ve also seen 16 credits as the minimum. Look here at Homeschool High School–How to Log Hours for High School.
Then up to to 22-24 credits and higher for college readiness.

So choose a number of credits, but base it on subjects that will benefit your teen the most.

Three/ Be creative and think outside of the 4-year plan. Mix and match community college with online courses and self-guided learning.

Although I’m on board with any of my kids wanting to get a start on their career or college path, I wasn’t prepared for an alternative route other than the CLEP route I had prepared for him.

The point I’m making is to understand clearly what your teen is wanting to do. More listening than talking was hard for me. Not easy, but I did it.

My son knew the value of preparing for a career; he was just ready to get on with it now, not later.

There are many ways to fill high school graduation requirements besides the four-year plan.

Decide what courses your teen will take and remember that community college can be a great advantage for teens who want to progress. For example, your teen can take two years of basic math and take two years of math at the community college. It’s called dual enrollment. Ages vary by college. He’ll receive college credit at the same time. This option made both of my older sons feel that they had choices. Your goal of high standards and your teen’s goal of moving on can be met. You just need to be sure you and your teen understand all the options.
Although this is the son that normally prefers hands-on and interactive learning, he enjoyed using PAC (Paradigm Accelerate Curriculum) because they are a set number of booklets or worktext to complete. Instead of unrestrained exploring, my teen had a definite finish to the course. No extra books were required for reading. Do the worktext and be finished. This went a long way to making him feel that he could see a definite finish.
Also, I had to determine my goals for language arts. Reminding myself that we had spent many years with quality literature, I was happy to find the Dover Literature Guides a great fit. They promoted self-learning and independence. Questions are right there in the book for literary analysis. It was up to my teen and me to decide how many to read for literature purposes. What is a good rule of thumb for how many books a teen needs to read in each grade? Some providers choose anywhere from 15 to 20 books for the year with about 6 being used for analysis. Again, you determine based on your child’s interest how many he should read and how many should be for analysis.
Lastly, don’t forget dvd based learning and easy online courses like HippoCampus and Khan Academy to fill whatever else you may think your teen needs in order to complete his high school.

Can Homeschoolers Graduate Early?

Look at some of these insider’s tips, tricks, and things to know if your homeschooler graduates early:

Your teen may be ready to move on with his career choice, life choice, or college choice. If so, balance his high school subjects as much as possible so that you don’t close the door to any future opportunities. This means decide your bare essentials for graduating. Two years is a good start — two years of language arts, two years of science, two years of math, and etc. Most states have relaxed homeschool laws which means you determine the number of credits and prepare the transcript. If your state does not require a certain number of years or credits, then design your transcript.
There is nothing wrong with taking a gap year. Let your teen take off a year. Although gap years normally happen at the end of a senior year, your teen may be ready now to explore his future choices. When we moved to South America, unintentionally, it turned out to be a better thing for my discontented teen than I realized at the time. I knew the whole family would benefit, but I had no idea. The shift in focus allowed him a break, it put emphasis on the family, and it gave him a shift in focus he needed at the time.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think any parent is prepared for having a teen hanging around the house with no direction and too much time on his hands. Discussion needs to be had about why you’re agreeing to shorten the time. Whether it means your teen is wanting to move ahead with his career choice or college track, there needs to be a plan. If you and your husband decide to switch gears and try the direction your child is wanting to go, you need clear expectations and consequences. I knew my son was wanting to go ahead and start taking his college courses on line. With that choice he made, my son felt like he was moving faster toward his goals, but he also understood that he wasn’t graduating early to hang around the house with idle hands.
If your child wants to graduate early to be done with school because of his attitude, it’s an uphill battle, but winnable. If that is the case, I recommend that you cut back his academic load, allow him some time to pursue work. Mix in some community college classes so he is with adults and gets a taste of the real world. Try to not shut down communication, but don’t make any promises you’re not willing to keep. For example, if he doesn’t learn now that he has to finish what he started, he will take the easy way out in a lot of decisions as an adult. By easing up on his academic load, you’re giving him time to mature too. He may need time to decide the direction he wants to go and hopefully you’re guiding him to what you want for him too.

Don’t let something that could potentially break the peace you have with your teen wreck your household.

Teens still very much still try to push the bounds or limits.

If you’re firm on what your absolute minimum is most teens given some time will come around to seeing things from a reasonable standpoint.

If your teen sees that you’re trying and you’ve said you want the best for him, you need to be willing to let him start making decisions for what is best for him.

And remember this, which was the hardest thing for me at the time — as long as you maintain a close relationship with your teen and show him your positive attitude toward learning, he can return to whatever path you’ve laid out for him.

Now that my son is close to finishing college at his pace, on his own terms, and I add giving a hundred percent and advancing with excellent grades, anything he told me in his teen years pales into comparison.

It wasn’t the end, it was just the beginning of him taking control.

Also, I have many other tips to share with you. Don’t get overwhelmed, you’ve got this:

Hugs and love ya,

Modern U.S. and World History High School Literature

May 2, 2018 | 48 Comments
This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

I stalked the mailman waiting for these books. I was given this product for free and I was compensated for my time. However, paid for my time does not mean paid off or that a company will receive a glowing review. I don’t roll that way. ALL opinions are my own and for sure I will always tell you what is on my mind. When I do accept a product it’s because I’m giddy to tell you about it. Read my full disclosure here. Now on to the fun stuff!

Let’s face it! Whether you’ve homeschooled your kids from the beginning or started part way through, choosing high school literature can be intimidating. Until I started using Beautiful Feet Books a few years back, I made the high school years unnecessarily stressful. You want the peace of mind knowing you prepared your teen well by using great books whether he chooses a career or college track.

So using modern U.S. and world history literature by Beautiful Feet Books not only filled a general literature credit Tiny needs, but also allowed us to meet a modern world history credit.

Too, don’t miss the awesome giveaway below!

How to Narrow Down Your High School Literature Scope

Understanding that you have to have goals or reasons other than needing literature in high school makes it easier to narrow down your choices for literature and curriculum providers.

That may be an obvious statement, but there are many factors that you want to consider when choosing a program for your junior or senior teen.

I have several reasons for using and believing in Beautiful Feet Books:

foremost is our love for literature-based history to avoid a boring and blah approach to history,
thought-provoking books which may conflict with our world view or tug at my teen’s emotions are part of my job in preparing him for adulthood,
the role of the teacher is valued, respected, and encouraged with this curriculum to shape the teen’s understanding,
as the supervising teacher, I need to be the one to decide when and how we will deal with sensitive adult themes,
all of my sons need to be exposed to literature which may be covered in higher education,
a passion for history of any time period is awakened and appreciated through the use of living books, and
although non-fiction is important for a framework of facts, advanced literary criticism happens when a teen selects from excellent fiction literature to analyze.

My reasons may or may not include classic books, but they always include good books or living literature.

Too, having the opportunity to cover modern world history was not something I even thought about covering with my first high school graduate.

Sticking to the commonly held belief that high school teens need to have an emphasis on American history or U.S. government, I over emphasized those time periods with my first graduate.

Of course, hindsight gives you perfect vision. So I knew with my second and now third high school teen that I could tailor and tweak to suit their needs because Beautiful Feet Books is flexible when it comes to covering history.

Most of the middle school and high school curriculum includes two history eras. I never appreciated this fact until I switched from a strictly classical approach to a more eclectic approach with an emphasis on unit studies.

At first notion, this dual history period approach may seem hodgepodge. However it’s quite the opposite for a true historian. And there are two main reasons.

1. Past history and today’s current events always have multiple world powers and key players in action at the same time.
While it’s true that an in-depth study of any civilization would make a fascinating study, my goal for high school is for my sons to have a framework of key events in a time period.

2. Being able to pull back and look at events happening in the world at the same time helped my teens to make a meaningful connection to what they’re learning.
Juniors and seniors especially have the maturity now to see that one area of history is part of a much larger piece of the history puzzle. Being able to pull back and see the broad strokes of history like the events in the U.S. and world history simultaneously works well for both a history lover and history hater.

For my history lovers, it gives them additional topics for rabbit trails. For my one history hater, (yes I can’t believe I had a child that came from me that wasn’t wild about history) he got an overview of key events without overwhelming him about details which didn’t interest him.

That is exactly why I love the way Beautiful Feet Books designs their courses. All of the benefits of teaching it to adjust to each of my teens likes and dislikes along with my need for minimal teacher prep makes it a superior high school literature program.

The Nitty-Gritty of Modern U.S. and World History Literature

I know you want the nitty-gritty like I do. Look at what this level includes and the details:

it’s designed for Junior and Senior levels of high school,
it covers American and modern world history from the 1850s into the 2000s,
you can award one American history or modern world history credit and one general literature credit,
it’s a one year study, but we go a bit longer because we school into the summer and we like to spread it out,
it is Christian-based, but as with all of their literature and questions, it’s easier than some other providers to tweak to what I want my sons to know,
these beautiful books: Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Rifles for Watie, The Red Badge of Courage, Virginia’s General, Up From Slavery, Around the World in Eighty Days, A History of the Twentieth Century, The Jungle, All Quiet on the Western Front, The Yanks are Coming, Stalin: Russia’s Man of Steel, No Promises in the Wind, To Kill a Mockingbird, Hitler, Churchill, The Hiding Place, Night, Unbroken, Victory in the Pacific, Hiroshima, Lost Names, America and Vietnam: The Elephant and the Tiger, Red Scarf Girl and The Kite Runner,
and it has a general literary analysis study. My goal was to be sure that Tiny had a general grasp on literary concepts. We used another language arts resource to enhance this one. Although literary analysis is very important to me at this age, it can be fun. For us that means learning it from books we love.

My emphasis on literary analysis leads me into another valued part of this curriculum which deserves the spotlight and it’s the Study Guide or teacher’s guide.

Modern U.S. and World History Literature Study Guide

I hesitate to call it just the teacher’s guide because at this age your teen needs to be independently delving into the Study Guide. Of course, it’s a teacher guide too.

Because the Study Guide is jam-packed full of teaching tidbits, supplements, and background information, you’ll want to take your time understanding how it’s set up.

The Study Guide is divided into five history periods:

Part I. Antebellum and the Civil War
Part II. Reconstruction, the Industrial Revolution, and the Turn of the Century
Part III. The First World War, the Depression, and Segregation
Part IV. Building Towards War, the Second World War, and the Atomic Age
Part V. The Struggle for Freedom in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries

To help your student hone his ideology and principles there are themes in each section. Some of them are:

A Study in Freedom and Responsibility,
A Study in Conviction and Triumph,
A Study in Fortitude and Forgiveness,
A Study in Ambition and Courage,
and a Study in Conscience and Fairness.

In addition to the extensive notes in the Study Guide with background information, points in each lesson guided us on each discussion.

After reading the books like Stalin: Russia’s Man of Steel or Virginia’s General: Robert E. Lee and the Civil War it made for some great discussions about topics like freedom and prejudice. I loved having the themes to guide my teen to comprehend the theme in each book which is a part he has struggled with in the past.

Because my high school kid worked on his own on part of this, I have to rely heavily on the Study Guide for the answers, questions, and some of the background information. Although it’s not easy to flip back and forth between time periods and books, you can easily with the way this is laid out.

Also, some of the books my son read right away and wanted to delve deeper into those topics. World War II is one topic that my son knows well and never gets tired of talking about. Besides reading the books in the curriculum by Albert Marrin, one of our favorite history authors, the Study Guide has more recommended books and videos in the back to feed my son’s love for the Second World War.

Yet another reason I loved using this is that we needed more help in literary analysis. I’ve never been keen on assigning book reports although I know they have a practical purpose which is to train a child to write critically in the older grades.

Because I’ve never forced Tiny to do a formal book report, but have worked on reading a lot of good books I needed to be sure he has a good grasp on literary concepts.

There are six books highlighted to use for literary analysis:

Uncle Tom’s Cabin,
The Red Badge of Courage,
To Kill a Mockingbird,
Night,
Hiroshima,
and Lost Names: Scenes from a Korean Boyhood.

Learning literary analysis should be repeated like grammar and it’s best taught in context or while using examples from literature. As an example, earlier I mentioned ideologies listed in each section. The reason this was important is because even at this grade level students can still get confused between the plot of the story and its theme.

Exposing my sons to the basic elements of fiction like plot, setting, character, point of view, mood, and theme are the foundation of literary analysis, but I wanted to be sure we touched advanced concepts as well.

In addition, there are some literary concepts that can’t be recognized until your child is older. Some figures of speech and poetry devices confuses my teen. So the books used gave him a good overall grasp of basic and advanced concepts.

It’s not necessary to break down every novel, but it’s important to choose a few to do. I try to be balanced when teaching literature analysis because I don’t want to suck the joy out of reading, but it’s important for our teens to become critical thinkers too.

Simply requiring my son to write down the term, define it, and explain it to me is a simple method, but it’s the same one I’ve used since I first taught him to read. Too, we wrote a few on index cards for review because just writing it down once didn’t mean he remembered it. Making a notebook like we have as we’ve used Beautiful Feet Books work best for us.

In addition to the literary concepts we focused on, we also chose a few of the essay topics. Essay writing was not my exact focus for him because we’ve done a lot of writing. When we wanted to, however, the Study Guide made it easy for us to choose writing topics.

The Study Guide is much more than an question and answer guide. It is the backbone at this level and it’s all-inclusive.

Our Experience with Modern U.S. and World History Literature by Beautiful Feet Books

Even at the high school level, there is no one-size-fits-all curriculum. As the parents, we still have to be involved when choosing the right curriculum for our teen.

This is my third high school teen to use Beautiful Feet Books because I love their literature and easy approach to teaching. I’ve never been disappointed with the high quality literature, guides, and help for the teacher. This level is no exception.

As the teacher, I don’t think you ever stop worrying if you’ve prepared you teen enough for whatever track you ultimately decide. However, I do know that my first two sons are doing well in college after using Beautiful Feet Book. I know my third teen is equally well-prepared.

You’ll love reading these other posts for how I used

Read about Medieval History for Middle School
Read about How to Teach Science Through A Story – Middle & High School
Read about When We Used Beautiful Feet Books as our History Spine

How to Purchase It.

►Product Name: Modern U.S. and World History pack
►Website: Beautiful Feet Books – BFBooks
► Don’t Miss: The Getting Started page. It’s been such a helpful guide for me through the years.
►Type of product: These is a physical product but the study guide is available as a digital download too.. From their site: This brand-new study features excellent literature for this tremendous span of American and World history from 1850 into the 2000s. This one year study is recommended for 11th and 12th grade. Students will learn a multitude of essential events, concerning political figures, technological advances, social climates, wars, ideologies, and movements all with in-depthstudy notes, discussion and comprehension questions, vocabulary, web links, and essay questions that encourage the mature student to evaluate, think critically, and express their thoughts in writing. In addition to the historical study notes, we have also included essential literary analysis on the finest works of literature in the study.
►Price: Regular Price: $298.09 15% OFF! BFB Price: $253.95.

YIPPEE! HAPPY DANCE! !

GIVEAWAY

Terms: Over 18. U.S. residents only

Please don’t think you’ll not win! I have to give this sweet giveaway to somebody! Go ahead and enter below.

May the Force Be With You! ha

$100.00 Curriculum Credit Toward Beautiful Feet Books (oh yes baby)

How To Homeschool Middle School – Why Eclectic Of Course!

November 26, 2017 | 1 Comment
This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

Whether you’re utterly excited or fear that you’re woefully inadequate to homeschool middle school, one thing is for sure. Homeschooling middle school can be some of the best years to homeschool.

From homeschooling a 6th grader who is still so full of eagerness to a 8th grader who is ready to debate on a moment’s notice, there are no dull moments in the middle school years.

Besides watching the unfolding of a young child into a teen, it’s also the time your child is still flexible. It’s the perfect time to try an out of the box approach.

First, let me back up a minute. When I approached the middle school years I had thought it was my time to have it easy as the teacher.

Knowing that kids are more independent at this age, I wanted relief in the way of a boxed curriculum.

3 VALUABLE TIPS WHEN TEACHING HOMESCHOOL MIDDLE SCHOOL

However, as each son entered the middle school years, I learned several valuable lessons,

one was that the eclectic homeschool style approach was needed now more than ever before;
that I shouldn’t have listened to naysayers who said we needed to give up hands-on learning or lapbooks;
and I should have dabbled more into life skills and high school credits.

From teaching Mr. Senior 2013, I learned that subjects like the three Rs are the mainstay of these grades too.

Subjects don’t change significantly in middle school, but the approach to how you choose curriculum does.

For example, just because you used one math program with your child up to this point doesn’t mean it is the right one for middle school.

You need to take more time choosing curriculum and subjects.

Here is a very valuable piece of seasoned advice.

Up until middle school, you should choose curriculum based on your teaching style because you are wearing the teacher hat exclusively. Now, you need to choose curriculum based on your child’s learning style.

Beginning in about sixth grade you want to gently turn over the teaching reins to your child.

I can’t recall an exact moment with each of my sons where I could unequivocally pinpoint a time and say, “This is the exact moment my sons were independent.”

Middle school independence is a gradual process.

This is the time to explore alternative options.

Don’t wait until high school for out of the box elective where you don’t have as much flexibility to change courses in midstream.

HOMESCHOOL MIDDLE SCHOOL SUBJECTS GUIDE

Look at these subjects and options for curriculum that worked for us or that we currently like.

Homeschool Middle School Reading

Kids in the middle school are at varying maturing abilities.

Unlike the early grades where you focused on phonics, at about the fourth grade a child should be ready to move away from direct phonic instruction.

Don’t worry if your child is not, I just want you to have a rule of thumb. I had two that were ready to move away and one not so ready.

Look here at How to Transition a Child From Reading to Literature.

I focused on about 3 or 4 books with direct reading instruction. This means we delved deeply into them.

On their own, my sons read way more from my list, but about 4 books was all I could do each year where I questioned them significantly.

Remember there is a difference between a child narrating back a story and learning the elements of fiction and figures of speech.

Understanding where I was headed in the middle school grades helped me to see what teach in reading.

For example, in high school your child will be focusing on certain authors and literature in specific time periods.

In middle school, focus on learning genres and the basics of elements of fiction. This tool he will use as lens to pull up close and examine literature in high school.

Look at what you want to zero in on and use this free page which explains a bit about each one.

Plot
Setting
Character
Theme
Style
Point of View

The point I’m making is although it’s important for them to read at this age, it’s equally important to delve deeply into a book and expose kids to a variety of genres.

Homeschool Middle School Writing

If you chose to teach cursive writing like I did, then you’ll want your child to practice daily.

Writing journals, hands-down has been the best tool I’ve used to encourage writing. The focus is on writing creatively and free from a judgmental eye.

Most of the time my sons chose to share their daily sentences or paragraphs with me, but I didn’t ask or didn’t grade them, only praise them.

Composition is quite a different thing. For example, although we may brainstorm one day and not do much handwriting on our current topic, writing in their journal each day ensured continued practice.

Again, the best way is to mix and match curriculum to suit your child’s strengths and weaknesses.

Resources prepared and used by other homeschool teacher moms is another secret at this age.

If I’m going to start handing over the teaching reins to my child, I needed resources by homeschool families who understood my need.

We loved using WriteShop because it’s written specifically with homeschoolers in mind.

Not only did it have lots of teaching background notes for me, but it was the first top notch writing curriculum my first middle school son used on his own.

Homeschool Middle School Arithmetic

Don’t get discouraged if your middle school kid is behind in math. I had one like this and two ahead at their grade level.

For the one son behind, I added in straightforward practice.

Although math apps can be helpful for drills, my struggling math guy needed to write and see the work.

The Key to . . . Math Series have been some of the best no fluff straight forward practice books I’ve ever used. They’re such timeless helps.

The books are a set of consumable non-overwhelming books on one math topic, like fractions, which progress from the easiest concept in Book 1 to the hardest concept in the last book.

Some packets have 10 books others are smaller.

Middle school was the year I switched from Teaching Textbooks, which I thought was ahead of Math U See, and back again to Math U See. Teaching textbooks was not ahead in my experience from K to 12th grade math.

Although Teaching Textbooks explained step by step, mastery is my goal and Math U See taught mastery. I guess the main difference is that Math U See does not go by grade level but by concept. That is my preferred way of teaching.

Choose what is best for your child at each grade. I didn’t use MUS or Teaching Textbooks at the lower grades.

Also, remember to add in fun hands-on math to teaching. Kids this age can still be cuddly and cute. (ha, ok.)

Look at Making Math Count for Middleschool When You’re Not the Math Mom and 25 Creative and Tasty Edible Math Activities that Keeps Learning Fun.

And then living math is one of the best ways to incorporate it into every day learning.

Kids want a reason for why they have to learn math. Don’t make it boring and humdrum.

Grab an idea from this living math book below from another talented homeschool mom which makes teaching middle school a cinch.

Homeschool Middle School Life Skills and Electives.

And one of the BEST parts of homeschooling middle school is the time to explore and even get credit in middle school. Yes electives are something fun and doable at this age, so explore them.

Middle school is also the time to narrow down what your middle school kids may want to jump into deeper in high school. The only way to do that is to do a wide range of fun and practical skills.

Give them time to explore while making it practical. For example, teach your child how to write out a check.

Yes, my young adult kids still need to use a check once and a while and remembering how to do it can be a struggle.

It’s easier to use a debit card, but that’s not always great for record keeping. How to change a tire and check a vehicle’s oil are important skills to teach them as they approach driving age.

We also love to explore different types of art. We love doing chalk art.

We’ve used another resource by a homeschool mom which is Chalk Pastel because of the variety of books and teaching helps she has on her site.

Even cooking has been added as part of our science and history and a new one we’ve been trying out is SkillTrek.

It gives us a set of life skills from A to Z. Now is the time to learn this stuff before your kids tell you they know everything.

Wait, I mean now when they still do what you say!

I wanted to give you this quick glance at the middle school years. Soon, I’ll be adding more specific posts to help you.

What are you wrestling with right now in middle school?

Also, look at these super helpful tidbits:

Hugs and love ya,

Homeschooling High School: Curriculum, Credits, and Courses

November 12, 2017 | Leave a Comment
This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

By the time you reach the high school years, you have some general ideas of how to plan them. Today, in sharing homeschooling high school, I’m giving you a few detailed pointers for curriculum, credits, and courses to steer you in the right direction.

3 POINTERS: HIGH SCHOOL CURRICULUM AND COURSES

First, look at 3 things I wished I would’ve known before I started.

One/ In the beginning, it’s not necessary to plan all four years.

It’s just not necessary because a lot will change. Your teen will mature and may change the direction of his education or career as he approaches adulthood. Give him some wiggle room.

Have a plan so you can give your teen goals, but analyze each year. Having a framework of courses is much better.

I appreciated reading How to Homeschool 9th and 10th Grades: Simple Steps for Starting Strong to help me stay focused on the start of high school.

Home Learning Year by Year: How to Design a Homeschool Curriculum from Preschool Through High School was a book I read early on.

After reading it, I designed a framework and understood that the three Rs are the foundation of any well-laid out high school course.

Look where I share the nitty gritty of that here in my post Homeschool High School The Must Cover Subjects Part 1 and Homeschool High School The Must Cover Subjects Part 2.

Two/ Also, I wished I would have used middle school to help my first high school teen explore more subjects he wanted to.

With my second high school son, I was prepared to let him explore more elective type courses in middle school and getting some of the basic math out of the way.

Middle school gives a budding teen time to explore subjects he is interested in. Take advantage of this time to have some fun.

Three/ Something else I didn’t learn until later was to explore more career options and not just focus on academics. After all, your kid is not attending college for life. It’s preparation for life and a career. (well hopefully).

Careers matter and high school is the time to explore careers.

Reading Career Exploration: for homeschool high school students and What Color Is Your Parachute? for Teens, Third Edition: Discover Yourself, Design Your Future, and Plan for Your Dream Job are two books that are real helpful for your teen to go through.

EXPLORING HIGH SCHOOL COURSES

Something else I didn’t appreciate with my first high school teen is the power to be flexible with courses and course descriptions.

I couldn’t think past simply putting English, Math or Science on my first transcript.

Looking back, I know when preparing transcripts that you want to follow some traditional guidelines and keep general course names on the transcript. So those general descriptions were correct.

However, I need to describe the courses specifically.

Just to illustrate, I put Performing Arts on my first two boys’ transcript.

My older two boys took ballroom dancing, but Performing Arts is the general description to put on the transcript.

I had to come up with a description of ballroom dancing.

I started by looking first at the website where my boys took lessons to give me an idea of how to word what they learned.

I put this:

This beginner course is an introduction to the fundamentals of basic dance. In each dance class, students will be expected to participate in warm-ups and learn the techniques of the Waltz and other traditional dances like the Mambo, Salsa and Swing. Along with learning choreography and dance history, this course culminates in a Spring concert performance.

It wasn’t bad for my first description, but like anything that is a first, it wasn’t exactly comprehensive or correct in a sense.

Since then, I learned that I needed to add my grading scale, what books we used, and how I was going to assign credit.

It’s harder to go back and add these things later, but not impossible.

The bottom line is to keep the course name on the transcript general and make your course descriptive detailed on a separate page to produce it if needed.

EASILY WRITING COURSE DESCRIPTIONS

Arranging wording to describe your teen course takes practice, but look at these places to help you.

An obvious place to is the website where you purchased the curriculum. I find the descriptions super helpful in my course descriptions.
I also look at high school course names and descriptions on public school websites. I look for course descriptions similar to the courses that my sons will be doing. This usually gives me some wording
Another place I’ve found descriptions in a nutshell is on Amazon. Amazon is great for giving book descriptions and with a few tweaks of adding how I assign credits and grades, a book description can easily turn course description.
Too, when I didn’t feel like I got a good overview of a course because some descriptions lacked, I would glance at the table of contents to help me word the description of the course.

HIGH SCHOOL CREDIT CONUNDRUM

It can be overwhelming for even the most organized teen and parent when understanding credits, but I like to keep things simple.

It’s been my experience that some families assign a 30 minute class the equal of a 45 minute class because of the intensity of homeschooling and give the student one credit for a rigorous course like literature or math.

You decide how to gauge your credits and the work ethic of your student.

In addition, you decide to give credit if a curriculum is 70% or 80% complete. Some homeschoolers give credit if it’s 80% complete, others less.

Look at my detailed post here for Homeschool High School–How to Log Hours for High School. It gives a detailed explanation for credits.

Also, I have free forms and show you how to expand the use of a transcript here at my detailed post Homeschool High School Transcripts – Anything But Typical.

You and I know that there is no one right to plan high school. But breaking high school down into manageable chunks keeps the process from being overwhelming.

Begin with a framework of the three Rs in high school, fold in accurate course descriptions as you can, be flexible, keep reading about how to grade and assign credit.

Before you know it, you’ll be a pro for your child – which is what really matters.

You will also love my other tips I have for homeschooling high school below:

Hugs and love ya. You got this!

Homeschooling Stubborn Teens: Not for the Faint of Heart

November 8, 2017 | 2 Comments
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While homeschooling through the years we confront with dogged determination many scenarios which makes us weak at the knees or makes our heart skip a beat. But, nothing comes even close to the enemy in our own midst – our sweet child turned stubborn, unmotivated, and seemingly lazy teen. Homeschooling stubborn teens is not for the faint of heart.

I’ve learned that although it’s easier to blame my teens for everything that went wrong, I too had to learn how to parent differently. As each of my sons reached the teen years, I’ve had to become more resourceful and creative in how I homeschool them.

Avoiding drama in your house is not all together impossible, but you can curb it and cope with it by learning from my mistakes.

3 PARENTING TECHNIQUES FOR HOMESCHOOLING STUBBORN TEENS

Whether your teen has been homeschooled from the beginning, came willing to homeschool after many years in public school or had no choice, he wants choices now.

One/ Focus on the teen, not the school.

However, before you can get to choices, the number one mistake made by many homeschooling families is to focus on homeschool. Yep, wrong focus right now.

The teacher in us is ready to go, but the mom in us should lead right now. Problems, whether academic or developmental, signal something is wrong.

Although a teen can now vocalize that he hates math or writing and is seen as unmotivated, that’s only the result of what is going on inside.

Before assuming it’s a lack of motivation, step back, and deschool. You can’t move forward until you and your teen are both ready.

Coming into adulthood takes a toll daily on your teen and he needs you now more than ever.

Two/ Deschool now before it’s too late.

Look at ways you can step back, deschool, and focus. Move forward by stepping back instead of butting heads:

If he hates math, ask him which subjects he does like. Use that knowledge to plan a routine. For example, get the worst subjects out of the way at his peak time and in a place he chooses. Explain to him that he can make those choices, however, if he is not doing his math because he decided to lie down on his bed, then it’ll have to change. I had one son that just because he could sit on his bed, he was in the right mindset to do math which was a subject he hated. He did well and eventually later in high school, he moved to the table. Give him some choice. BUT, first take time to not do school while you question him (few questions in the beginning) about subjects he likes and doesn’t like. Help him to make a routine for the day he loves while satisfying your requirements.
Next, do something he wants to do. For us, it was skateboarding, bicycling and watching movies. I told my teens to not do school for a few days while they played. My teens praised me as the best homeschooling mom ever (ha, but I had a motive). Like all smart moms who want their sons to do well in academics, I knew that they had to see first that I was reasonable. After they played for a few days and I could see it winding down, I discussed with each one how to work in what they liked doing while balancing their academic load. It worked. They knew I was reasonable, but had expectations. Including them in the discussion gave them the control they wanted.
Focus on when the rebellion occurs. For example, I knew our problem was an over scheduling problem with one of my teens. The rest of the day he was pretty compliant barring a few bad moods. Over all, the sulking and back talking happened only during school. Stepping back and allowing my teen to rest gave me time to understand how many credits I wanted for middle or high school teen. I reworked his schedule. However, if your teen is complaining pretty much the whole day, then it’s a parenting or rebellious issue and homeschooling is getting a bum rap.

Three/ Over ambitious homeschooling can backfire.

It’s easy to say when your child is five or six years old what he will and will not do as a teen, but it’s quite a different thing scheduling for him at 15 or 16 years old.

While it may be true that a teen doesn’t have to love learning because work places or colleges don’t care if he does, it never worked when I told them that.

I’ve never made progress with my sons when I vented and I normally had nothing helpful to say when I lost it.

Pushing my sons to do college courses early while in high school, having them take jobs too early, and do heavier maths because they were hardworking could’ve backfired.

Stepping back to reaffirm that heart schooling was just as important as academics helped me to solidify the fact that homeschooling is a lifestyle. I want my sons to homeschool their sons because I believe it’s the best way to teach a child.

HOMESCHOOLING TEENS WITH THE FUTURE IN MIND

Homeschooling with a future generation in mind helped me realize that I wholeheartedly believe learning is a privilege.

Curbing my desire to sock it to my boys with their academic load while being teens helped us to not only lap up the precious teen years, but love every minute of it.

Sometimes the solution to a problem was to just stop. And remembering each teen is different helped me to see problems from each kid’s perspective. Can you relate?

What kind of problems are you trying to overcome with your teen?

When your teens are grown and look back at how you didn’t give up on them, all of the hard times will be memories. You’ll only see the beautiful man or woman thanking you. Your knees will then be weak for another reason – overwhelming happy emotion.

Also, you’ll find these other articles super helpful. Don’t give up now. You’re almost there.

Hugs and love ya,

Graduate a Homeschooler

Get It Over and Done: How Do Homeschoolers Graduate Early

Moving Past the Four-Year Homeschool High School Plan

Can Homeschoolers Graduate Early?

Modern U.S. and World History High School Literature

How to Narrow Down Your High School Literature Scope

The Nitty-Gritty of Modern U.S. and World History Literature

Modern U.S. and World History Literature Study Guide