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10 Days of Homeschooling High School: Introduction

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I’m excited to be talking about homeschooling high school for the next ten days (this week and next, Monday through Friday).

In some ways, it feels a bit like the blind leading the blind because I’m still in the midst of homeschooling my firstborn guinea pig (isn’t that always true for the firstborn?) for high school.

However, I figure if you’re just approaching high school, I’ve probably got at least a little insight that might be helpful…and, I’ve called upon a couple of really great bloggers, Barb and Samantha, to guest post and share some of their wonderful tips as well.

We’re going to be talking about some great topics over the next two weeks, such as:

  • Course planning
  • Credits and transcripts
  • High school science
  • Teaching upper-level math and other scary stuff
  • Nature study in high school

As an overview, I wanted to share some resources that I’ve found helpful in navigating the high school years.

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Home School for High School seminars by Kathleen Duncan. Kathleen Duncan, homeschooling mom to seven children, has taught the Home School for High School seminars across the southeast and surrounding states for over eight years.

The four-hour seminars, along with the huge binder of information you take home, are a very affordable wealth of information. I attended my first seminar when Brianna was in 7th or 8th grade so that I could start getting prepared for the high school years. I came away feeling much more confident in my ability to homeschool high school.

Once you’ve attended one seminar, you can attend future seminars at a reduced (or free…I can’t remember and it may vary from location to location) rate. This is a great option for those who’d like a preview a year or two before high school, then, a refresher course or a chance to answer more specific questions once high school has actually begun.

Upper-Level Homeschool by Terri Johnson. I really enjoyed Terri Johnson’s Upper-Level Homeschool course. I went through it summer before Brianna’s 9th-grade year. I felt like it really complemented what I’d learned in Kathleen Duncan’s course and I loved that each “lesson” in the course was delivered to my email in bite-size chunks, one per week over the course of 13 weeks.

It had been a year or two since I’d done the Home School for High School course and that big binder was looking a bit intimidating. Terri’s course broke everything down into manageable pieces that kept me from feeling overwhelmed. I probably would have done as well doing a refresher of the Kathleen Duncan course, but there wasn’t a seminar in my area at the time, so the Upper-Level High School course was a great option.

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Total Transcript Solution by Lee Binz. Another resource I’ve really found useful is Total Transcript Solution. It’s a wealth of information, which includes an ebook that answers tons and tons of questions and covers such topics as:

  • Determining high school credit (including info for those whose kids may not be at grade level in certain subjects)
  • Assigning grades
  • Calculating credit value
  • Delight directed learning in high school
  • Making a high school transcript

It also contains dozens of transcript templates in both MS Word and Excel. It’s one of these templates that I’m currently using for Brianna’s transcript.

Reading List for College-Bound Students. This book has been a great resource for ideas on reading lists to assign for high school. Granted, I haven’t used it as extensively as I probably should, but it’s nice to have on hand when Brianna needs some encouragement on what to read or I’m looking for something to round out a literature course.

I hope you’ll come back tomorrow when we’ll be talking about figuring out high school level coursework.

kris300

Be sure to visit these brilliant women during our 10 days adventure between November 7th-18th!

This post contains affiliate links.

 

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Kris Bales is a newly-retired homeschool mom and the quirky, Christ-following, painfully honest founder (and former owner) of Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers. She has a pretty serious addiction to sweet tea and Words with Friends. Kris and her husband of over 30 years are parents to three amazing homeschool grads. They share their home with three dogs, two cats, a ball python, a bearded dragon, and seven birds.

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7 Comments

  1. Kris,

    I so enjoyed reading this and am looking forward to all of your articles!  I've been feeling anxious lately and I know this series will be comforting.  First, I love that first picture of your daughter – how beautiful!  Second, I really wish I could attend that seminar – it sounds great – too bad she doesn't offer a "seminar at home" kit.  I have enjoyed the Transcript Boot Camp seminar quite a bit which is a DVD set.  I also have some of Lee Binz's materials and they are very good – I agree!

    Samantha

  2. That's a great idea about a seminar-at-home kit! Maybe you should email her and suggest that — seriously. It would be a great means for allowing her to help more families.

  3. Very catchy blog title!! LOVE IT! I just saw your blog at the Homeschool Blog Awards and decided to come check you out. I am your newest follower and would love for you to follow me back, if you want to =-)Bethwww.livinglifeintentionally.blogspot.com

  4. Ahhhhh, looking forward to this (my two oldest are 15 and 14, 10th and 8th grades).  Lee Binz anything is great, and you really should  put a plug in for Debra Bell's new book and for Barbara Shelton's Successful High School Formula.  🙂

    Oh, and in case you need any other ideas, be sure to address hormones, emotions, and all the other complicating factors of this season! LOL

  5. I look forward to reading all these. I'm just starting my homeschooling years…my oldest is in first grade (went to public school for Kindergarten). High school are the years that I'm concerned with the most so I look forward to your ideas.

    I started homeschooling this September with a full box curriculum. I then started to tweak it a little bit, and then a little bit more, and now I'm selling it on ebay and decided to be an unschooler. The funny part is, I never told my son so he thinks we're not doing school, even though he is still learning lol!

  6. I've never read or heard of Debra Bell or Barbara Shelton's books, so I can't really plug them, but I will put them on my list of things to check out. Thanks!

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