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9th Grade Homeschool High School – Avoid the Sock It to Them Attitude

February 6, 2015 | 5 Comments
This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

It feels like starting brand new when your child enters the 9th grade homeschool high school trek. Also, look at my page How to Homeschool High School.

This is not going to be another one of those homeschool high school posts.

You know where I share all the future plans for my sons.

Looking back now after having gone through it with my first two sons, I have tips.

I realize that realistic sanity saving tips would have helped me better.

Sure, I found plans for all 4 years of homeschooling high school helpful.

But in reality each child and each family’s goals are different.

Too, I chuckle now that I planned ALL 4 years of high school in 9th grade.

I will share why I feel that way in a minute.

The tips today that I want you to know about are tips I didn’t give enough credit ( pun intended, corny I know).

9th Grade Homeschool High School

Try to remember that over crowding your teen’s schedule in 9th grade can be a new mistake.

Even for the most seasoned homeschooler, it happens.

In our attempt to “do it right”, we can take a sock it to them attitude at the beginning of what can be, at least for us, some of the most memorable times about homeschooling.

I planned way more for Mr. Senior 2013 than he was able to do for his age in 9th grade.

With Mr. Awesome, the schedule and load was just about right. Then of course Mr. Awesome is my second child to enter high school and you get to expert status real fast.

In addition, a lot of kids at the 9th grade level are taking driver’s education on top of their workload.

This means they are not driving yet and you are still taking them and your younger children to activities, classes and events.

Then there is the period where you have to ride with them when they are learning to driving.

If you have a highschooler, you know what I am talking about because I had claw marks on the car door though Mr. Senior 2013 ends up being a good driver now as an adult.

The point is that extra stress at 9th grade is not needed and because most of us have younger kids to school, you have time to still take a marathon pace.

The beginning of teaching them self-independence as an adult begins here but doesn’t happen in one year.

From Teen to Young Adult, A Complicated Unfolding

Speaking about young adults, another factor that I did not appreciate enough is that there is a noticeable difference of maturity at 14/15 years of age at the 9th grade level and 17/18 years of age in 12th grade.

That can be a good and bad thing, but that is another post.

I want you to know that eventually you stop going the homeschool planning alone because if you have raised your children with independence in mind, which is our goal, then the training continues in high school with them planning their courses.

9th Grade Homeschool High School - Avoid the Sock It to Them Attitude

Though I sat down with both of my older boys to plan out each year and though I consider them both fairly independent for their age, I was still pretty clueless as to the level of maturity and independence that they would grow into as a young adult.

As I planned with my second son as he entered high school, I simply explained to him that at least math and language arts would be done each year and the rest of the subjects we will map out as we went along.

It was a different approach than I took with Mr. Senior 2013 because as Mr. Senior 2013 approached being a junior and then a senior, he had decided to change out some subjects.

For example, I had science planned for all four years, but like me, his first love is history. Too, the careers that he mentioned to support himself as an adult were not science related.

For his junior and senior year, he planned out his subjects and they didn’t include science but did include some form of history study for all four years.

At first I was hesitant to agree with him to immerse himself in what I thought was lopsided planning, but then I had to question myself because isn’t that the whole reason I homeschooled in the first place.

The beauty of high school is for a teen to pursue his interests and to not be weighed down with subjects that he won’t be using.

Throw Out the 4 Year Homeschool High School Plan

It’s easier to say that than doing it because you are always a parent and want to help your teen make the best decisions in high school.

However, high school is the time for them to start making the decisions for their life.

You can’t teach them how to be self-reliant and make good decisions if you take away their right to make decisions at the first instant they flex the decision making muscles.

A young adult has definite ideas of what his own future should look like and both of my older sons knew which subjects they wanted to focus on.

Like I mentioned, it has been different with Mr. Awesome. Along with doing basic subjects, he will have 4 years of science and is pursuing more computer related courses in high school.

You can see why now that I chuckle at the fact that I listed all courses for each year.

It’s like planning for an adult without asking them their plans for their life or at least including them. Crazy notion,uh?

Focus on Homeschool High School Framework

It only took one year of over planning for Mr. Senior 2013 in 9th grade to learn that I needed a framework or guide for the high school years instead of focusing every bit of energy on all four years and the courses.

Understanding about credits, planning either for college or a focus on career or ministry, when and how to include outside classes, if any, and whether or not to CLEP are all easier to find out about if you have a framework to guide both you and your teen.

You are not going to ruin your kid’s chances for having a successful life if you don’t plan all 4 years in 9th grade.

Core Subjects are Key

I know you need a basic guideline, so look at the foundational plan on my blog post Homeschool High School The Must Cover Subjects Part 1 so that you can use this as a jumping off point for planning 9th grade.

Planning from the inside, or basic subjects like the 3 R’s that you have been doing all along and moving to the outside, which are content subjects like history, science, geography, foreign languages and electives is the basis for an excellent and superior education in high school.

Not only will 9th grade be rigorous, but it will be spicy, eventful and unique to each child of yours that enters 9th grade.

Remember that producing the transcript, attending a college if they go to college, choosing a career, or missionary work are all done the end of the journey.

Too, by then you will have a young adult that wants a definite say in the direction his or her life takes.

Though it didn’t seem silly at the time to plan all four years, it didn’t hurt because it gave me a measure of security because I wanted to be a responsible homeschooling mom.

I realize now that each of my son’s personalities and strengths were a larger part of determining what we covered.

It is not easy to change hats from teacher to supervisor, counselor, coach and partner in the high school years, but I wouldn’t trade one tear shed for the precious and memorable moments we now have in high school.

I don’t like being sappy either when I talk about my sons growing into young men, but it is hard to not have a few tears.

Somebody told me once that the high school years fly after your kid enters 9th grade. Guess what? It’s true.

Look at these other posts to ease your mind:

The Must Cover Subjects Part 2 in High School

High School–How to Log Hours for High School?

High School Readiness?

Homeschool High School How To Prepare THE Transcript + Editable High School Transcript

Accreditation Removing the Shroud of Mystery

3 Unexpected Benefits of Homeschool Narration

February 5, 2015 | 6 Comments
This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

Second only to reading aloud, there is not any other homeschool tool more outstanding than narration.

It it totally free, works across the board with any homeschool approach used and the skill level is absolutely zero for beginner homeschoolers.

Explaining the definition of narration, which is simply telling back what your kids have read or learned or telling back what you have read to them, is easier to explain than the way I feel now about the 3 unexpected benefits of homeschool narration.

It’s not a secret that I use a more unit study approach and don’t really follow a Charlotte Mason approach. With that being said, I don’t think many of us totally follow only one homeschool approach, myself included.
Narration, which is a hallmark of the Charlotte Mason approach though is one homeschool technique that I have used from the beginning of my homeschool journey and that has spanned all of my sons’ learning style.

Most homeschoolers will tout that the greatest benefit of narration is that it is a way of checking what a child understands. Though this is true and it’s important in gauging progress, there are benefits to narration that I couldn’t even imagine.

ONE/ Teaches Valuable Critical Thinking Skills.

When I did narration with Mr. Senior 2013, little did I realize that “simple narration” in younger grades would prepare him for not just high school level courses but for honors courses too.

Mr. Senior 2013 did honors classes early in math. Looking back now, I feel this was directly related to teaching him to only know how to think, but how to sift through information when he was narrating back to me.

Many days as I would sit and listen to him or write down what he would say, I wondered what he would be doing with this massive amount of information he was storing.

I am not the most patient mom but I sat still as my son bubbled forth with what he knew about any subject.

Is Your Homeschool Narration Missing a Vital Link?

I admit, it was not easy to sit and listen to details that I didn’t think mattered to what we were learning at the time.

Simple narration then was the basic framework of teaching him how to think long-term.

Having helped many new homeschoolers, one of the problems they had in the beginning was that their child was not use to sitting still for long amounts of time to contemplate, think or recall information.

A fast paced schedule at public school and constant shifts in focus can leave very little time to process new information.

The problem is exacerbated now because we live in a fast paced technological word and that can breed in all of us a “give-me-an-answer-right-now” attitude.

Narration helped Mr. Senior 2013 to avoid the negative effects of an instant education.

TWO/ Narration nurtures togetherness.

By it’s nature, the process of narration is sociable and interactive.

When I first started narration, I was probably more teacher like using white boards and writing down everything my children told me. That can be part of narration but as I have schooled longer, I realize narration is more of meaningful conversation than me quizzing my children.

Narration in 5 minutes.

Time spent one on one with each of my sons nurtures a warm relationship and it begins with short meaningful conversations each day.
Getting past the feeling that narration had to be so formal and school like each time, I realized that communication with each of my sons was filling an inborn need for all of us, which is to communicate.

One of the reasons for homeschooling, which I hold very dear is to give each child my exclusive undivided attention for discussing whatever is weighing heavy on his mind.

As each son narrated back what they liked about a story, a science lesson or history lesson, it almost always was a time for them to share with me what else they were thinking at the time.

I wouldn’t trade any of those special moments I have had with them for making them sit down alone and do a quiz to process information.

THREE/ Self-Expression flourishes.

Another benefit of narration is that your kids learn beautiful expressions that fill their mind’s memory from worthy literature.

Using literature like the Bible and other great sources like classical literature and living books your child gradually learns to adopt values and principles that make up the man or woman they will turn out to be.

Self-expression flourishes because they have been influenced by resources that you value.

What I am saying is that instead of being molded by this world, which can make a child feel withdrawn because they are always being corrected, your child becomes an independent and free thinker in a positive way.

A lot of homeschooled children who have never been public school simply do no care whether their viewpoint is accepted or not by others.

Being sure of their identity because they have spent time pondering morals, principles and values learned and recited during narration from childhood, a child is proud of their adult role whether they start a family of their own, go to college or take up some form of ministry.

It has been hard for me to strain all of my feelings, thoughts and reflections about the value of narration into these short nuggets.

My love for the tool of narration has only been heightened now as I help Mr. Senior 2013 with his next venture as an adult.

Seize the moments for narration and don’t let them pass you by because they are filling more needs than you can imagine at this point in your homeschool journey.

What about you? Do you take time for narration?

Hugs and love ya,

Check out these other posts:

Narration – Telling Back or Testing? Books that Make Teaching Narration Easy Peazy
Am I Doing Enough When Homeschooling
Gauging Homeschool Progress – Masters of their Material?

From Textbook to Homeschool Unit Study Starter

February 2, 2015 | 4 Comments
This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

In my post Homeschool Unit Study Textbook Tips – Uh? I wanted to encourage you to take a no holes barred attitude toward unit studies by even using textbooks. Creativity in planning can be nurtured by anything and a textbook is no exception.

Today, I want to show you how to bring to life a unit study using a textbook by going from textbook to homeschool unit study starter.

Remember, normally at the beginning of a topic is where you decide if you are just going to do child-led interest on one topic as enrichment or if you are going to do a full-blown unit study.

Right now though for the sake of showing you an example, I am going to use a textbook page below and we are not going to worry about making that call right now.

Too, I took this page of a chapter because it is a great example of information that can be extracted to start your own study.

The copy is from a page about the French Revolution and actually when planning my unit study for the French Revolution, I gave it a glance.

Right away on Number 1, it gives you an idea of a time period to cover.

Textbooks cover broad strokes and this page is no exception because it gives you a longer time period to study about than just the French Revolution.It also includes the life of Napoleon Bonaparte.

For my unit study needs, I preferred a more narrow time period so I chose only the period of the French Revolution, which was from 1789 to 1799.

Here you have several choices for your own unit study and questions I would ask myself when planning are: What interests my children? What topics have we not covered? What topics can I connect to previous unit studies?

All of these questions help me to narrow my topic to just the French Revolution so that I could focus on that significant event in world history.

How to Create a Unit Study Outline in 10 Minutes

Another way to grow this page into a unit study is if you wanted to do a unit study based on a historical figure like Napoleon Bonaparte.

Then you could zero in on the years of Bonaparte’s lifetime and use the events on this page of the French Revolution as significant events in his life.

Overlapping events is a strong point in unit studies.

To keep from being overwhelmed with events and information, focus on ONE main topic either the French Revolution or Napoleon Bonaparte and then use the other one you did not choose as a sub-topic. Both of these topics are connected and you want to introduce them to your children.

The difference in a unit study is that you will work your way from the inside (or main topic) to connect it the outside (sub-topics) and sub-topics will normally have less focus or information.

Key is deciding which main topic is important to your family so that not all information gets the same of time and attention.

Number 2 or Key Events gives a starting point as to what sub-topics to include under the topic of French Revolution.

To use my choice of focusing only on the French Revolution as an example, I could use only the first two events as sub-topics to read more about or to learn about because they pertain to just the French Revolution.

When I research about those two sub-topics, other sub-topic will emerge. But using two of the points under this sections gives me a point to begin.

Number 3 or The Impact Today gives you a starting point to making a connection today. It is not always necessary to make a connection to present time. This is a feature of a textbook because it gives you a lot of information to gulp.

You will want to decide with each other unit study whether or not it is necessary to make information connect to present day. You may think that making a connection to present day is always a good idea but I have not found that to be so when teaching a unit study.

Because I kept my unit study of the French Revolution on a middle school level, I didn’t want Tiny to have to make a connection to present day.

Our French Revolution was his first introduction to it and I wanted Tiny to lounge in the time period for a while. I created a board game so that he could become familiar with that time as well.

In other words, I am giving you ideas as to what goes on in my mind as I look at resources and weigh them against my objectives or goals.

There was no need for me to push Tiny to weigh all the political issues because this will be presented again in high school and at that time we will look at a connection to present day.

Too, if I was doing this unit study with my highschooler, I may grab one of the points to assign a persuasive writing paragraph or two to my highschooler.

The topics under this area are a natural fit for writing why my highschooler may agree or might not agree with one of the ideas. In addition, if you decided to make a connection to present day, you could still use one of these ideas for a language arts assignment.

Number 4 or the timeline I would eyeball as making a helpful printable to remember some of the key events for my middleschooler.

Too, the events on the timeline could also be used as sub-topics to cover or if one of them interested my children, we could take our time reading about one of the events or key persons.

In addition, the timeline is helpful when deciding what topics to choose to write about.

How to Kill Boring Homeschool Unit Studies

From the timeline, I created a board game so that Tiny became more familiar with the events of the French Revolution.

Also, creating cards for memorizing these events, making a visual timeline, writing about the life of King Louis XVI, making French bread, making a French pastry, studying French fashion are also a few more ways to bring these events alive for this time period.

All of these ideas can be a springboard from this timeline.

Even the picture of the globe or Number 5 could be helpful here.

Taking out our atlas, we could look up this area and label the countries to get our geography bearings about where this significant event in world history took place at.

Creating a salt dough map (always a favorite of ours) can be another hands-on activity. Also because geography includes modern day issues a country may be facing, we did make a quick connection to modern day France by highlighting one of their issues about energy by creating a solar oven.

Too, the solar oven craft would also be part of a science related topic for this unit study.

When looking at how to include geography remember that geography is not just about labeling maps.

Geography involves the culture, religion, food, present day problems and issues a country may be facing and products made by that country.

If you find a list of products made by a country, past or present, the list could be used to give you ideas for relative crafts and hands-on meals. For example, when we studied Africa, we made a meal.

When studying about the country of France, this unit study could be extended to make a French crepe, study wine making or making a French meal.

To cover art, focus on famous French artists from that time period or architect designed during that time period.

As you can see, a textbook page just starts the ideas flowing for a unit study and your creativity is the only thing that will handcuff you in any unit study.

Once you start the creative juices flowing with a unit study, it becomes easier to do the next one. Like anything, every day use of the lesson planning muscles strengthens with use.

Using something you have like a textbook not only lessens the lesson planning stress, but it is a frugal idea when you are a beginner at unit studies.

Planning unit studies from living books is always a great start but not having one should not hold you back from trying a unit study or two.

How about you? Have you tried making a unit study come to life through resources you already have?

Hugs and love ya,

Homeschool Unit Study Textbook Tips – Uh?

February 1, 2015 | 2 Comments
This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

Taking the leap from textbooks to planning an interest led unit study can be a scary notion.

Ruining your kids for life, being behind, not being able to measure progress and not having a starting point are all hurdles that hold us back from testing the unit study waters.

Using homeschool unit study textbook tips in one breath can seem like a contradiction, but today I want to show you how to use what you may already have or feel comfortable with as a launching point for unit studies.

Though text books are not my first choice for planning a homeschool unit study, most all of us have textbooks in our homes.

Too, being a firm believer in using fully what I purchased with hard earned dollars and with a bit of love for being creative, textbooks certainly can be a starting point for a unit study.

When I first started doing unit studies, I didn’t plan every day or every sub-topic. Rather, I used textbooks to plan an interest led unit study as enrichment.

So the first step in using a textbook is to decide if you want to use parts of it as a springboard for enrichment or to only use the outline as a framework for a more thorough unit study.

The easiest tiny baby step is to use a point made in the textbook as enrichment.

Look at some of these things about a textbook that make them an easy bridge to unit studies.

Outline. An outline of ideas in a chapter and a break down of chapters in the book gives you a framework to build on.

Public school teachers and homeschoolers both can spend hours and hours building outlines until they have a framework of main ideas and supporting details for a topic.

The outline in a textbook can make planning a cinch because the legwork is done for you. Quit reinventing the wheel and step over into easy planning by glancing at the outline.

Broad Strokes. One of the negatives about textbooks, which is that it has a slice and dice approach to the subject may be a positive because it gives you the broad strokes.

A unit study can have a flood of information which makes starting one overwhelming.

By using the subjects that have been whittled down to broad topics and comparing that with other resources you have gathered like living books, articles and dvds, you can compare topics.

Then, choosing topics that interest you and your kids, you can feel confident that you are covering some of the broad strokes of a topic.

Quiz, Self Checking, Other Activities. Each textbook is different, but a lot of them have many different sections that you can pull from to enhance your study.

Quizzes and self checking tests are important especially if you live in a state where you have to do some kind of record keeping.

Living in an area that is more strict with record keeping or having a highschooler where there is more emphasis on testing can hold some back from doing a unit study.

Textbooks can ease you into unit studies because the quizzes and self checking tests can be done orally or still used after you cover the information in a unit study fashion.

Quizzes and self checking tests are just two parts of what a textbook may have. Depending on the subject and grade, some textbooks also include activities for hands-on projects.

Vocabulary building sections and writing topics are also a few more examples of some unit study enhancing features of a textbook.

From Textbook to Unit Study Starter

You may have other sections in your textbook too that can be used as a tool to either include in your unit study or to give you an idea of what else to include in the topic that interests you.

When we use something that we are familiar with we ease into unit studies.

Whether you want to use your textbooks as stepping stones to trying a new homeschool approach or because you want to maximize your textbooks to the full, they can be one tool to jump start your unit study.
In my second post and because I love visual aids, I will show you how to take a page or two of a textbook and add in some creativity to spark a unit study.

How about you? Do you have plenty of textbooks that could be used as unit study starters?

Hugs and love ya,

Look at this post Day 3. Selecting Superior Sub-Topics. 10 Days of Diving Into Unit Studies By Creating A Unit Study Together

Free Middle and High School Homeschool Language Arts

January 30, 2015 | 27 Comments
This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

Today, I am sharing free middle and high school homeschool language arts resources. Also, look at my page homeschool middle school and how to homeschool high school page for more fun tips

Update: You know I love ya so when I round up freebies, I round up everything I can find.

I do not have the answer keys to these free resources below.

Free Middle and High School Homeschool Language Arts

Kindly said: Please do not email me asking about the answer sheets, other teacher guides or tests. If and when I find them, I will post them for you and me.

These workbooks are ones that I have kept up with and used through the years with my sons as enrichment.

The links have changed and as I have found them, I have updated my links.

Too, I have found new resources to add, but never had them in one place.

Middle and High School Homeschool Language Arts

After using some of the books, they are pretty nifty enough to almost be used as stand alone curriculum.

Too, kazillion (new invented word alert) resources exist for helping you out in preschool, kindergarten and early elementary and after that, free resources seem to thin out.

Determined to have plenty of free homeschool language arts program through middle and high school, I hope you can use a few of these with your kids.