As a mother of six, five of which have graduated high school. The question I seem to be receiving lately is “How do I Homeschool In High School”? Can I be honest with you, homeschooling in High School is much easier than in the Elementary and Middle School years! It is a time to invest in your child’s passions and interests and encourage independence.
Have Two Goals For High School Students.
1. That each one of our children will make progress walking in all God’s ways, fearing, loving, serving, and observing God’s commands, and that they will not enter into temptation.
2. Each child would be a lifelong, independent learner.
How Have We Accomplished This?
We expect each of our children to independently navigate all of their High School subjects. If they have a problem, they must first research it online or in their library before coming to my husband or me for help.
We carefully choose the curriculum and twaddle-free literature so they are being spiritually challenged and taught. Make sure every subject is taught from a Biblical Worldview.
At the High School level, expose them to alternate worldviews and teach them to be able to respond to objections in an intelligent way. We also openly discuss issues they are having with Christianity. A firm Christian Worldview is the goal. Letting them know that God can handle their doubts and questions so…question away! We rely heavily on excellent literature!
We pray without ceasing about everything…we never leave the house without praying. My husband and I know that in and of ourselves we are powerless to accomplish anything in our children’s lives. Check out our PRAYER LIST.
As a parent,
you should not be holding your child’s
hand in High School.
You will be doing your child a great disservice.
They must learn to be independent learners
in order to excel in life.
My Secret Weapon
My role in educating my children in High School has been to pray, plan their curriculum, develop a schedule, and grade all their work. I am not actively teaching anymore. Because of the way I plan their High School education, I think it is much easier than grade school where many of the subjects are done together.
The most helpful thing I have found to keep me organized and enable me to excel in record-keeping is something called the CLASS LESSON PLANNER and I call it my secret weapon for homeschool success! All the colleges that my children have applied to and attended have accepted the transcripts made from this computer program. I also use it in elementary and middle school for my record keeping!
What Curriculum Do We Use?
I use a mixture of curriculum from various sources but for the most part, I use books and a few materials from Christian Liberty Press. I like them for many reasons but the two most important are they are decidedly Christian in their approach and worldview and for their prices. Using CLP with all of my children is a benefit in that I have re-used the books and resources over and over again with each of my children.
I have one daughter in High School this year and she is using the same books and resources that her brothers and sisters used. A few of my favorite products not from Christian Liberty Press is our Math Curriculum. We use Teaching Textbook, Complete Curriculum and although we still struggle in this area this has been the best choice to teach math for our family. I also am a big fan of the Biology and Chemistry 101 DVD Series which we supplement to Christian Liberty Science.
I hope you will treasure homeschooling your children in High School as much as I have. The opportunity to mold a young mind is an incredible responsibility but also a great opportunity! It is a gift to be actively conversing about the world and God during this period of your child’s life. The gift of time is a GREAT BLESSING that many children in our culture are lacking. My counsel to you is to ENJOY every single moment!
YOUR TURN…
What questions do you have about homeschooling in High School?
Blessings,
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*I was not paid to write this post the opinions are my own.
I know that you are getting to the point when someday, maybe soon, maybe not, you’ll just have one little chick left at home. Your big kids are often not home at all during the day. How do you and Sarah handle being alone all day? Does she like that? Some days Faith likes it, and some days I knows she’d rather be mixing it up with other kids. My greatest fear homeschooling high school is that she’ll be lonely.
It is Sarah, Kylie and I most days…we do a lot together but she does enjoy alone time too…I try hard to let her schedule some social activities with friends once a week. I also think that even though she is 14 now she still enjoys dressing up and pretending so that takes up some of her time too 🙂
I just want to tell you that I truly enjoy your blog. You absolutely come with fantastic ideas and information. Thank you for sharing with us your insight.
Thank you so much for your kind words of encouragement Gail, I really appreciate them and you!