This week on Homeschool Highschool Podcast Senior What to do Senior Year for College-Bound Homeschoolers- Special Replay

You and your homeschool teens have been working diligently all through high school. They needed a college-attractive transcript. Not only that, they needed the college-prep study skills and safety skills that college students will use. However, they also needed to be teenagers and have some kind of fun and balanced life. You all have made it this far….to SENIOR YEAR!!

Congratulations!

Senior year is different from the earlier years of homeschooling high school. We are always getting LOTS of questions about what to expect from senior year for college bound homeschool high schoolers. What are the rhythms of senior year?

Of course, as we always say: There’s not ONE right way to homeschool high school, so you and your teens need to decide what is best. However, it is nice to have some guidelines that can help you set your own goals. These are the senior year goals we set for our college-bound teens.

After graduation, many people celebrate with a graduation party!

Join Sabrina, Vicki and Kym for an encouraging, empowering talk about senior year for college bound homeschool high schoolers. In the meantime, enjoy these posts and resources:

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This week on Homeschool Highschool Podcast: Scheduling Senior Year for Career-Bound Homeschoolers, Special Replay.

There’s not one right way to homeschool high school and there’s not one right way to prepare for life after graduation. After all, some homeschool high schoolers graduate and go to college. Some teens need a gap year (or two) before they go to college. They want to work or serve for a time before heading to college. At the same time, MANY  homeschooling high schoolers graduate and go right into the workforce!

There are lots of options for homeschool graduates. But FIRST they need to finish senior year. Senior year is such a wonderful opportunity to truly prepare your non-college-bound teens for life after graduation. Let’s talk about it! Join Sabrina, Vicki and Kym for Scheduling Senior Year for Career-Bound Homeschoolers.

Help your teen be ready for adulting:

What is left of the academic requirements for graduation in your state and/or supervising organization?

Think about practical courses. Has your career-bound teen had courses like:

BTW- Make sure you include your teen in the process. This is especially important as you prepare for senior year. Teens need to be empowered to think and give opinions about what needs

Also, include your teens in choosing curriculum. Lastly order textbooks, supplies and whatever you need for the school year.

There are several ways to approach building career readiness skills. Here are a few:

September through December: Career preparation for life after graduation.

Of course, you must finish off the academics for graduation between now and June. Try not to overdo the academics (unless there are topics where your teen has definite interest- then, in that case, have at it!)

Instead of killer academics, concentrate on skills that will help them in the job hunt, career preparation and life in general. Here are a few our non-college-bound teens have learned and appreciated.

January through May

Work on graduation plans like senior pictures, graduation date and location, announcements while things are more quiet. Schedule backwards through the end of the school year. What academics need to be completed or caught up? Schedule backwards to the end of the year.

Teens do not always have a clear understanding about what life will be like after graduation. They may experience anxiety (here’s a post to help). Or they might have some totally unrealistic dreams.

Join us this week for encouragement for career-bound seniors and their moms. For more thoughts on senior year for non-college-bound teens check this post.

Also, enjoy these posts:

What are “Values” and Why are Values Important in Career Exploration?

Homeschool Graduate and Entrepreneur Talks about Success and Financial Literacy

HSHSP Ep 82: Writing Happens, Make it Useful- Professional Writing Skills

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This week on Homeschool Highschool Podcast: How and Why to Use Literature Study Guides- Special Replay.

Sabrina and Vicki LOVE Literature! In this episode we are recording in Vicki’s office, not very fancy for recording: just a chair draped with a blanket for best sound production! We homeschool moms are often making do with what we have! That’s why we know this wise saying from Vicki: Motherhood is the necessity of invention.

Teens often need a little bit of coaching or guidance to get the most out of a book. And we need some wisdom on how to give them that coaching without killing the book! That’s how 7SistersHomeschool.com got started creating Literature Study Guides for our teens and for co-op and group classes. Our guides have been vetted by homeschooling teens and moms who love books and those who don’t love books because: You can be successful as a homeschool mom, even if you don’t love books!

Rather than bore teens with basic rehearsing the information in a book, good literature study guides can help teens build good thinking skills. Good high school Literature Study Guides give a few comprehension (just the facts) question but concentrate on inferential questions and teaching a limited number of literature themes.

Most of the other high school level Literature Study Guides concentrate on one or two literary concepts (character arc, foreshadowing, theme, plotline, etc) so that teens don’t loose the love of the book by overdoing the teaching. We want teens to love to think deeply and love reading. You can’t do that by killing the book with too many questions or concepts so we keep the guides short and adaptable to interest and ability levels and personal goals.

Now onto some ideas for using 7Sisters Literature Study Guides. Here are a few ideas to get you started:

The post How and Why to Use Literature Study Guides- Special Replay appeared first on Ultimate Homeschool Podcast Network.

This week on Homeschool Highschool Podcast: Field Trips for Homeschool High Schoolers- Special replay.

When you have homeschooling high schoolers, they are BUSY! Academics and extracurriculars fill their schedules while they build their powerful transcripts. It is easy to forget field trips when homeschoolers hit the high school academics.

Don’t miss out! Field trips are useful academic experiences, even for high schoolers!

Sabrina and Kym share about favorite field trips with their teens as well as the trips that did not happen, but they wish they had. (Check this post about a favorite field trip fail.)

Field trips can be valuable for both co-ops and for individual homeschooling families. We asked our East Coast homeschool 7th Sisters about their favorite field trip experiences. Check out this post for fabulous field trip ideas for co-ops (but they will work for families, too).

(…some of which our teens have loved…and some not so much. Just ask our teens about our “dam field trip” one rainy, spring day.)

We suggest that teens expect to be active learners at field trips. That means they need to know that there will be some things expected of them in order for the trip to count as good academics.

Join Sabrina and Kym for this inspirational chat. Also, check out this post

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This week on Homeschool Highschool Podcast: Why Teach Philosophy in Homeschool High School? Interview with Dr. Micah Tillman- Special Replay.

Homeschool graduate and philosopher, Dr. Micah Tillman joins his mom for a discussion on why and how teens should study Philosophy.

Micah homeschooled with his siblings from 3rd grade through graduation. He learned some important independent learning skills in homeschool high school as he grew academically beyond his mom’s skills. This helped him be successful in college while his peers struggled with the self-directed learning necessary there.

Micah also loved the co-ops, youth groups, band and sports that he was part of in his homeschool high school years.

Dr. Micah Tillman

This course was brought about by Micah and his peers asking deep “what’s-the-meaning-of-life” questions.

At college Micah majored in Computer Science at Messiah College because he wanted to develop video games but he loved Philosophy so much that he filled all his electives with Philosophy courses (especially loved the courses by Dr. Robin Collins). As he neared graduation, Micah realized the job market for Computer Science was not as interesting as he hoped (no video game design jobs available at that time). So, he decided to go to graduate school and study what he really loved (teaching- which he learned he loved as a student ambassador for Messiah College, Philosophy, and writing which he did for fun).

So Micah went to grad school at West Chester University and loved modern philosophy there, then on to Catholic University to study the traditional philosophers, world-wide philosophy and the history of Christian thought.

Micah started a popular podcast, Top 40 Philosophy, has taught Philosophy at several colleges and is now a teacher at Stanford University’s prestigious Online High School.

Micah’s students are scattered around the world.  The core curriculum is 4 Philosophy classes (for instance, the science classes Micah teaches his 9th and 10th graders are Scientific Reasoning (Philosophy) and history of Science). The program takes students beyond STEM to becoming the thinkers who will someday drive the culture. The goal is to teach their students to teach students to think about their whole lives and living them well.

He also developed a video game for his students to teach classical logic. You can download this for free on his website.

Teaching his students to love wisdom, he helps them to become aware of themselves and how they interact well with others and the world around them. He teaches them that Philosophy is about:

Thinking clearly about life so that you can live well.

As teens learn to think philosophically, they will have the skills to live better. Teens tend to have “teenage angst” and ask tough questions. They wrestle with who they are, how to be friends, what they like, how they are alike and different than their parents, what to do with cliques, what kind of person they want to be, why things in the world are fair or not.

In other words, Philosophy gives teens adulting-preparation, love-of-wisdom skills!

For homeschool moms who have no background in Philosophy, but want their teens to have an experience with Philosophy so that they can think clearly about life so that they can live well, there’s hope! Micah has two Philosophy texts for teens that many teens have reported are their favorite courses in homeschool high school.

Philosophy is the process of thinking clearly so that you can live well. One way philosophers think clearly is asking questions. The 4 basic questions that philosophers ask about everything are:

The text is written especially for homeschooling high schoolers. It is accessible and has a sense of fun.

Parents are sometimes uncomfortable with their students studying Philosophy. Teens ask hard questions. If they study Philosophy, will they ask even more (and harder) questions? Micah explains that God gave us minds, and that we need to care for them by using them well. We do that by training our minds to think well (mind-fitness, just like our bodies need physical fitness). This kind of fitness helps teens go into the adult world with the strength and tools to face the confusing mass of ideas in the world outside the home. Philosophy in 4 Questions helps teens take their angst and develop strength of mind to go from angst to wisdom. (Here’s a free syllabus for Philosophy in Four Questions.)

This is a gentle introduction to the history of Philosophy (that Micah studied in high school) then added to while he was in college. History and Philosophy of the Western World is a World History credit for the transcript. In a light-hearted manner, homeschool high schoolers learn about history and the philosophers that influenced history. Average high schoolers can enjoy learning history and thinking skills, while honors-level teens have meaningful activities they can choose to level-up.

(Also, here’s a free syllabus for History and Philosophy of the Western World.)

Check out Micah’s website MicahTillman.com and check out his writing and educational video game projects, including Chambergon Logic (where teens can earn a Logic credit in a fun, free format.)

The post Why Teach Philosophy in Homeschool High School? Interview with Dr. Micah Tillman- Special Replay appeared first on Ultimate Homeschool Podcast Network.

This week on Homeschool Highschool Podcast: Helping Teens Write Myth Fantasy, Interview with Will Hahn- Special Replay.

At 7SistersHomeschool.com there are six of us: Sabrina, Vicki, Kym, Allison, Sara, Marilyn. So WHO’S the 7th Sister? YOU are!

But did you know we have “7th Brothers, too”? We do! In fact, any homeschool dad is a 7th brother when he reads, teaches or listens to 7Sisters podcasts, blogs or curriculum.

We are so excited to be joined by one of our 7th Brothers: Will Hahn. Will is a popular local homeschool dad and teacher, Will Hahn. Many of our local teens will tell you that his writing, literature and history courses are their favorites!

Will is an author also of popular several fantasy series, including The Lands of Hope (and narrator of audio versions of his books and the books of several other authors). The Lands of Hope are written in the legendary Tolkien-esque style.

One of the most popular courses that Will teaches to local homeschool high schoolers is Myth Fantasy Writing. He uses 7SistersHomeschool.com’s Myth-Fantasy Writing Guide which is based on C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien’s classic myth-fantasy genres. This is a five-week short story writing guide which guides any teen (those who love writing and those who don’t) through a step-by-step process that produces a five-page myth-fantasy short story.

Will writes a short story each year right along with his eager (or intimidated) students. (He highly recommends this “learning right alongside our students” style of teaching…very homeschool!) Most of what he did was to tell the class how well he was doing and that the “teacher was thinking it was fantastic”!

Will’s students have written fairy tales, allegory fantasy, Greek-myth style or classic myth fantasy using the steps in the 7Sisters Myth Fantasy Writing Guides. He encourages his students to inspire their stories by thinking about life, about things that concern them, things that they want to wrestle with.

The writing guides also include a rubric for grading.

Author and Homeschool Dad, Will Hahn. Photo used by permission.

And for MORE on homeschool high school short story writing, check out this episode of the Homeschool Highschool Podcast.

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This week on Homeschool Highschool Podcast: Preparing Middle Schoolers for High School- Special Replay

Are you preparing middle schoolers for high school? Are they ready for the rigors of high-school level studies? Feeling stressed about it?

Never fear! Homeschool Highschool Podcast is here to help. With years of homeschooling middle school AND high school we have discovered a few REALLY helpful tips! In this special replay, 7SistersHomeschool’s Sabrina and Marilyn share some encouraging tips to help you love your middle school years.

They fearfully ask themselves:

You know what we tell those parents?

WHEN your tween is a teen and is IN high school, they will be developmentally ready for high school academics. While some middle schoolers are advanced academically, many are not. Why push an average-level tween to do super difficult academics? That’s a recipe for burnout!

Why not individualize some high-school preparation priorities for each of your middle schoolers?

Would one of these priorities or goals be good fits for your middle schoolers?

One of the surprising things we have learned is that high schoolers need life skills and study skills that are a bit more complex than they needed in middle school. If they begin working on those during middle school, they are less likely to need to play catch up while they are trying to keep up with their academics.

THAT’S important stuff middle schoolers can do to prepare for high school.

Join Sabrina and Marilyn for an important episode on life skills and study skills that middle schoolers need when preparing for high school!

The post Preparing Middle Schoolers for High School- Special Replay appeared first on Ultimate Homeschool Podcast Network.

This week on Homeschool Highschool Podcast: Create a Great Transcript Using Levels in 7Sisters Curriculum- Special Replay.

We 7Sisters have twenty-two homeschool graduates between the group of us. Not only that, but Sisters Marilyn and Vicki have served as academic advisors to hundreds of homeschool high schoolers. So we have seen first hand that there are no two teens alike!

You, too, have probably noticed that there is a LOT of difference in homeschool high schoolers. God created each to have different:

We also know that our teens have different interests. We need to put emphasis on the areas they want to explore by increasing the “levels” of their interest courses. You cannot “Level 5- Honors” every interest area, but you can choose some. Talk to your teen!

You can tailor your planning and the homeschool transcript by teaching courses at the “credit level” of your teen’s needs. Some courses can be leveled up. Some need to stay at Average- Level 2 or College Prep Level 3.

This does not mean that you have not allowed them to face challenges. It simply means you are wise enough to find your teen’s sweet spot in education to have a well-rounded transcript with challenges in the appropriate areas for them. If you have not listened to What Are Levels on the Homeschool Transcript, be sure to catch up!

Each 7Sisters guide or e-textbook comes with instructions on leveling for your specific teen’s needs, goals and interests.

You and your teens can choose the best level for each guide. For instance:

This is an interactive text that gets the student involved. As always, the text includes a grid that tells you how to handle each level. The text is written at Level 3 so average or remedial-level teens may need to work with a parent or peer through the book. Each chapter includes extra activities and exercises that will enrich the course and help level-up the course (or come up with your own). The higher the Level the student desires, the more meaningful activities the student will complete.

Most teens need a health credit for their transcripts. This text was created to give teens a meaningful Health credit without the busywork and long chapters of many textbooks. Average or remedial teens can work through the text with a parent or peer. Higher-level teens will include some of the interesting activities at the end of each chapter to earn the level they prefer.

If your homeschoolers covered World History in middle school, why use a typical textbook again? This text covers the World History credit from the view of the philosophers of the time period, so teens learn how thinkers influenced the world around them- and gain some thinking skills themselves. Average and remedial students will work through the text with a parent or peer. Higher level students will choose meaningful activities at the end of each chapter for leveling up.

The text includes a grid that tells you how to handle each level. The text is written at Level 2, so it is fun and comfortable to read for most homeschool high schoolers. Each chapter includes extra activities and exercises that will enrich the course and help level-up the course (or come up with your own). The higher the Level the student desires, the more meaningful activities the student will complete.

The text includes a grid that tells you how to handle each level. The text is written at Level 2, so it is fun and comfortable to read for most homeschool high schoolers. Each chapter includes extra activities and exercises that will enrich the course and help level-up the course (or come up with your own). The higher the Level the student desires, the more meaningful activities the student will complete.

Check out Cathy Duffy’s Review of American Literature It is in-depth and helpful.

Join Sabrina, Vicki and Kym for more details than you can capture in words here! Also, enjoy these posts:

An Authoritative Guide to Literature for Homeschool High School

Create a Great Career Pathways Credit for Teens Interested in Psychology

Fun & Useful Elective: Combining Human Development and Early Childhood Education

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This week on Homeschool Highschool Podcast: How to Start a Homeschool Co-op Your Teens Will Enjoy- Special Replay.

We 7Sisters have always loved co-op! Co-ops do have their ups and downs, but all of our homeschool graduates still have best friend and fond memories of their adventures and misadventures there.

The homeschooling community is famous for co-ops! What are homeschool co-ops?

They are simply families homeschooling together in some format (co-operating on education).

First thing you and your team of homeschooling parents will need is time to plan your co-op.

Join Sabrina, Vicki and Kym for a helpful discussion about starting your co-op. Also, check out these episodes:

HSHSP Ep 93: How to Start a Homeschool Organization Interview with Carol Topp CPA

HSHSP Ep 85: Healthily Handling Homeschool Mean-Moms with Melanie Wilson

The post How to Start a Homeschool Co-op Your Teens Will Enjoy- Special Replay appeared first on Ultimate Homeschool Podcast Network.

This week on Homeschool Highschool Podcast: Incorporating Adulting Skills into High School Planning- Special Replay.

When we are homeschooling our high schoolers, one of our most important tasks as parents is passing the baton of “who’s in charge of learning and living” to our teens. In other words, we hope that as our teens move through high school, they become more and more in charge of their education and of their life preparation.

Of course, all teens are different and there’s not ONE right way for teens to progress into their preparation for life. The cool thing is that we can appreciate and build on each of our teens’ unique personalities, gifts, interest and goals to help them be ready for what happens after graduation!

In this special replay, Sabrina, Vicki and Kym talked about how they worked on increasing educational and adulting ownership by passing the baton of responsibility from parents to teens.

Teens who are go-with-the-flow often simply needs to be part of the goal setting and planning process. If they are part of this process, they can simply schedule backwards to get things done. BTW- scheduling backwards is a useful adulting skill. It helps teens and adults get ALL sorts of big projects done!

One of Kym’s teens had a chronic illness. Teaching adulting skills and educational ownership skills had to be frequently adjusted due to her teen’s conditions. Sometimes her teen felt healthy and strong and could run with her skills. Other times, Kym pulled back expectations and simply worked on her daughter’s health.

Some teens are not interested in adulting or owning their own education. The things they care about are not in textbooks or chore lists. These teens need patience, love and boundaries with clear expectations. Make sure they are involved in planning.

Some teens think they have already arrived at adulting; some of these are hyper-responsible teens. They need their parents’ love and encouragement to run with their ownership, while turning to their parents for love and support. (LOTS of love and support because these teens sometimes make mistakes.)

Some teens are natural head-butters, especially if their personalities are similar to mom or dad. Here are some tips:

There is so much planning that goes into homeschooling high school! Especially when your goals include helping their teens own their education and adulting skills. Here’s some more advice.

As homeschooling moms, it can sometimes fall into the temptation to become heavy equipment moms– helicopter moms and steam shovel moms. So homeschool parents: watch yourself. Include teens on the planning for the homeschool high school years, listen to their goals. Work together to plan out the goals.

AND allow them to have their own struggles. As Vicki’s boss always says, “Let them make their own mistakes.”

Kym shared her favorite quote:

It’s not our job to be God to our children, rather we need to need God in front of our children. – Angie Smith

Especially with practical life preparation skills such as home maintenance and home economics skills, teens need guidance. Also they need to hear your affirmations on their trial and error processes, which develops a growth mindset.

While you want your teens to own their adulting and education, they need you to have regular one-on-ones with a parent in order to:

How do you help teens prepare for life and develop their adulting skills?

Join Sabrina, Vicki and Kym for a tips and ideas.

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