Last year after my daughter completed her first high school level class (an outside Latin class) and did well with it, I gave her the choice of either continuing on a traditional junior high (middle school) then high school approach, or to start directly into high school level work, in the areas where she was ready for it.  She chose to start the high school homeschooling journey.

So about a month ago, my husband and I sat down and mapped out what our homeschool’s requirements are for high school graduation.

We started with our local public high school’s graduation requirements for college prep students, and adapted them for our educational goals for our homeschool and children.

Each school – public, private, or homeschool – has it’s own agenda, its own goals, and we are no different. We value creativity and independent thinking. We’re raising and educating our students to be well-rounded and to be creative problem-solvers, to serve others, and to be ready not only for the work place, but also for the most important relationships they will have – with their spouses and children.

And so, we adapted our graduation requirements to reflect our goals, our objectives.  

I’m sure yours will look different than ours, but here’s a few of the areas where we made changes:

• Be prepared for Dual Credit and/or College Prep. While our daughter (and her siblings) currently have no interest in going to college, we want to make sure she has the requirements needed, in case she changes her mind. We also want to leave the door open for the possiblity to earn dual credit in a few years.

 

• More technology. Now we are biased, both my husband and I work in the IT world, and our kids have been using computers since they were toddlers. But we also feel that the need for an understanding of how technology works and for technology skills will only grow. We want to equip our homeschoolers with a good foundation. So, we are requiring  4 credits of technology, including a credit each of programming, office productivity software, and web technology.

 

• More Interpersonal Skills Training. Basic high school requirements state a half credit in Speech, and we just didn’t feel that was enough. Being able to be comfortable speaking to not only groups, but also with a variety of individuals and in a variety of situations is a key factor in both personal and professional success. We are requring two full credits, and one of which needs to be in practical experience.

 

• More Language and Culture. We live in a diverse world, and we feel our children must be able to be able to live in that world without unfounded ignorance or bias about other cultures. So we’re requiring a half credit of world langauge and culture study AND four years of foriegn language study. Each child must be verbally fluent in at least one other langauge (other then English) and be familiar with at least one other langauge (other than English). American Sign Language does count towards our langauge and culture requirement.

 

• More Practical Skills. We’ve added requirements for Fine arts, Community Service, Recreation (not including PE), Psychology (including Human Motivation), Personal Finance (not just Economics), and child development and parenting skills. Why? Because we’re not just preparing our students for work, we’re preparing them to be ready for life – for balancing the reality of money, relationships, and personal fullfillment.

 

I could go on, but I won’t. Instead, if you’d like to check out what we came up with, you can download our homeschool high school requirements here (opens in a new window). 

It ended up being 9 more credits than our local traditional public school, but we’re okay with that. We have opportunity to earn credit outside of traditional public school hours, and our goal is not to compete with or duplicate the traditional schools, but to provide our children with an education that allows them to be prepared for the life they will be leading as adults.

Please feel free to share your thoughts on creating your own homeschool high school graduation requirements in the comments below. I welcome your thoughts.

…Shannon

P.S. If you are looking for more info on homeschooling high school, please be sure to check out my homeschooling high school page where’s I’ve listed resources I’ve found useful.

 
When we homeschool, our children often have the opportunity to start working on high school level material much younger than traditionally schooled children. And that can be a bit of mental adjustment for those of us used to thinking of high school in terms of 9th grade or age 14 or 15. 

I know that last year when my daughter (now 12) earned her first high school credit ( a half credit for Latin), I wasn’t prepared for it. I had heard about homeschoolers starting high school work at 11 or 12, but didn’t really expect to find myself there. (Don’t get me wrong my daughter is bright, but I just wasn’t focused on having her start high school that early.)

I did a bunch of research and discovered that high school transcripts really aren’t that difficult to pull together. The bottomline is that as soon as high school credit is earned it should be recorded on a transcript. That way you always have a running transcript ready in case you need it for outside activities and other opportunities.

 …Shannon

P.S. For more information on Transcripts check out my Homeschooling High School Resource page.

 Also, you might find The HomeSchooler’s Easy Truth About High School Transcripts ebook useful.

I had to sit down with my 9-year-old son today and re-set expectations. For the last month, he’s been progressively slacking in his schoolwork, in his motivation to do schoolwork, and in his attitude.

I accept part of the responsibility in that I allowed him to slack off for a while when I was crazy busy with work. But the bottom line is that if he expects to move on to the next level of school, responsibilities, and ultimately – privileges, he needs to make some decisions. ‘Cuz, frankly his attitude and work this week is not acceptable in the real world, and certainly not here.

It’s not necessarily a fun decision to make – to sit my child down and tell him that some changes are needed. But I’ve had to do it on more than one occasion both with him and with his older sister. And I’m sure at some point I’ll need to do it with the youngers as well.

My approach though at this point though is to stop with the nagging, pulling along, and basically set him down as I would with an employee or as a mentor or coach. I told him that I know he is bored and doesn’t want to do it right now, but I also explained that everyone – including his daddy and I – have to do things that we don’t want to do because they need to be done.

The trick is to decide if we are going to drag them out and make them last and last and get in trouble because of it (yes, mommies and daddies get in trouble too – just in different ways). Or, are we going to learn to do them quickly and well so that then we can get on with the things we really want to do.  My son and I talked about what happens if you do something quickly but not well – you have to do it again and it takes even longer.

We also talked about responsibilities and privileges. And how if I can’t trust him to do the things that need to get done, how on earth was I going to be able to trust him to be responsible enough for the extra privileges he wants to do/have.

I offered up a solution for him to consider, one that works for my 11-year-old. I asked him to think about if he wants to try that or if he wants to come up with his solution of his own.

But the bottom line is, as he walked away was he controls how we interact on this issue both now and all through his life. I can’t make him improve his motivation and force him to do his schoolwork well. But I can make his (and my life) more difficult. But that’s not the relationship I want to have with my son and not the reason why we homeschool.

He needs to step up and decide how he wants to be treated and how he wants to deal with the more mundane responsibilities of life. 

Tomorrow we’ll meet again. He’ll make his choice and we’ll see how things work out. I’m sure that they will and I’m sure that over time we’ll have this conversation again. But for now, I’ve planted seeds and pray that they will grow. Because, I sure want to be able to give him the privileges and see him soar in the areas he is interested in and loves. But he also needs to live up to his responsibilities as well.

Is homeschooling really a lot of work? Is it really that hard?  Lately I’ve been getting comments from those outside of homeschooling who seem to think that it is a just a huge job or hard work.

This attitude always surprises me. I always seem to stammer, “it’s not that difficult” Because quite frankly of all the things I do, I don’t consider homeschooling really that hard. But maybe that’s because I really enjoy spending time with my kids and talking to them, and exploring the world together. And that’s our approach to homeschooling.

I do spend a lot of time thinking about what direction we’re going and looking at ways of facilitating my kids’ education. But once they get to a certain point, I put them front and center in charge of their education and I play a facilitator role. I’m not forcing knowledge into them – standing at the front of the white board lecturing (though I’ve been known to do that if the occasion warrants it).

I’m simply making available the materials they need, having discussions, giving them lots and lots of room to explore their interests and develop their passions. I suggest materials, classes, curriculum, and partner with the olders.  I set expectations and ensure that they are met, but at the same time give lee-way to nurture those natural gifts and interests they have.

So is homeschooling a bunch of work?  In a way it is, but not any harder than just parenting.

And frankly, I find both homeschooling and parenting incredibly fun, challenging (in a good way), and totally worthwhile.

What’s your perspective?

At some point in the year most of us reach that burnout point in our homeschooling adventure. Frazzled Mom went so far to call January, National Homeschool Burnout Month.  This incited an interesting conversation on our local homeschool support group.

Earlier Karri Fieglein shared with us her 26 Tips for Overcoming Homeschool Burnout. Well, Lorry Nell, a homeschooling mom of 4, has also generously agreed to share her 7 tips and a little perspective to help us overcome homeschool burnout. (Thanks Lorry!!)

7 Tips for Overcoming Homeschool Mommy Burnout

By Lorry Nell

Here are a couple of things I try and do if I feel like I’m approaching homeschool mommy burnout:

1.   Remember “WHY” we’re homeschooling in the first place. Make a list of reasons or write a mission statement; even telling someone who will listen to why you are homeschooling often helps!

2.   Get back to the basics, take things a bit slower – it’s O. K.!

3.   Have some silly fun: bake, make crafts, sing, play games, do skits, listen to your favorite tunes, have a lip syncing show, and dress up, etc.

4.   Get out of your house; like that saying “Get out of the boat…”  I find that being inside my house too much gets me down in the dumps, especially in the cold, wet, rainy, winter months.  Try to get outside in each season; observe/participate in “creation” wherever you live! 

5.   Read a book that has NOTHING to do with homeschooling!

6.   Make a list of all the things you HAVE accomplished since you began homeschooling and praise God for ALL that He has given you!

7.   This one may seem drastic to some, but being that I’m an ex-public school educator, if I’m having an especially hard time, I have been known to visit my local public school and ask for a list of the essential elements, lunch, and daily schedule for the grade level of students in my household and am miraculously inspired to race home, hug and kiss my kids and get right back into the trenches of homeschooling my four blessings!  I know, I know, I’m probably going to get razzed on this one – but it’s true!

Please remember, we are a threat to Satan’s schemes/plans.

It’s true, homeschooling is very hard. 

It’s true that we are doing at least 2 full time jobs simultaneously. 

It’s true, that we could have the day off, five days a week/ 9 months a year, If we put our kids in school. 

It’s true, we could have the whole day to ourselves to do WHATEVER we wanted: grocery shop, hair cuts, shopping, sleeping (who gets enough of this?). 

What we do each day is our own humble attempt to teach our children that HIStory is far better that any other author’s…  This is about the Lord’s unfolding plan; not mine.  Some days I think, come on Lorry, you’re suppose to know this stuff like the back of your hand, but I often am faced w ith situations that I just don’t see coming. 

EVERY year, what worked the past year doesn’t usually work for the next.  As the dynamics of  our family changes, so do our needs. I went from homeschooling in one room upstairs, to schooling in different parts of our home. And that’s O. K.  Do what your comfortable with – my children respond well when they know that I like what/where/how I’m doing whatever it is that we’re doing. 

Each of us are working on beautiful tapestries called our families. And if you humble yourself and seek Him each new day, do your very best, that’s all any of us can do!

If none of the above mentioned lifts your spirit or puts a smile on your face, call me and I’ll have you come over to my home for tea/conversation and you are welcome to have a first hand glance at my humble attempt in the schooling of our 4 kiddos!  When you realize we’re all more or less in the same boat, you will be feeling fine in NO time!