Planning a Homeschool High School Graduation

Planning Homeschool High School Graduation: Menu and Venue (Day 4)

April 8, 2017 | Leave a Comment
This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

As I learned, choosing a menu goes hand in hand with choosing a venue.

We knew we were wanting to host a graduation with a sit down dinner and not just serve light refreshments.

I feel there are a handful of occasions that come around in life that deserve more attention than normal; graduating high school is one of them. We chose to serve a dinner for our guests. Keeping it small keeps it affordable too.

At first, Mr. Senior 2013 decided he wanted Italian food. We love Italian food. However, I feel when serving to a larger crowd and because not everybody has the same taste palate, a more diverse menu was in order.

Making Homeschool Lifetime Memories NOW

He agreed and in the end we kept to our southern roots and added in something special, like the prime rib. Here is our menu for the night

chicken friend chicken with smothered cream gravy
prime rib
garlic mashed potatoes
southern style green beans (no half cooked crispy green beans)
salad/trimmings
homemade bread sticks

Having hosted many parties where I both prepared the food and brought it, I didn’t want to do that this time. I wanted to enjoy the out of town guests and family instead of running around serving/preparing food.

Look at these tips I learned when ordering the food through a catering service that saved us some money.

Choose a time of the week when it’s not as busy. Saturday is more like a peak time, so having our party on Friday, it was a better price break.
I chose entrees and sides separately instead of paying by the plate. In other words think like you are picking up the food with 40 servings instead of telling them they are catering.
By serving the food ourselves, we didn’t have the extra charge for set up, serving and tips for servers.
For us, the venue was right down the road, so the caterer only charged an extra $25.00 for delivery. If the place is further away, having somebody responsible with a huge van works too. For me, having the chef deliver the food worked out better since he had rolling carts and brought his hired help.

At this time, I ordered the cake too. Being the guy that he is, Mr. Senior 2013 only had a few things he wanted. One thing was he didn’t want it to look like a wedding cake or “too girly”. I think if you have a daughter, she will probably have a lot to say on this.

Homeschool High School Graduation – Party Time!

I think it’s hard for cakes to look anything other than plain pretty. I ended up having it made and chose an ombre (graduated color) blue design. Keeping the table simple with candles, flowers and a white cake stand, kept it pretty, simple, and elegant.

As far as the venue, we have a lot of places around us to choose from. I have lived in places where you only have a handful of places that are nice. But, if you have a choice, look for these things.

Is there a fee for set up or cleaning?
Do you have to clean? Can you pay for somebody to clean it afterwards? We got the place clean and so all we had to do was pitch in at the end and clean up. Our homeschool kids are use to doing this because of how many field trips we have had hosted.
We ended up going with a community center that has a nice kitchen so I could keep the food warm when it was delivered. There was plenty of parking and it was easy to find so I didn’t have to send out instructions with the invitations. The lobby was warm and inviting.

But, I think the best tips of all are the money savings tips because why not take advantage of them. Who wants to pay full price when we can get a deal?

Remembering that some managers gave me a discount for places we have rented for our homeschool co-ops during the week, my hubby asked them for renting the place on FRIDAY and not a peak time like Saturday night.

They were delighted because hardly anybody rents a room or building on a Friday.

We cut our cost significantly, about 40% by renting it on Friday. Our homeschool friends are pretty flexible and as long as they knew ahead of time, they can arrange their schedules.

Choosing to do some of the serving and cleaning ourselves, the party was fast becoming a part diy party. But that is not the only diy thing we did. You know homeschoolers become true do it yourself people the longer we homeschool. It’s true.

Next post, I will share some more things we did to prepare for the decorations and yep, it included getting the Mr. to help us out too.

If you missed the other posts in this series, you can catch up below:

10 days of Planning A Homeschool High School Graduation: Day 1 Start the Planning

Day 2 Senior Portraits/Cap & Gown. 10 days of Planning A Homeschool High School Graduation

Day 3 Homeschool Graduation Invitations–Which Words Matter. 10 days of Planning A Homeschool High School Graduation

Hugs and love ya,

Planning Homeschool High School Graduation: Invitations–Which Words Matter (Day 3)

April 6, 2017 | 1 Comment
This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

You would think it would be easy. Pick out some graduation invitations and have them printed or ordered online. What could possibly be hard about that?

When it got close to the time of having to pick them out, the do it yourself homeschooler in me kicked in. Okay, I am not completely honest. The words mattered to me because we have traveled a different road for almost our whole journey. Why should I end up with something normal when it matters the most now?

I admit it, tears came with mulling over and searching to find the right words of how I felt deep down. You know not the surface wording we are suppose to say on an invitation. But words you keep tucked away low down, because if they surface people may think you have lost it.

I wanted to express how grateful his father and I were that we had the privilege to homeschool Mr. Senior 2013. I wanted to thank the Creator for the blessing of having him in our life.

Tears streamed as my hands typed. Knowing the quiet, dignified demeanor of my son (he doesn’t take after me, must be his father) I knew right away he would be, to say the least uncomfortable by what I had already drafted.

Remember, what I said earlier about this not being just your party? It’s true. Mr. Senior 2013 cared about the details of the party including the invitation wording. I had always thought because he was a boy he might leave some of that up to me, but he didn’t. I think that it is one of the privileges of homeschooling, which is teaching kids to care and being responsible even about little things.

So after realizing that much of my wording was way too sentimental for an invitation and that it wasn’t a Thank the Lord invitation for his life, I was able to pick out words that expressed how we felt without scaring away my guests.

Too, by this point you will have decided if you will do a group graduation, which we decided not to. We really wanted something private where we dictated the events for the evening.

When Words Matter the Most

Look at some of these ideas for wording for both individual and group graduations

“Join us as we celebrate the homeschool graduation…..”

“The Class of 2013 proudly announces the homeschool graduation from (use the name of your school).”

“We have accomplished our God-given assignment and proudly announce the homeschool graduation of…”

“Mr. & Mrs. You are proud to announce the graduation of …….from their homeschool education.”

“With thanks to God for his guidance, the parents of ….. announce the homeschool high school graduation of……”

“…….will be receiving his high school diploma from (name your school) Homeschool Program.”

“As our final years come to an end, we pause to reflect on the joy and memories. Please join us as _____ celebrates his homeschool high school graduation.”

‘We celebrate the blessing of our homeschool journey by announcing the high school graduation of……”

“Please join us in honor of ____’s graduation from (your school name)”

“It is with great pride that we announce the graduation of our son………..from ………”

Deciding to do a double sided card also allowed room for more wording on the back which was important to us.

We were able to express our thankfulness for Mr. Senior 2013 and still keep his dignity. Looking above I was able to get in all the details on the card.

Just as a side point to remember, I did send out a save the date email way early to my guests. Especially if you plan a graduation in the summer, you will want to do this way ahead of time even if you don’t have all the details worked out. I know our friends appreciated the save the date email so they could make vacation plans.

Homeschool High School Graduation Invitation

Though saving money was not the main driving point for me preparing his invitation, it was a nice side advantage.

Two ways I have saved money so far, but felt like we were still having a unique experience are:

I had 2 photographers. One was not quite so professional where I had more time to devote to the photo shoot. The second one I knew exactly how long I would have him and had a list of photos for him too which I will tell you about in an upcoming post.

I designed my own invitations and only paid for printing/envelopes. Even if you don’t have the skill set for creating graphics, a lot of homeschoolers do. It is possible among your local group that you may find a homeschool teen or parent that can do this.

In the end, choosing invitations mattered more than I realized and I didn’t want to leave the words that mattered most up to a stranger. Whether you homeschool the whole time or a few short years, it is is a treasured time and there is no substitute for expressing your heart.

The other words that I have for my son as his mom stayed where they should be and that is with him.

But those are not the only ways I unexpectedly saved money. The venue or location to have our graduation was equally important and by accident I stumbled across another way to save money on this part of the planning too.

In my next post on this series, I will give you some tips on how we chose a venue.

Here are the other posts in this series:
10 days-Planning Homeschool High School Graduation: Start the Planning (Day 1).
10 days-Planning Homeschool High School Graduation: Senior Portraits (Day 2).

Hugs and you know I love ya,

10 days-Planning Homeschool High School Graduation: Senior Portraits (Day 2)

April 4, 2017 | 4 Comments
This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

updated

Homeschool Senior Portraits Matter Most!

Though many details were floating around in my mind, one thing I figured out quite early was that I could go ahead and get Mr. Senior 2013’s official portraits done and purchase his cap and gown as we hashed out the other details on venue and menu. Homeschool senior portraits were important.

Too right away, we had to determine if he wanted a senior ring or not. Breaking with tradition and because he didn’t really want one, I knew a regular, but no ordinary ring would be worn by him longer. Grandma and grandpa wanted to make that purchase for their gift to him. So that was one long term project done.

Overflowing Inspiration

Loving the details about planning, earlier in the year I had put together some color boards so we could decide what colors he best liked. In my mind, we could then go from there to choosing a cap and gown. That approach made sense to me or so I thought at the time.

{Picture Source: The Craft Begins)

We spent wasted hours poring over color schemes. Being the boy that he is the color scheme above is close to what he ended up liking best, or he thought so too at the moment. Of course with less peach and more terra cotta color at the party is what he thought he wanted.

All I could think of was a green cake when I saw that color scheme. All Mr. Senior 2013 could think of was an ivory wedding cake and a wedding theme which he wanted to be sure to steer clear of.

We both approached this planning the wrong way. We backed up and started with what was easiest to pick out first and that was his favorite color for his cap and gown. He knew right away he wanted royal blue.

(Picture: Graduation Source)

There it was. Our inspiration for our color scheme and party just got easier.

We ended up going with Graduation Source because it was a big company, had some great reviews and it was fast and pretty painless to deal with. Also, I went ahead and ordered only the diploma cover because guess who was going to make his diploma too?

All of it was at our home fairly quickly and all I had to decide now on was how to get official senior portraits. As I figured out, the color scheme could wait a bit longer because I needed to focus on senior portraits. I knew I wanted other pictures too of him showing things he loved.

After looking at a lot of senior packages from photographers, I knew I wanted more control input into the pictures and how many we got.

So I ended up getting my girlfriend who has a DSLR camera and is not an expert and knows less about her new camera than I do about photography. I coordinated the photo shoot because I knew what type of settings and expressions on my son’s face that I wanted to be sure to capture.

Let me tell you the extent of my knowledge of photography. I know one very important thing and that is that light is everything. I know the prime time to take pictures is either close to sundown like between 5:00 to 7:00 p.m. or shortly after sunrise. That’s it! That is the extent of what I know to make pictures beautiful.

On the evening of the photo shoot, my girlfriend came to my house first because working with that amount of time, you need to work fast. I wanted some inside pictures too.

Creating Events To Remember

I picked out 3 outfits ahead of time for my son to change into as we went along so I was sure to have a variety to select from.

I wanted to capture moments that he was proud of like his music or piano at our house and his car.

So we were able to snap several pictures and ended up with these that we liked the most.

Unforgettable Outdoor Photos

After that, I grabbed his change of outfits, his cap and gown and we headed to a local historical park.

Another important thing to me was getting some pictures outside in a natural setting that would have a background that inspired our Texas heritage. When it comes down to it, I am a simple girl and like simple country charm with a hint of formal. This park is close to our home and the perfect setting for our outdoor pictures.

If all possible, I encourage you to have one photography setting outside. You would be surprised at the places that make great photo shoots and I will list some for you in a minute.

Look at my list though of what I brought for our outside pictures after choosing a location.

I brought three different outfits for my son to change into.
I brought a step ladder because I wanted some pictures of the photographer looking down at him.
I brought my point and shoot camera too.
I brought a chair so we had a place to lay some of the clothes on.
If you have a girl think about bringing makeup to touch up her face or to wipe any sweet, but shiny oily faces.
I brought some cotton pads for my son’s face to wipe away shiny spots too and of course hairspray and hair brush.
I also brought some flip flops or sandals because we took some photos of him barefooted and so he could put those on his feet as we walked to another part of the park.

As you can tell we got a variety of poses and pictures to choose from.

Do not leave the decisions for the poses and positions you want to see your child in up to a photographer, even a good one. Though most professional ones will consult with you prior to the shoot so that they can understand your child’s personality, you are the only one who knows them the best. A photographer will love you for having a list or better yet pictures from the internet if you found some.

I came up with all the poses either by finding poses online close to what I liked or understanding what my son liked best. He is not an over the top person when it comes to taking pictures either so we knew we didn’t want glamorous. Girls like that kind of stuff better.

When thinking of an outside place for a portrait think outside the box.

Like I mentioned an old historic building makes wonderful outdoor pictures. When we there taking our pictures a girl that was graduating too came in a beautiful formal dress. I can just imagine what her pictures looked like with a touch of class and a touch of simple.
Think of old downtown
Think of an arboretum
Think of a park or place along a river or pond
Think of the beach
Think of the area around a museum
Think of a state park
Think of all the cool, out of the ordinary places you have been on a field trip to because they make great photo shoot locations
Here in Texas, we have the river walk in San Antonio if you wanted to take them at several different venues and start early by visiting other cities.

By using one photographer, my girlfriend, for these pictures and a professional photographer at the party, we saved a bundle already. I knew at the party I would be tied up with details for our guests, but my mind could be less stressed because I knew I had pictures already that were important to me.

Take inspiration from something simple and capture pictures way ahead of time because without one, it is hard to determine the color scheme for the party or for invitations.

No rest for the excited, because right after that, I had to determine details for the invitation. Next post I will share the details on invitation and venue.

Read 10 days-Planning Homeschool High School Graduation: Start the Planning (Day 1), Ten Best Tech Gifts for Teen Boys, Fun and (maybe Frugal) Homeschool High School Electives and How to Grade a Homeschool Unit Study for an Older Child (& high school assessment).

Hugs and love ya,

10 days-Planning Homeschool High School Graduation: Start the Planning (Day 1)

April 2, 2017 | 2 Comments
This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

updated – A lot has happened since I wrote this so I wanted to update this series.

How do I put all my plans, fears, successes, failures and momentary lapses of insanity in one blog post? I can’t. Instead, I will share 10 days of planning a homeschool high school graduation so that not IF, but when your turn comes, you will have a place to start.

Planning the BEST Homeschool High School Graduation Celebration!

Right away I will ask for your forgiveness during this series too because sharing our homeschool journey has never been so scary for me as it has been over the last few years.

Much of life and school was up, up and down, down. I have had feelings of overwhelming happiness at the same time sadness, feelings of joy yet fear wondering if I did enough with Mr. Senior 2013.

I can’t help but have tears as I reflect back as I’ve savored every mommy moment with him and think how vulnerable I felt when I held him in my arms as I taught him to read.

A tear or two may run down my cheek as I type this because that has not been the only feelings I experienced as we celebrated the next chapter of Mr. Senior 2013’s life.

You know I tend to be private about hubby’s health, but it impacted our homeschool significantly these past two years. So, the blessing of graduating our first son was special in more ways than one because my husband was around to celebrate it with us.

It may sound a bit dramatic, but for us it was also celebrating life.

So although we weren’t able to have the graduation at the time I planned because we were with the Mr. at the hospital, the day was filled with more meaning when we finally did. Nothing mattered more on ending Mr. Senior 2013’s journey than being with the ones who were there from the beginning and matter the most. Even at the end, he was still learning valuable life lessons.

Moving on to what matters, the beginning of planning a meaningful homeschool graduation starts with long term planning.

Celebration Countdown

Here are some things to think about and that will affect what type of homeschool graduation you plan.

Do you want to be part of a larger homeschool group or not? Most large groups I know plan a whole year out and hire speakers and usually hold the graduation in a large auditorium. If you do, you need to notify a group right away.
What type of personality does your young adult have? Yes, he is forever your child, he’s now just not a child. This is real important because what you might vision for the day and what he or she might vision may be two completely different things. It is their celebration too. It is hard for us capable mamas to remember that at this point because we have been so strong in nurturing and leading them, but surrender to it because our young adults are capable now.
Does your teen vision a late night out on the town and a small gathering?
Does your teen vision a formal night complete with catering and closer to a wedding than a graduation?
Does your teen vision a family trip like a cruise with many of his or her friends and their parents?

Check that List Twice

I will be sharing some printables on this too, but I want to list some things that you need to brainstorm way ahead of time.

date, time (beginning AND ending times), location
type of dress
do you want a meal, just snacks, no meal or cake/punch only
how many people to invite
how many parties to have (yes, I was going to have two. One with our church friends and one with our homeschool group. Two small gatherings keeps each manageable. I ended up having one because of our circumstances.)
how to present the diploma
cap, gown, and ring can all be ordered ahead of time as long your teen doesn’t change their mind about colors he or she likes
what type of decorations do you want

The beginning is about brainstorming and including your young adult. In the end we both realized we had some ideas that ended up being too much work or that really were not that important to us.

Next post, I will share some of the details and plans we reached early in our planning and share with you a few time and budget saving tips I found along the way.

I will try hard to not have too many sniffles on this series, but no promises okay?

Hugs and love ya,

Day 10. Celebrating THE Day! 10 days of Planning A Homeschool High School Graduation

January 20, 2014 | 4 Comments
This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

With all the planning I had done prior to the day, I didn’t want the day to be focused just on taking care of our guests’ needs, but on savoring the moments of being with all of them.

I think in either trying to save a buck or hosting the evening events that Mr. Senior 2013 wanted, I could have easily been more stressed out about the evening.

Who wants to do that? By planning way ahead with the details, I avoided most of the stress that comes with our big day and was able to relish the company of family and guests.

But especially the time I had with my dear homeschooling friends like Cynthia and Kelley that have been there through thick and thin is what the day is all about. I love those girls. We are called the 3 amigos at times.

Sure, it’s your kids day, but I also realized that many other genuine and caring Christian homeschooling families influenced my son in a positive way. Thank You hardly seems adequate. For their nurturing, I am forever grateful and it was a time for reflection by me and my husband.

(Receiving graduation gift from Grandma)	(Mr. Senior 2013 thoroughly enjoying himself)
(Sweetest sister ever with the sweetest voice for the special day.)	(the thinks-he-is-suave-and- debonair look) Do you think our homeschool kids lack for confidence?

The most important thing to us though we realized was to enjoy the whole evening.

Funny how things you imagine just don’t turn out like you think they will, but better. All the planning and prior thinking that my son was going to have an acceptance speech and a power point displaying his school work during our homeschool years just didn’t matter anymore or happen. Most of our friends now are homeschoolers and for sure all of our family knows and ended up supporting us because they knew it was now our way of life. I wonder if I was influenced in the beginning with the “think-I- have-to-prove-I’m-homeschooling” mentality that I have fought many years to avoid. I guess we just never completely eradicate that thinking.

From the cake table that I tried not to make girly

to the diy decorations and photobooth


	(bubble blowing contest)

to the special night with family and friends

(small, but close group of homeschooling friends)

all that mattered that night was celebrating the end of his homeschooling journey.

Thinking back now to when we started homeschooling in Kindergarten, I almost got through this series without too many tears. I now cave. I am not all that tough, but grateful as his mom that I was given the privilege to teach him. I cherish him, I cherish my role.

I have given myself permission to shed another few tears for the happiness and sheer satisfaction of sticking with homeschooling even through tough times.

Without embarrassing my first born, I do want to say what a privilege it was to be his first tutor. I always think I am going to start off anything more brave than I actually feel at the moment.

What I do know is that homeschooling has been the hardest task I have ever had. It has been exhausting and challenging in more ways than I can count. But, I have never regretted it as my firstborn sets out on adulthood.

Thank you for letting me share with you our family’s most celebrated homeschool moment. I hope you have enjoyed this series as much as I have enjoyed sharing with you. More than anything, I hope you too can stick through the adventures of homeschooling because the end is all that matters.

Hugs and love ya,

If you missed the other days in this series, you can catch up below.

Planning a Homeschool High School Graduation

Planning Homeschool High School Graduation: Menu and Venue (Day 4)

Making Homeschool Lifetime Memories NOW

Homeschool High School Graduation – Party Time!

Planning Homeschool High School Graduation: Invitations–Which Words Matter (Day 3)

When Words Matter the Most

Homeschool High School Graduation Invitation

10 days-Planning Homeschool High School Graduation: Senior Portraits (Day 2)

Homeschool Senior Portraits Matter Most!

Overflowing Inspiration

Creating Events To Remember

Unforgettable Outdoor Photos

10 days-Planning Homeschool High School Graduation: Start the Planning (Day 1)

Planning the BEST Homeschool High School Graduation Celebration!

Celebration Countdown

Check that List Twice

Day 10. Celebrating THE Day! 10 days of Planning A Homeschool High School Graduation

10 days of Planning A Homeschool High School Graduation: Day 1 Start the Planning

Day 2 Senior Portraits/Cap & Gown. 10 days of Planning A Homeschool High School Graduation

Day 3 Homeschool Graduation Invitations–Which Words Matter. 10 days of Planning A Homeschool High School Graduation

Day 4. Menu & Venue. 10 days of Planning A Homeschool High School Graduation

Day 5. Remembering the Day is About Your Graduate. 10 days of Planning A Homeschool High School Graduation

Day 6. DIY Decoration Ideas. Part 1. 10 days of Planning A Homeschool High School Graduation

Day 7. More DIY Decoration Ideas. Part 2. 10 days of Planning A Homeschool High School Graduation

Day 8. High School Graduation Gift Ideas. 10 days of Planning A Homeschool High School Graduation