Our First Year Homeschooling High School
November 28, 2022 Adrienne Brown 0 Comments
Homeschooling high school was so scary
Our First Year Homeschooling High School was so scary. It was something that we had never done.
So we truly had to do it with our eyes fixed upon our✨ original family mission✨ for our kids.
So, the first year of homeschooling our high school son was filled with excitement & wonder, and our hearts were confirmed all at the same time.✨
Fortunately for us, we had the advantage of learning from our church family and friends.
People who had already gone through it.👫🏼
This is the most awesome part about our journey.
Even though it was my husbands and I first high school graduate, we did not have to do it alone.👫🏼
Likewise, you don’t either.
You can homeschool your highschoolers well
Think about it, do you remember the main reasons that you started homeschooling?💖
What were your goals for that child?
This will give you the foundation🗝️ to start homeschooling your high school child.
💖Likewise, this mindset can help you build the perfect homeschool program that is tailored education
for your individual high schooler.
Firstly, Instill a work ethic into your highschooler
All young people need to learn how to work hard for themselves, especially boys.
Having 4 boys💖, teaching them to work for what they needed, was definitely our first priorty.
Therefore, with our first high school teen we went all in with him.
🗝️We focused on his independence and self-reliance.
We knew that he would need to know how to present himself to a potential employer.
Such as, the way he dressed🗝️ for the initial asking of employment.
Oh, and don’t get me wrong, it’s not that we didn’t want him to go to college. Nor did we discourage entrepreneurship, quite the opposite.
But we knew from personal experience that he had to to know how to take care of himself.
We needed him to be willing to work🦫 for what he needed, and that meant having a job.
Give your high school student life skills
✨Homeschool your first high school student in life skills. Every Friday, my husband took him out and taught him how to complete an outside task.
They worked on cars, ✨lawn mowers,✨ fence building or✨ power washing.
Anything that required ✨outside knowledge and skills,✨ my husband showed him how to do it.
Real life skills are needed when they leave for college or military.
Apprenticeships for High School Students
I want to encourage you to seek out the best curriculum📔 & apprenticeship👨🏽💼 opportunities for your highschooler.
Homeschooling is the perfect environment for apprenticeships and crafting future plans.💖
Think about it, where else can your high schooler get hands-on experience with different careers?
In addition, you as the parent have the parental control to find and match your kids in apprenticeship. 👨🏽💼
Look for relationships with some of your friends who are doing things that your child wants to do.
This was the best curriculum📔that we invested in. Apprenticeships gave our son a huge advantage to
craft his high school future goals.
At the same time apprenticeships prevented potential wasted money in college tuition.
Think about it, doing apprenticeships allowed our high schooler to see if he really wanted to do that job.
💖I praise God,🙏🏽 because two of the apprenticeships👨🏽💼, revealed just that.
Our son thought being a veterinarian was the way to go.
But, after working in an animal hospital for a year, he decided that it was not.
Also, He worked in sound and production for a while, yet it is not what he decided to major in.
So, please look for opportunities for your children to get hands on apprenticeships.
I promise it will benefit you all.💖
Homeschooling to fit the individual highschooler
Now, this part of your high schoolers future education really depends upon his individual goals, mindset, and academic📔 bent.
As you know, not all young people want to go to college. Likewise, not all want to be rocket scientist.
So, with that in mind you will have to know your child’s intentions.💖
Likewise, you need to know their strong academic points and their habits towards schoolwork.
This becomes extremely important when you are planning the high school track.
Particularly if their goal is in any of the ✨STEM careers or IT degrees. You may be wondering why worry about this in the first year?
Well, a young person who wants to do the Stem sciences must start taking AP type of classes in the 9th grade.
It would be, ideal if he or she started in the middle school. Since, that would give them an edge on their educational goals.
Dual enrollment and community college
And it doesn’t stop there, you just may end up having to pay for community college courses. That was our experience with our first highschooler.
Our first high school student started taking college courses when he was in 8th grade.✨
This was the next step since he had gone through all the levels that I felt comfortablw with in my homeschool.
So, we enrolled him in his first two ✨ on campus community college courses.
This earned him highschool credit as well as college credits toward an associates degree.✨
College prepping while still in homeschool high school
✨We were diligent about his high school course work.
For Instance, we made sure that he completed Algebra 1 & 2, Physical Science, Biology, World History, American Government, and United States History at home.
However, we graduated him at 16, to fully enroll him at the local community college.
There our homeschooled highschooler completed some of the following classes: Chemistry, Geometry,
Precalculus, Spanish 101 & 102, Analytical writing, Argumentative & Analytical Writing and a host of other courses.
Finally, as our first homeschooled highschooler worked towards completing high school, he also finished college. 📜🧑🏽🎓
He had simultaneously earned a two-year degree📜 in Engineering. 🧑🏽🎓
Most importantly, his academic success also earned him a full ride.
Think about it, our deligence helped our first high school student be extremely successful.
Conquering🤸🏽 our initial doubts about homeschooling our high school student.
Testing and Evaluations
By the way, you will need to evaluate your first highschoolers academics skills. Particularly if your student is college oriented.
Many colleges will require some sort of portfolio or a🏵️ highly respected🏵️ Scholastic test such as the ACT or SAT test.
We solicited the help of our friend who happened to be an expert on the SAT and ACT test.
This friend helped our son to prep for the test📝 and he coached him on test taking skills.
📝Because apparently there is a strategy to taking these tests, which I had no idea.
After that, our son did well on the test.
Bonus Tip
As a bonus and for my peace of mind, I registered my first high school student to take the GED test.
Some people said that he didn’t need it, but I wasn’t taking any chances. He took the test and passed with flying colors.
Transcripts and Grades
Now this is a very important part of your high school student’s education, so you need to take care to do it well.
✨ The tool that I have used over the years is call Transcript Maker. ✨
This tool 💖revolutionized my homeschooling record keeping. When I tell you this, I am not playing with you.
I had handwritten records of my sons’ accomplishments, but it was not nice and neat in one place, nor on one simple document.
Transcript Maker will help you to step up in homeschooling your first high school students in a professional way. 💖
If you maintain your students grades and papers, just plug those grades into Transcript Maker💖,
your college bound student ✨ can take them to any college.
Our first high school graduate got into ✨ The United States Military Academy, West Point. ✨
His excellent grades knocked down those hollowed doors.
Extra-curricular activities
🏅We made sure that every year our high school student participated in a sport, an Art and a volunteer project.
Such as, he was on the swim team 🏊🏽his sophomore and freshman years.
The other years he played soccer ⚽and basketball. ⛹️
For Arts, he played Saxophone🎷 with the community band all 4 years of high school.
Also, he worked with the local 📹theater group as the lighting man, and he worked with the local film 📹school to produce animated film and video.
In conclusion
When we were facing homeschooling our first high school student it was scary and intimidating.
But as you can tell from my post, we were not only able to homeschool him successfully, but we were able to do it well.🙏🏽
✨ Thanks to consistency, persistence, and a strong commitment.✨
It was not an easy road, but nevertheless it was a very enjoyable journey for me as his mom. 👩🏽🏅
I hope that this post encourages you in your decision to homeschool your high school student.