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Homeschooled Through High School

Homeschooled Through High School: A Vision for Homeschooling High School

April 18, 2013 By Thaleia 3 Comments

Educational Games for 2-8 Year Olds

A Vision for Homeschooling High School

A Vision Homeschooling High School

Many of us who are on the precipice of homeschooling high school started this journey when our children were very young. We have already been homeschooling a long time, but are nervous about navigating the high school path. Some of us are at the beginning of this journey and have chosen to pull a teen out of school and are beginning the homeschooling journey with high school.

No matter how long you have been homeschooling, you need a fresh vision when you begin high school with your teen. Without a vision for the high school years, a mom can quickly become consumed by fear and doubt, not to mention stress.

A vision for high school grounds us and gives us confidence to keep moving.

So how do we find this vision?

When I began my homeschool journey fifteen years ago I went through a process with God. Years before, I had been involved in a summer of culture studies. One of the things we learned was “envisioning.” Envisioning is a process of picturing the end—sort of an imagining of where you would like to end up. Once you have this picture of where you are going, you can plan your route. So at the beginning of our homeschool journey, I felt God leading me to first envision where we were going.

I began with reflection and prayer. The next step was to begin envisioning what I desired my children to be like at the end of our journey. What sort of people did I think they would become? What lifestyle and characteristics did I want to impart to them? What kind of character would they have? What will they love? Where will their giftings take them? I thought through these things for each child. Then I knew where we wanted to go and worked backward from there to plan our course of action.

This proved to be such a wise place to begin. Of course, all God’s plans are. {grin} The vision that God planted in my family through this process proved to help me navigate the maze of learning styles and curriculum choices without losing my sanity.

Then we reached high school…

This plan I had mapped out was set into motion when my oldest child was five years old. Now that he was beginning high school (a decade later) I wasn’t so sure that I still had a clear picture of the route he should take. It was time to reassess. I revisited the envisioning process and asked God to give me a fresh vision for his high school journey.

I am so glad that I reassessed at the beginning of his high school years! I was feeling a bit overwhelmed at the thought of how to prepare him for college and studying his field of interest. A fresh look at his interests, his talents, his giftings, and where God may be calling him really helped me to begin to see how to guide him down his path.

We all need this fresh reflection at the outset of the high school years—whether we have been homeschooling for 9 years or 2 years. The high school years are important, and they are so much different than the years preceding them.

Your time with your high schooler will be much more productive and much less painful if you have a vision not just for homeschooling… but for homeschooling high school.

“Where there is no vision, the people perish: but he that keepeth the law, happy is he.” Proverbs 29:18, KJV

If you would like to find out more about envisioning and forming a vision for your homeschool (whether you’re just beginning or reassessing at the beginning of the high school years), grab a copy of my ebook, Finding Your Vision: Beginning (or Continuing) Your Homeschool Journey With the End in Mind. The book walks you through the process step by step. It is free for subscribers but you can also buy the pdf version if you would rather not subscribe.

If you are looking for support for homeschooling high school, check out the HomeSchool High Link-Up that happens at my blog every Friday or join the HomeSchool High Support Facebook group.

Connie from thedaisyhead.comConnie is the wife of a bi-vocational, associate pastor and momma to five children. She has been home educating for 14 years and is still trying to figure out how to keep up with highschoolers and grade schoolers (K & 5) at the same time. She writes about all things homeschooling momma at the daisyhead. Connie also does blog sponsorship consulting to help other bloggers form a partnership with a brand they love and navigate the waters of getting conference sponsorship. In her spare time, she runs a knitwear design business and blogs about her creations at DaisyHead Creations. You can also connect with her on Facebook and Twitter.

Haven’t read other posts in the Homeschooled through High School Series?  Catch some more below:

College Bound by Age 12!

Diana Waring Presents

Homeschooled through High School: Taylor Landrie

Filed Under: Homeschooled Through High School, Homeschooling

Homeschooled Through High School: 3 Things I Have Learned…

April 11, 2013 By Thaleia 1 Comment

Homeschooled Through High School:

 3 Things I Have Learned While Preparing to Homeschool High School

Those of us who homeschool or who have been homeschooled through high school know that IT IS VERY Possible. But how? Many parents and students look towards high school with fear and trepidation instead of being joyous as to how far into the journey they have come. I realize that families homeschool for a multitude of reasons and that each family is unique, but questions still arise when the words high school are mentioned!

3 Things I Learned While Preparing to Homeschool Highschool

My daughter, my oldest child, will be entering the big unknown of being homeschooled for high school this coming year. I have to laugh as I type this because if you find people give you looks about just homeschooling, well…. they give you a whole lot more looks when they hear you plan to homeschool high school! Due to the fact that she will be entering the high school years this fall, I have been spending this year planning and researching. I would like to share with you a few of the things I have learned, or think I have learned, or hope I have learned…LOL…along the way.

1. The Unknown of High School Credits

What exactly are credits? Credits are how you demonstrate the amount of time one has spent on a specific course. You will often see a one credit course be compared to one full year of time spent on a course, or a half a year course be given 1/2 of a credit. Things like math, science, English, foreign language, or history are usually assigned one credit for each year. Other courses such as American History, Economics, Auto Repair, or Photography would typically be a half year of study and thus be the equivalent of 1/2 a credit.

There are two main schools of thought on completing enough to earn a high school credit. If are using a standard high school-level textbook you can consider a credit earned when you have completed the textbook. Keep in mind that covering the material in a textbook does not necessarily mean reading the book from cover to cover, answering every question, or doing every problem. You should however diligently cover the material presented.

Another way to determine credit is by logging the hours spent on coursework. One credit is approximately 120-180 hours of work. The upper end of this is typically appropriate for lab science courses, while around 150 hours would be the average for a year long course such as English or History, and electives would fall into the lower level around 120 hours. Generally when calculating credit for an academic course, a good measure is 50 minutes a day, 5 days a week for 36 weeks, would be the equivalent of a one credit course. In our state the regulations give a certain percentage that must be covered to be considered complete, as well as how many minutes (which translate to hours) they consider to be equal to earning one credit.

2. Electives Are Easier to Accumulate Than You Think

In our state you are required to cover 3 credits of electives over the 4 year period of high school. I was surprised to learn that many people will count extra years of math or science as electives. I know some people may use this as an option, but I strongly believe that electives should be outside the “typical” course of study. This thought is aligned with the definition of electives that I gave in my post about exploring possible electives,

“High school electives go beyond the core classes of English, math, science, and history. Electives supplement the educational years with classes that interest your child and prepare them for adult life.”

Now if she were to do something like accounting, which is math, I would consider this an elective because it is above, beyond and outside the usual course of math (algebra, trig, geometry, precalculus, etc).

Back in January I started exploring our options concerning electives. The list I compiled for options is surprisingly extensive and opens up a world of opportunities to follow your teens interests and call it an “elective”! My daughter and I took the list and narrowed down what we thought would be the most interesting and beneficial options for her. What we came up with was a combination of interest based electives as well as electives based on her thought that she would like to attend college in the medical field after completing high school. Between her interest in photography, the thought that she should do a foreign language even though it is not required in our state for homeschoolers, and adding a basic psychology course to prepare her for college, we easily will accrue more than 3 credits worth of electives.

 

3. Yes, You Too Can Complete Lab Sciences

LabScience

I recently had a conversation with a woman whose first question to me after finding out that I homeschool my children was, “I have always wondered this, how do you cover lab science?”

I think lab science must be one of the most disconcerting tasks to tackle when thinking about homeschooling high school. I know it was at least in my top 3! There are a couple of things I have found that may help you to worry a little less about this big task.

The first thing that was a bit of a surprise to me was that not every science has to be a lab science. Even if your child is planning on heading off to college, most colleges do not require documented lab science. It obviously would depend on the college, and the course of study your student plans on following but it is good to note that not every science has to be a lab science. You can teach the science of anything. For example, you can choose one of the more general sciences like botany, astronomy, geology or ecology.

Now for teaching lab sciences at home, there are some great options. Apologia, Bob Jones and A Beka all offer solid programs in Biology, Chemistry and Physics that can be taught at home. What we opted for this coming year is called DIVE. DIVE stands for Digital Interactive Video Education.

What I like about DIVE is how much it offers and for a very low cost. You can choose the text you want to use with it, and you can choose to either watch the video labs to complete them, or purchase a kit to watch and work the labs along with the video. This is a brief description from their website: “This course can be used as an advanced or standard high school course. It includes a free Internet Textbook to complete reading assignments. If you prefer a traditional text we recommend either Bob Jones Physical World or Bob Jones Physical Science 4th edition. However, you can use any high school text. We have created a syllabus for each text that tells you exactly what to read each week.The course is set up on a 32 week schedule with an average of two video lectures, two worksheets, 20 definitions, and one lab to complete each week. Every 8 weeks there is a quarterly exam. The lecture and lab videos average 30 minutes each, but don’t forget to add time for pausing, rewinding, and note-taking.”

If teaching a lab science at home is still not something you can, or want to tackle then you can also spend the earlier years of high school on other sciences and then sign your child up to take a lab science at a local college, or use a program like Landry Academy offers. Landry Academy offers 2 day lab science intensives throughout the country where you can, “Complete 1 Year of Science labs in Two Intense (but fun) Days!”

There are many other things I have learned, and that I am continuing to learn along the way. The one theme that is overriding for me is that homeschooling high school is possible, and maybe not as hard or as scary as you might think. With some research and preparation you can lay out a plan with your teen that should suit their needs and carry them through high school and into whatever their life after high school has to offer them.


 

Heidi is a 36 year old, happily married wife to one self proclaimed computer geek. Through their 15 years of marriage they have added 3 children: Chloe (13), Jayden (10), and Ava (6), as well as 2 dogs: Muffin and Oscar, to the mix. When not totally engrossed in homeschooling, being a contributing member of the Hip Homeschool Moms team or taxi service for her children Heidi likes to read, blog at Starts At Eight, and chronicle their lives in photos, as well as working at new hand projects like gardening, knitting, and crochet. You can also catch her on Twitter, Pinterest and Facebook!

Filed Under: Homeschooled Through High School, Homeschooling

Homeschooled Through High School: Taking the Fear out of Creating a Transcript

March 21, 2013 By Thaleia Leave a Comment

Educational Games for 2-8 Year Olds

Homeschooled Through High School:

Taking the Fear out of Creating a Transcript

Elizabeth Curry Ordinary Time

Those of us who homeschool or who have been homeschooled through high school know that IT IS VERY Possible.  But how? Many parents and students look towards high school with fear and trepidation instead of being joyous as to how far into the journey they have come. I realize that families homeschool for a multitude of reasons and that each family is unique, but questions still arise when the words high school are mentioned!

I admit it. I was a wreck about my oldest child starting high school at home. It wasn’t the subject matter. It wasn’t my ability to teach high school level subjects. It wasn’t that I was concerned about her social life. It was all about the transcript and whether or not she could get into college. And she was only fourteen!

For our homeschooling up until the dreaded freshman year, we were fairly relaxed in how we made it work. We did a lot of unit studies and read a lot of books. Much of what we learned about was decided by what one or all of us were interested in at any given moment. Sure we did Math and English on a daily basis, but this was just a small portion of what homeschooling looked like in our family.

But I just couldn’t wrap my head around how we could continue to learn together as a family and still come out at the end with a transcript that would be acceptable to colleges. I felt as though we had to completely change our view of school for my daughter or she wouldn’t have a chance at getting into college. It made me sad and panicky and I secretly hoped she would come to me and declare without a doubt that she never wanted to go to college so we could all just get back to life as normal.

I was tied up in knots about it for several months until a good friend went to a conference presentation on creating high school transcripts and shared two key pieces of information with me. Just having these two new ideas in my head allowed me to take a deep breath and realize that the world was not ending and that I could continue to enjoy homeschooling even through high school.

The first key piece of information was that transcripts could be organized by subject instead of by year. This was huge for us. One specific thing I was worrying about was that my daughter, who didn’t love math and for whom math didn’t come easily, was going to take more than one year to complete Algebra. (She ended up with credit for Algebra, Geometry, and Algebra 2, but she completed the classes in somewhat unconventional order and was even working on two math classes at once for a while.) How do you show credit for work done, yet not have it seem weird that it took multiple years to complete it? This is why a subject organized transcript worked so well for us. It was able to communicate what she had completed without raising any eyebrows about the way in which it was completed.

The second piece of information was the idea of creating the transcript based on what the student has done instead of deciding ahead of time what the student should do. Let me explain. I have my high school age children keep fairly detailed records of just about everything they do. There are the traditional methods of learning… books read, textbooks completed, documentaries watched… that sort of thing. But there are also the non-traditional ways of exploring and learning about ones world. They kept track of volunteer work, hobbies, and places they went. Pretty much if they did it, I want them to write it down.

When it came time to create my daughter’s transcript, I looked at what she had done and worked backward. The rule of thumb is that one Carnegie unit (one unit of high school credit) equals ~120 hours of study. It turns out that if you have children who are interested in a lot of things, it isn’t difficult to rack up the credits. For example, my daughter started volunteering in the sound booth at our church when she was a Freshman. She learned how to set up everything, mix sound using the board, and how to trouble shoot. She became quite interested in this and learned all she could and did some outside reading that the professional sound technician gave her. Between the hours of study she did on her own plus the hours of volunteer work actually doing sound, she earned two high school credits. So on her transcript under the science category I documented the classes, “Sound Technology 1” and “Sound Technology 2.”

With this new found knowledge we were free again to learn as we had always done and high school ceased to be the scary and overwhelming thing that I had made it out to be. I will add that my daughter did indeed get into college… with scholarships to boot. She is now a sophomore and is doing very well. Our somewhat unconventional approach to learning doesn’t seem to have hindered her in any way.

As you begin to think about creating your own child’s transcript, here are a few things to keep in mind.

 

  • Start early. If at all possible, don’t wait until their junior or senior year to try to recreate what they have done. You won’t remember it all. Plus if you start your child on documentation right away, it will be easier to keep track of what things contributed to the credit. Some schools want a list of textbooks used, or if textbooks weren’t used how the credit was earned. With good written records, this documentation is easier to produce. (We did not need this explanation of coursework, but I know other homeschoolers have been asked for it.)
  • If my child completed a full high school level textbook, I awarded them the credit for the class and didn’t worry about keeping track of hours. This is certainly the easiest path to take, though (in my opinion) somewhat uninspiring.
  • Pay attention to hobbies and interests outside of traditional schoolwork. My son has earned a science credit in Apiology because he was interested in keeping bees. He took a bee keeping class, filed all the appropriate governmental paperwork to keep a hive, built the hive from a kit, and then raised bees and harvested the honey over the course of one spring and summer.
  • Every so often take a look to see if there is a class you can create based on what your child has been doing, simply by adding just a little bit more. For instance, if your child has been doing a lot of babysitting or volunteer work with children, perhaps you could turn that into a “Child Development” credit by adding in some reading and perhaps a written paper or two on the experience.
  • Don’t be afraid to give academic sounding names to your child’s learning. Each of my children will graduate from high school with a “Life Skills” credit. This means that they have demonstrated to my satisfaction that skills needed to live on their own. They know how to cook, clean, grocery shop, compare prices, ask for help from others when needed, manage a checking account, have a knowledge of credit cards and their appropriate uses, how to do laundry, etc. This is a completely legitimate credit to give, assuming that they do indeed have this knowledge.
  • Realize you’ll probably leave off some of what your child does. Once we reached 33 credits for our daughter, we stopped adding to her transcript. She had the basics plus some extras covered and to add more could have looked odd. Because our children learn on their own time and at their own rate, it is quite possible for them to have more hours of learning than a traditional high school student. We decided to stop when it seemed like a reasonable amount.
  • In IN, each semester is counted as 1 credit as opposed to 1/2 a credit which is how most other states figure it. Consequently, Indiana high schools would seem to require double the amount of credits than other states, but it is more of an accounting question. (Please check your individual state’s requirements as the final authority since states do differ slightly in how credits are counted.

 

I’m so glad I learned all of this early in my first child’s high school career so that I could enjoy her last four years at home instead of constantly being in a state of worry. Our time with our children is so short; don’t let anxiety rob you of the time you do have.

 

Elizabeth Curry Elizabeth Curry and her husband live in the Chicago area and have been homeschooling their 10 children for the past 15 years. They love the freedom that homeschooling allows and look forward (usually) to the next 15 years. Elizabeth blogs about her adventures of raising and homeschooling her large family at www.ordinary-time.blogspot.com

If you would like the transcript template that the Curry’s developed please contact her via her blog:

Filed Under: Homeschooled Through High School, Homeschooling Tagged With: credits, high school, transcripts

Homeschooled Through High School: Misty Leask from Simply Helping Him

March 7, 2013 By Thaleia 3 Comments

Homeschooled Through High School:

Misty Leask from Simply Helping Him

Those of us who homeschool or who have been homeschooled through high school know that IT IS VERY Possible.  But how? Many parents and students look towards high school with fear and trepidation instead of being joyous as to how far into the journey they have come. I realize that families homeschool for a multitude of reasons and that each family is unique, but questions still arise when the words high school are mentioned!

Misty Leask from Simply Helping Him guest post

This week I would like to welcome Misty Leask from Simply Helping Him.

Not only was I home schooled through high school, but I have never stepped foot (as a student) inside a public or a private school. I was home schooled from K-12, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

I am the oldest of 3 children, and 4. 5 years older than my middle brother. Thus I was taught 5 years as the only student. This allowed me to become a very independent high school student.

…

Read More »

Filed Under: Homeschooled Through High School, Homeschooling Tagged With: homeschool

Homeschooled Through High School: Diana Waring Presents

February 14, 2013 By Thaleia Leave a Comment

Homeschooled Through High School:

Diana Waring Presents


homeschooled highschool Diana Waring

 

Wow!  What a delight to be here with all of you.  Thanks so much to Thaleia for inviting me to be a guest blogger on this very exciting site.

And, you know, homeschooling during high school is one of my favorite topics, because the opportunity to homeschool my three teenagers was the highlight of our parenting journey!

But before we go there, may I share with you what research shows about homeschooling our kids all the way through high school?  During a convention workshop, Dr. Jay Wile talked of a study done by Lawrence Rudner, in which homeschool, private school, and public school students were compared.  The first part of the study showed that homeschool students start out ahead of private school students—and keep that slight lead all the way through high school.  Private school students are slightly ahead of public school students. . .until eighth grade.  At that point, public school students begin to diverge, losing ground rapidly compared to both homeschool and private school students.

…

Read More »

Filed Under: Homeschooled Through High School, Homeschooling Tagged With: encouragement, high school, history, homeschooling

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