Tag: highschool

“Do Hard Things” -Book Review

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One of the things that I like to do in my homeschooling is give my kids “growth” books that challenge them to grow spiritually or in character.  The most recent book that I have given my 14 year old to read is the book “Do Hard Things” by Alex and Brett Harris.  These brothers wrote a book that challenges teens to live according to God’s way of thinking instead of the world’s way of thinking.  They call it the “rebelution” which consists of teenagers having a rebellion against low expectations.  To realize that even as a teen you don’t have to live with low expectations but can rise to change the world in amazing ways.

They give many examples within their book of teens that are currently changing the world by following in the adventure that God has for each of them.  For example, there is teenage boy named Zach Hunter who has a heart to stop human trafficking.  At the age of 12 he started with the simple idea of using loose change that you might find in between your couch cushions to loosen chains of the people who are victims of human trafficking.  He presented the idea to different peers and schools and ended up founding an organization that he still runs today as an adult which is called LC2LC (Loose Change to Loosen Chains).  He was a 12 year old that wanted to make a difference and stepped out in the adventure that God was giving him.  This is just one of the stories that can inspire young people to realize their potential now as a young person pursuing the things of God.

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“Do Hard Things” is a book that I would encourage to be on your homeschool list of “must read”.   They have also wrote other books to follow up the “Do Hard Things”.  The next book that they wrote is called “Start Here” which gives the next step for teenagers in their journey of discovering the adventure God has for them.  It gives more direction on how you might start walking out your individual adventure that God has designed specifically for you.  They are also in the process of releasing a parent book that talks about parenting world changers.  Their website is therebelution.com.  You will find current inspiring stories of teenagers changing the world and other helpful resources for your teen.

I believe that God has amazing and unique plans for each of our children.  We have the awesome privilege of helping them discover the gifts and talents that God has given them and leading them to discover their own intimate relationship with Jesus.  One of the things I try to do as often as I can with these books I give my kids, is to read them myself and cultivate an atmosphere of discussion with them to help them start thinking.  I am excited to see how each of my children walk out their own adventures with God.

Lifeskills

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One of my goals in homeschooling is to not only educate my children in academics but also in Lifeskills.  “Lifeskills for Kids” by Christine M. Field is a great tool to use.  This is a excellent resource for parents that goes over the basic skills of life that we need to know as adults.  I find these kind of books helpful in making me think about the everyday stuff I do that my kids may not know how to do, like balance a checkbook or the process of learning how to do laundry.  Some of the topics that were interesting to me were the chapters on teaching kids about decision making and teaching them about organization of their space.  Its a worth checking out.

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Another resource that I think is worthy of checking out is the book called, “What every Child Should know Along the Way” by Gail Martin.  This is another book that teaches about Lifeskills for children.  What I love about this book is the different lists that the author provides of the different life skills that a child should know at each age of their life starting at the age of 2.  This book is written from a biblical perspective, so there are also many references to God’s word and what it says about life skills.  I also enjoyed the helpful and creative ideas on how to train the little ones.

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Teaching life skills to kids can be a lot of fun.  For example, I want my kids to know the basics of cooking before they leave our home.  The easiest way for me to do this with five kids is to have a cooking assistant for meal times.  So each week a different child is assigned to help me with meals and I let them learn how to prepare meals with me. Depending on what we are doing, they can learn anything from how to make tuna fish sandwiches to baking bread from scratch.  You can also involve kids in meals by having them plan and shop for a meal and then having them help cook it.  Its fun to see what they come up with.

9th Grade Curriculum for 2015/2016

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Here is my choices for my oldest going into 9th grade this year.

  • History-Sonlight Core 100
  • Science-Apologia Biology
  • English-IEW US History Writing Lessons, Vocabulary-Word Up!, IEW Fix It! Grammar, Sonlight Core 100 U.S. History Lit. Books
  • Latin I-Latin Road to Grammar
  • Math-BJU Press-Pre-Alegbra, Life with Fred-Pre-Algebra
  • Spanish 2- Taken at a co-op…Homeschool Connections.
  • Geography-BJU Northstar Geography
  • Fine Arts- Piano

I will be blogging some reviews on the different curriculum choices as I use them.  I think its going to be a fun start to our high school year.  Unknown

Taking the Boredom out of Math

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I have children who are not too keen on doing Math.  I found Life of Fred to be an enjoyable and refreshing alternative for my kids to do Math in a unique way.  Life of Fred Math curriculum is in a book format that follows the life of a character named Fred.  The books are filled with humorous nonsensical stories of Fred’s life.  Throughout the entire story the author weaves in math concepts for the kids to learn.  At the end of each chapter, there is an opportunity for kids to answer math questions and test their knowledge of the concepts that were taught in the story.  “Life of Fred” curriculum is not very repetitive, so it may not be enough practice for a student that needs a lot of repetition.  I use it along side my normal math as a fun supplement.  My kids are eager to finish “normal” math so they can do Life of Fred.  “Life of Fred” curriculum has books for all grades.  It starts at Kindergarten age and goes all the way through post high school math.  I know some parents use “Life of Fred” curriculum alone as their only math.  This would be fine for a student who doesn’t need a lot of practice or for a student who gets overwhelmed and needs math in small amounts.  You could always find worksheets to reinforce practicing the concepts that they had a harder time with.  “Life of Fred” books sell for around $17 dollars per book.  Another thought is the books are not written as easy readers.  So, if you were starting with a Kindergartener, then you would read the book to the child and do the math with them. I started the first book with my first grader this year and I still read the book  to him and then he does the math at the end of each chapter.  As a family we have enjoyed following Fred on his adventures through Math.  “Life of Fred” curriculum has helped make math enjoyable and fun especially for my kids who drag their feet at the mention of Math.  You can find “Life of Fred” books at lifeoffredmath.com

God’s World News

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I want my kids to be aware of current events.  I think its important for them to be able to discuss what is happening in our world and how to see it through a biblical perspective.  God’s World News is an excellent resource for current events.  Its a magazine that is geared towards your child’s age that gets sent to you through the mail every couple of months.  The magazine’s that are available range from preschool age to post high school.  What I like about GWN magazines is how they are written from a biblical perspective.  The kids look forward to getting them in the mail and want to read them right away.

For my older children, I need more current events than what GWN’s magazine can provide.  I still use GWN  but I add on other sources for current events.  Another source that I found was dogonews.com.  This is a website that has set up current events for kids in various categories.  Dogonews.com does not represent a biblical perspective with its news articles but because it is geared towards kids, I have not found objectionable content.  This is another great resource for my older kids to do more current event reports during the week.

Fine Arts Credit Anyone?

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In Washington State there is a resource that is a great way for kids to get their Fine Arts credits.  We are the type of family, so far, that will have an abundance of Fine Art credits because our 3 older kids love music, drama and other various art classes.  Our younger 2 kids are too young to know what direction they will go.  I know there are parents that have kids, like mine, who will have no problem fulfilling their Fine Arts credit in homeschooling high school.  I know there are other homeschool parents out there that cringe at the thought of how to fulfill that same Fine Arts credit.  This resource is an easy way to start contributing hours to that credit.

Its called Teentix.org.  This is a website that offers $5 dollar tickets to teens for most of the theatre, symphony and other performing arts productions in Washington.  The way it works is that any teenager ages 13-19 gets a Teentix pass.  You can get this on their website.  This pass allows your teenager to purchase same day tickets for $5.  The tickets are not purchased online but at the box office or some performances will let you pay over the phone.  No credit or debit can be used for purchase, you must use cash.  Also, some performances are sold out so there are not any Teentix tickets available.  To make sure that there are tickets available, you can call the Box Office number on the Teentix website. You must have your Teentix pass with you and a student ID or Driver’s License to purchase your ticket. They also have specials on certain performances that allow your teen to purchase a 2nd ticket for $10 for a friend of any age to go with them. Even if your student has an abundance of Fine Art credits, this resource is still an awesome way for your teen to enjoy the Arts.

Museum of Flight-Seattle. WA

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We just went on a field trip to the Museum of Flight yesterday in Seattle.  I have lived my whole life in Washington but this is only the 2nd time that I have been to the Museum of Flight. I went a couple of weeks ago with my hubby on his day off and then decided to go with our homeschool group on this trip. This is a great field trip for kids.  They gave the kids each a booklet that explained the different planes and then had them go on a scavenger hunt to find and learn about them.  They also had fun activities like flight simulators that were of high interest to my older kids.  Another fun thing for the younger kids was the “FlightZone” area where it was an indoor playground made out of different airplanes or helicopters for the little ones to play in.  I especially like the building that held the World War I and World War II planes and how they taught about the different people that fought for our country.  The differences between the World War I planes and World War II planes was interesting.  It really showed how we had progressed in flight even during that time period. The Museum not only had airplanes but also had an entire section on NASA.   After our trip to the Museum of Flight my 12 year old son was talking to me about what it takes to be a fighter pilot.

The most economical way to see the Museum of Flight is to go with a homeschool group.  If you have 10 students you can create a homeschool group tour.  The cost is discounted for students and chaperones go free, you also get discounted on the different documentaries and even the flight simulators.  If you want to be even more thrifty, the Museum of Flight is one of the many museums that have a free day once a month for the public.  Most museums in our area have a free day the first Thursday of the month.  The last time I checked for the Museum of Flight’s free day it was a Thursday evening in the beginning of the month.  This is a great way for the whole family to enjoy a field trip.

Highschool Social Studies/Study Skills

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I have been researching more about homeschooling high school.  I recently took a webinar class about homeschooling high school that had some new information for me. Interesting information that I didn’t know with regards to Social Studies.  Colleges are looking for 4 different types of Social Studies on your students transcripts.  These are U.S. History, World History, Economics and Government.  If you student loves Social Studies, then they can definitely do more than this but these are the classes that colleges look for on a transcript when looking for your Social Studies credits.

Another interesting tidbit of information was on teaching your child Study Skills.  Institute of Excellence of Writing gives a class called, “Advanced Communications Series” which teaches you note taking and other communication skills.  The homeschool mom then had the creative idea of using the teaching company courses which are college level lectures to allow her children to practice their note taking skills.  Awesome idea!  This would help them not be freaked out when they get into a real college situation.

The webinar class I took was “Keys to Highschool Success” by Lee Binz.  Worth your time and money to check it out.  It had some interesting insights and facts that I did not know for homeschooling high school.  The webinar class is found at thehomescholar.com.

Knights Kingdom- Audio Books

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Audio books are a great tool that I have used for teaching, enjoyment or building character in my kids as we drive to places.  “Knights Kingdom” by Chuck Black is an excellent audio  series that helps develop character training in kids in a creative way.  Chuck Black is a homeschool dad who told amazing bedtime stories to his kids, which he turned into fiction books for kids.  His first series is an allegory of the Bible using knights and swords.  They are very well done and my kids loved the audio versions of the books. They use multiple voices for the audio version which makes the story even more enjoyable.

His second series features different knights that are part of the kingdom.  I loved his second series even better because it focused on character training.  For example, one of the books addressed greed and another talked about overcoming fear.  Each main character was a knight that would have a journey and lesson that they needed to learn.  My favorite one was “Lady Carliss” who set people free from the lies of the enemy that were keeping them in prison and helped them see the truth and their need for the Prince, who represents Jesus. My kids enjoyed them at a young age but I want them to listen to all of them again as teens because of the powerful lessons that are portrayed by the author.  The only caution I have with these books is that the sword fights can be detailed, so I would say that age 10 and older is probably the best age to listen to the audio books.  My younger children listened and had no problems but you know your child best and what age would be appropriate.  You can find “Knights Kingdom” by Chuck Black on Amazon or Christianbook.com.  He also has is own site kingdomseries.com where you can purchase his products and learn more about the series.

Will a College accept a Homeschooler?

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The answer is Yes!  85% of colleges nation wide are now accepting homeschoolers.  The percentage maybe even higher now. You can go on the different websites of colleges and many of them will have a list of requirements for homeschoolers.  This is helpful when you are planning out your high school years.  I went on the website of our local University to get an idea of what to plan for the next 4 years of my son’s high school years.  Even if he ended up going to a different university or in a different direction, we have a plan that could fit in a number of colleges or universities just by changing it a bit.

The transcript that you create for your child is just as valid as any public or private school.  If you need help creating a transcript, I want to recommend Lee Binz again.  She has webinars that walk you through how to do a transcript that a very helpful.  Your child will also need to take the SAT or ACT to go along with their transcript. There may be other requirements from a university that are unique to that university.  That is why its helpful to go on their different websites and look to see what they require.

I recently found out through my quest in researching homeschooling high school that it is more ideal to homeschool high school all the way.  If you start homeschooling high school and decide to put them back in school, the public or private schools do not have to accept your transcript.  They can count some credits and not count others.  Colleges accept homeschoolers transcripts but public or private high schools sometimes have a harder time just taking them at face value.

Some Colleges are actively looking for homeschoolers because they have seen how well homeschoolers can do in college.  The nature of homeschooling helps our students become great independent learners which is essential in college.  Homeschoolers also have more opportunity to show their unique talents or interests to different universities because of the freedom of their schedule.  For example, my oldest son it passionate about the piano.  He want to practice quite a bit and compete in competitions with piano.  Homeschooling allows me to give him time for his piano so he can pursue what he loves.  This part of his life will be a unique part of his high school journey that I can add to his transcript.