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7 Educational Movies for Kids About Westward Expansion

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This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

Whether you have visual learners like I do or just want to add a fun twist to your day while learning about westward expansion, your kids will love these 7 movies about westward expansion. Also, you love more ideas on my page BEST Westward Ho Unit Study and Lapbook!

There are one or two that are documentaries and one or two of the movies that I really love which I feel are both entertaining and educational.

Also, we watched all of them on Amazon Prime which we love.

There are so many advantages to Amazon Prime that we’ve loved while homeschooling, but that is another thread.  It has been worth the membership for our family.

Fun Movies About Westward Expansion

Pop some corn, grab the blanket, and enjoy these westward expansion movies!

Heads Up. Most, if not all of the movies I recommend here, we’ve watched.

Obviously, things can change over time. So always preview the movie before you let your children watch and if you see something that has changed to not family rated, let me know.

ONE/ The History of the Oregon Trail & the Pony Express.

This is much more documentary like but the pictures, maps, and narration is educational and has quite a bit of background information.

Here is the review from Amazon: Ride along with the pioneers who suffered hardships and victories to forge The Oregon Trail, America’s longest and most famous trail. Then discover little known facts about the legendary Pony Express riders and their part in the Civil War. Breathtaking photography, live re-enactments, illustrated maps and rare photos make these two award-winning historical adventures come to life for all ages.

7 Educational Movies for Kids About Westward Expansion

TWO/ Sacagawea.

Out of all the movies, I think this was one of our favorites. It was narrated by “Sacagawea” but it was more movie like than documentary.

From beginning to end, it held our attention as it showed her life, talked about her marriage, and joining the Corps of Discovery. A beautiful way to tell this part of American history.

It mentioned a lot of the Native American people and showed what Lewis and Clark learned along the way about plants and animals.

If I had to choose chose one movie for a middle school kid, it would be this one. It covered quite a few topics.

Here is the review from Amazon. She was an expectant mother, but she endured every hardship these seasoned soldiers experienced. Without her the Corps of Discovery would have failed. This program re-enacts her journey in her words. Sacagawea will save Lewis and Clark time and time again on their expedition from negotiating for horses and show them which plants are edible. 

THREE/ Ghost Town and America’s Historic Inns.

This one talks about how the the great California gold rush impacted American history.

It has nice older black and white pictures along with views of the modern places pioneers panned and mined. What is very interesting in how different people made their living from the gold.

Here is the review from Amazon: Indulge your sense of passion for history with two programs that offer a fascinating link into America’s past. Visit eleven Gold Rush-era ghost towns. Then, bask in the hospitality of America’s most storied inns, taverns, and hideaways. 

Then, add in these fun westward ho coloring pages to make learning come alive.

7 Educational Movies for Kids About Westward Expansion

 

FOUR/ The Wild West Uncovered.

This is a cool documentary about Virginia City after people flocked there and it flourished.

I loved seeing all the old pictures, the way they lived, and the history. Heads up: They do mention there was child prostitution by then, but no pictures. But it’s so cool to learn how the city grew in riches and with so many people of different backgrounds. I never knew the diversity that lived there.

Besides that, the pictures and relics they find and seeing the old saloons, some still intact, makes this a very informative movie.

Too, it was really interesting that Mark Twain wrote there before he was famous. This documentary is not baby-ish and could certainly be viewed by a high school kid too.

Here is the review from Amazon: Discover the real Virginia City. Hollywood has forged our vision of the legendary Wild West through Westerns like the TV show Bonanza. This vision of the west conquered by cowboys, miners and outlaws all hit by gold fever has filled our imagination. Mark Twain’s colorful writings of larger the life characters has also contributed to the picturesque perception of the Wild West and Virginia City.

FIVE/ How the Wild West Was Won by Ray Mears.

A beautiful documentary and certainly one that your high school kids will like alongside your middle school kids. Beautiful scenery and I love the fact it starts off with being in Washington D.C. and showing how Americans wanted to go west. He takes a different slant about the west by focusing on the mountains and terrain. Kept our attention the whole time.

Your girls will like it, but I think especially good for boys who may like learning about survivor skills.

Here is the review from Amazon: Bushcraft expert and survivalist Ray Mears explores the awe-inspiring landscape of that shaped the story of the Wild West. How did the mountain ranges, great plains and the deserts challenge westward expansion? Discover how extraordinary topography, extreme weather and ecology presented both great opportunity and even greater challenges for Native Americans and early pioneers of the Wild West. 

SIX/ Wildlife of the West.

Beautiful images, scenery, and animals of the west bring this time period in history alive.  And you can add a bit of science to this topic while watching this movie.

I especially love the fascinating facts  about each animal that is on the side as you watch. I’m tempted to do some notebooking pages for each animal. (ha)

Here is a snippet of how it looks below. But, the movie could be paused so that your kids could write a few facts about the wildlife of the west because no doubt the animals would’ve been the same kind the earlier settlers encountered.Here is the review from Amazon. Experience the wonder of more than 2 dozen of the West’s most intriguing animals. Wildlife of the West takes you stream-side and mountain-side, to dizzying heights and stunning habitats. 

Seven/  Manifest Destiny: The Lewis & Clark Musical Adventure.

This was goofy but had great music. But this movie musical would certainly appeal to a different learner who appreciated the humor, but had a lot of great facts while they’re singing and acting.

It’s too silly for a high school kid and some more mature middle school kids may not like the humor, but you could include your younger kids with this one if you had a middle school kid who loved movies with a spoof.

Here is the review on Amazon: This cult musical comedy turns the tale of Lewis & Clark into a romping spoof of American history. Follow the explorers out on the trail as they discover that destiny may be anything but manifest. With bold, stylized visuals and ten memorable songs — this is an adventure you’ll never forget. 

I know you’ll find or two movies here to make your westward expansion unit study come alive!

7 Educational Movies for Kids About Westward Expansion
Whether you have visual learners like I do or just want to add a fun twist to your day while learning about westward expansion, your kids will love these 7 movies for kids about westward expansion. Click here to grab these fun movies and add to your study or unit study!
Whether you have visual learners like I do or just want to add a fun twist to your day while learning about westward expansion, your kids will love these 7 movies for kids about westward expansion. Click here to grab these fun movies and add to your study or unit study!

Also, you may like these other helpful and fun resources:

Hugs and love ya,

Homeschooling High School: Curriculum, Credits, and Courses

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This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

By the time you reach the high school years, you have some general ideas of how to plan them. Check out my how to homeschool high school page for awesome tips.

Today, in sharing homeschooling high school, I’m giving you a few detailed pointers for curriculum, credits, and courses to steer you in the right direction.

Homeschooling High School: Curriculum, Credits, and Courses

First, look at 3 things I wished I would’ve known before I started.

ONE/ In the beginning, it’s not necessary to plan all four years.

It’s just not necessary because a lot will change. Your teen will mature and may change the direction of his education or career as he approaches adulthood. Give him some wiggle room.

Have a plan so you can give your teen goals, but analyze each year. Having a framework of courses is much better.

HIGH SCHOOL CURRICULUM AND COURSES

I appreciated reading How to Homeschool 9th and 10th Grades: Simple Steps for Starting Strong to help me stay focused on the start of high school.

Home Learning Year by Year: How to Design a Homeschool Curriculum from Preschool Through High School was a book I read early on.

After reading it, I designed a framework and understood that the three Rs are the foundation of any well-laid out high school course.

Look where I share the nitty gritty of that here in my post Homeschool High School The Must Cover Subjects Part 1 and Homeschool High School The Must Cover Subjects Part 2.

Two/ Also, I wished I would have used middle school to help my first high school teen explore more subjects he wanted to.

With my second high school son, I was prepared to let him explore more elective type courses in middle school and getting some of the basic math out of the way.

Middle school gives a budding teen time to explore subjects he is interested in. Take advantage of this time to have some fun.

THREE/ Additionally, I didn’t learn until later was to explore more career options and not just focus on academics. After all, your kid is not attending college for life. It’s preparation for life and a career. (well hopefully).

Careers matter and high school is the time to explore careers.

Reading Career Exploration: for homeschool high school students and What Color Is Your Parachute? for Teens, Third Edition: Discover Yourself, Design Your Future, and Plan for Your Dream Job are two books that are real helpful for your teen.

EXPLORING HIGH SCHOOL COURSES

Something else I didn’t appreciate with my first high school teen is the power to be flexible with courses and course descriptions.

I couldn’t think past simply putting English, Math or Science on my first transcript.

Looking back, I know when preparing transcripts that you want to follow some traditional guidelines and keep general course names on the transcript. So those general descriptions were correct.

However, I need to describe the courses specifically.

Just to illustrate, I put Performing Arts on my first two boys’ transcript.

My older two boys took ballroom dancing, but Performing Arts is the general description to put on the transcript.

I had to come up with a description of ballroom dancing and I started by looking first at the website where my boys took lessons to give me an idea of how to word what they learned.

I put this:

This beginner course is an introduction to the fundamentals of basic dance. In each dance class, students will be expected to participate in warm-ups and learn the techniques of the Waltz and other traditional dances like the Mambo, Salsa and Swing. Along with learning choreography and dance history, this course culminates in a Spring concert performance.

It wasn’t bad for my first description, but like anything that is a first, it wasn’t exactly comprehensive or correct in a sense.

Since then, I learned that I needed to add my grading scale, what books we used, and how I was going to assign credit.

It’s harder to go back and add these things later, but not impossible.

The bottom line is to keep the course name on the transcript general and make your course descriptive detailed on a separate page to produce it if needed.

EASILY WRITING COURSE DESCRIPTIONS

Arranging wording to describe your teen course takes practice, but look at these places to help you.

  • An obvious place to is the website where you purchased the curriculum and I find the descriptions super helpful in my course descriptions.
  • In addition, also look at high school course names and descriptions on public school websites. I look for course descriptions similar to the courses that my sons will be doing. This usually gives me some wording
  • Another place I’ve found descriptions in a nutshell is on Amazon. Amazon is great for giving book descriptions and with a few tweaks of adding how I assign credits and grades, a book description can easily turn course description.
  • Too, when I didn’t feel like I got a good overview of a course because some descriptions lacked, I would glance at the table of contents to help me word the description of the course.

HIGH SCHOOL CREDIT CONUNDRUM

It can be overwhelming for even the most organized teen and parent when understanding credits, but I like to keep things simple.

It’s been my experience that some families assign a 30 minute class the equal of a 45 minute class because of the intensity of homeschooling and give the student one credit for a rigorous course like literature or math.

You decide how to gauge your credits and the work ethic of your student.

In addition, you decide to give credit if a curriculum is 70% or 80% complete. Some homeschoolers give credit if it’s 80% complete, others less.

Look at my detailed post here for Homeschool High School–How to Log Hours for High School. It gives a detailed explanation for credits.

Also, I have free forms and show you how to expand the use of a transcript here at my detailed post Homeschool High School Transcripts – Anything But Typical.

Homeschooling High School: Curriculum, Credits, and Courses

You and I know that there is no one right to plan high school. But breaking high school down into manageable chunks keeps the process from being overwhelming.

Begin with a framework of the three Rs in high school, fold in accurate course descriptions as you can, be flexible, keep reading about how to grade and assign credit.

Before you know it, you’ll be a pro for your child – which is what really matters.

You will also love my other tips I have for homeschooling high school below:

Homeschooling High School Curriculum, Credits, and Courses @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus. In sharing homeschooling high school, I'm giving you a few detailed pointers for curriculum, credits, and courses to steer you in the right direction. Click here to grab these super detailed helpful pointers!
Homeschooling High School Curriculum, Credits, and Courses @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

Hugs and love ya. You got this!

3 Beginner’s Tips: Homeschool High School Literature

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This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

I have easy beginner’s tips for teaching homeschool high school literature. Also, look at my page How to Homeschool High School.

As if entering the high school years wasn’t daunting enough, you’re expected to be instantly informed about how to teach high school literature.

I began gathering teaching tips and resources for my first high school son.

However, all I could think of was my own high school years, and that was a long time ago.

Gradually, my basic plan for a starting point has changed as each son entered high school because my own high school experience was not much help.

3 Beginners Tips for Homeschool High School Literature. Look at this quick and easy overview to give you a heads up about what to expect. Click here to scoot by and read the AWESOME tips! #homeschool

Today, I want to clear away some of the mystery surrounding how to teach literature because I want to give you a beginning point.

Also, teaching high school literature is a very comprehensive topic.

Instead of taking you to the glazed-over-eyes point I want to stick to a basic foundation, which I think is more helpful.

Try to remember as I share the three beginner’s tips that you can build on them each year.

Try not to sock it all to your teen like I did in the beginning.

Look at my 9th Grade Homeschool High School – Avoid the Sock It to Them Attitude.

ONE/ Hone your definition of what is high school literature.

Literature is any written material.

That doesn’t help much so you need to help your teen understand what is the importance of studying literature.

Battle for the Mind

Try this.

Literature is any written material, but it normally means works of fiction, non-fiction, poetry, and drama which having artistic value and makes one think.

In addition, classic literature is written work that transcends time or has outlasted current thinking.

Too, great literature or masterpieces are written works that gives shades of meaning to their topics. Opinions, feelings and emotions will vary.

Whether it’s a short story with limited characters or poetry that reflects the author’s world, they all share identifying marks which are to move you and make you hate or delight in the undertone meaning.

And like one of my boys said, they just keep talking to you today.

Whether the material is about showing a stylistic technique or it’s an unusual genre, it’s a battle for the mind.

TWO/ Introduce literature through American, British, and World authors.

Something else I did wrong was to be all over the place when selecting curriculum.

No matter how organized my first high school teen was, I frustrated him because I didn’t have a method to my planning.

Dividing up grades or semesters by reading and analyzing poems, novels, and short stories from different parts of the world and different time periods gives your teen a well-balanced view.

3 Beginners Tips: Homeschool High School Literature. Look at this easy starting point!

For example, a study of World literature would obviously include authors from all over the world, but it should coincide with the different time periods of history.

This way you’re covering some of the greatest material from different ages.

Don’t forget the timeless tip of using one history book for analyzing literature while reading about history.

For example, when I read the novel by Dickens of A Tale of Two Cities with my boys, it gives a good view of the Victorian period and the French Revolution.

You’ll want to add to it by having your teen research a bit about the French Revolution unless he has already studied it.

Understanding the world the author has created or is writing about places your teen right in the middle of the conflicts.

The conflict of two distinct classes, the rich and the poor, along with the way Dickens explains sad times gives your teen a preview of not only literary topics, but history.

THREE/ Literary devices or terms need to be your framework.

I never required my boys to do a book report when they were younger, but I did require critical thinking skills and a broad understanding of literary devices in high school.

I would hear moans of how boring it was and I tried not to make it boring.

But, this is high school literature and the skills taught at these grades should equip your teen at the least to think like an adult.

Whether you’re preparing your teen for a college prep course or not, he still needs to learn how to think beyond black and white.

This is the time when your teen forms values, opinions, and beliefs and you need to look beyond the idea that you’re mutilating a good read.

How to Reflect on American, British, and World Literature

Making the connection to our belief system during our study time as we discussed it together was an unexpected benefit.

What I mean is that this is not just the time to read about boring literary devices, but the time to understand the message that the author is illustrating through literary devices.

Sometimes, it’s necessary to memorize definitions like rhyme, meter, or sonnet, but it’s more engaging when you and your teen understand why poetry was written in that style.

Digging into why ancient poets wrote how they did gives your student a richer understanding of the world around him.

You want your homeschooled teen to clearly state a verbal or written response to the topics of today’s world. It begins by analyzing a great book.

I hope this simple beginning and quick glance will give you a good foundation to begin your planning. In my upcoming posts, I will be sharing resources to help guide you and your teen.

Do you think you would like that?

Look at these too, you may like to grab the tips there.

More Homeschool High School Literature Tips

What You Must Know to Teach High School Unit Studies

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This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

Until my sons reached high school, I didn’t know if my unit study approach would meld with tracking credits and courses. Check out my how to homeschool high school page for awesome tips.

Also, there didn’t really seem an abundance of prepared high school unit studies.

Between determining if unit studies were a good fit for high school and understanding record keeping, it was a lot to wrap my mind around.

Until my sons reached high school, I didn't know if my unit study approach would meld with tracking credits and courses. Also, there didn't really seem an abundance of prepared high school unit studies. Click here to read these 3 must know tips!

Sorting out myths from truth, I hope these 3 tips will help you to easily homeschool high school with unit studies. Or at least give you a beginning place.

3 Tips for Teaching High School Unit Studies

ONE/ Understand first that high school is just a continuation of the lowers grades – really!

Yes, it’s true that you’ll need to track credits and courses, but before stressing out about them, plan high school subjects like you’ve done in the lower grades.

That’s right. Begin with what you know.

In my article How to Choose the BEST Homeschool Lesson Planning Pages for THIS Year, I not only give you tips on how to do that, but each lesson plan form lists subjects by general categories; math, language arts, science, history and electives are the framework of well-rounded out high school courses.

It’s not hard to plan when you understand that you’re covering the same basic subjects albeit in more depth analyzing views instead of just a question answer format like your child did in younger grades.

TWO/ Look for resources which teach 2:1 or two-fer resources.

A two-fer resource is another secret tip to homeschooling teens.

Using a resource which teaches two subjects is vital when your child enters high school.

You don’t want your time wasted and neither do teens.

More important though is the reason that unit studies rocked in the younger grades is the same reason which holds true for high school.

Learning makes more sense when subjects are tied together instead of studied as separate subjects. Additionally, unit studies have always been a research-based approach.

This is a skill which is needed on into adulthood.

Living Books for Unit Studies

Resist giving up your unit study approach because it may require a bit more time to put together.

Sure, it’s easy to assign a text book and move on, but you and I know that high school is just hard sometimes. It’s a challenge to plan but still doable.

Begin again with something you know. Look at these things you may already know how and are doing with your kids in the younger grades.

  • Reading history living books and having your child choose writing topics based on history.
  • Reading science living books and choosing writing topics based on science.
  • Reading math living books and having your child choose writing topics based on math.

Now that you understand that high school courses fall into general categories and understand to look for two-fer resources, here are some examples of how to put it together.

We love the book Undaunted Courage.

Just a side note here.

When I look at a book which can serve as a springboard for high school unit studies, I note 3 things:

  • that it’s a living book,
  • that it’s high school level so that I can legally note on my high school transcript that it’s a high school level resource,
  • and I mull over how hard it will be to add external resources to enrich the study.

Not only is your teen covering part of his credit toward history when reading Undaunted Courage , but he is covering credits for literature too. Writing is part of a literature credit.

So your teen is covering 2–3 subjects at once depending on what credits you’ve lined out for the year.

Because covering literature in high school means more than just reading, you’ll want to have a variety of resources for analyzing literature and for guiding your teen how to write well.

A literature-based unit study which has a history setting has been the easiest to start off with at the high school level.

For example, I find it a challenge to round out a history book with literature analysis than a great book suited for literature analysis.

How to Put Together High School Unit Studies

It’s been easier to add history and science of a time period to a great read.

One super helpful resource we only discovered this year and that is the Thrift Study Editions by Dover. 

Not only are the books for high school level, but each one comes with a study guide in the back. 

For example, while reading A Tale of Two Cities, we studied about the culture of France and England and learned about the issues of the French Revolution.

With a resource like that, doing unit studies are a cinch at the high school level. This brings me to the third point you want to know.

THREE/ Fill your teacher nook with specialized how-two books for you and your teen.

Tackling how to teach a subject with out a curriculum can be daunting, but you can go from research to reward if you choose specialized teaching books.

Here are a few of my favorite resources. You don’t need all of them, but I’ve used them at one time or another to round out our unit studies.

Literature Unit Studies

  • The Design-A-Study series are timeless. This series of books about science, history, and composition gives an overview of what to cover in each grade.  Instead of giving you subjects, it’s helpful because it gives you the big picture of what your child needs to know from K-12. A resource like this is especially helpful if you want to cover a skill or topic that your highschooler may have struggled with in the earlier grades.
  • Warriner’s English Complete Course. This set of books have been around for years and helps to hone writing. Christine Miller of Classical Christian said, “This excellent reference can be used throughout all three years of the dialectic to teach writing. It thoroughly covers grammar in detail, which provides a nice review for those children that need it, or for those children that missed some grammar instruction in the grammar stage. It also covers writing in detail, with a complete section on writing mechanics, usage, writing correct and clear sentences, paragraphs, and papers, the research paper, using references, and even public speaking.” Read the rest of her review here. Before we started using Rod and Staff high school levels, we used Warriner’s. Rod and Staff’s Communicating Effectively I liked one year because I felt like it was more streamlined. It helps to.understand that I used Rod and Staff in the younger grades and their grammar is very rigorous and by 8th grade formal grammar is completed. When you click the link above you can see the sample of their English and what is covered in the high school years.
  • Home Learning Year by Year: How to Design a Homeschool Curriculum from Preschool Through High School. Don’t get overwhelmed by this book. There is no need to have to read all of it. Focus only on the grade level for this year. Having a handy reference like this will guide you to subjects for each grade.

In an upcoming post, I’ll show you how I plan credits now that you can see how easy it is to satisfy two to three subjects using carefully selected resources.

What You Must Know to Teach High School Unit Studies. Click here to grab the tips!

Also, check out Diving into Homeschool Unit Studies: The Dos and Don’ts and 10 Days of Diving Into Unit Studies by Creating a Unit Study Together and Homeschool High School–How to Log Hours for High School.

Hugs and love ya,

3 Ways to Homeschool the BIGS (a.k.a. Older Kids)

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This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

3 Ways to Homeschool the BIGS (a.k.a. Older Kids). Don't give up some of the ways you taught your kids when they were young. Just add some new ways. Click here for the sanity-saving tips!

If a totally perfect guide on how to homeschool older kids existed, it could instantly become obsolete because of the changing body and mind of an older kid. Unlike the younger years where kids are more compliant, older kids are ready to flex their decision making muscles.

Whether tweens or teens, homeschooling older kids can be like navigating new homeschool waters each year.

There are some tried and true tips I’ve learned that will help you to keep older kids passionate about learning all the way through to and including high school. It’s not easy, but grab these 3 tips for your arsenal.

One/Plan monthly field trips targeted especially for older kids. This one time don’t think about your younger kids. (Okay, maybe just a little.)

Reject the thinking that field trips are just for younger learners. Until Mr. Senior 2013 did part of his Kindergarten in public school, I didn’t know that field trips are almost non-existent in any grade past Kindergarten.

From playmate to lifelong friend

Although field trips are important when kids are younger, they are vital as kids get older.

Don't just plan homeschoo field trips for younger kids. Plan them for older kids too!

(Federal Reserve Bank field trip for older kids)

Look at these reasons why field trips are essential as your child grows.

  • Kids need to learn how to make friends and have them outside of the family. I’ve always believed that as parents we are our kids foremost and best friend. However, kids can’t learn how to make lifelong friends unless they experience other personalities. A field trip with like-minded individuals sharpened my boys sense of self-worth and it also showed them how they didn’t want to be.
  • Field trips with other families which have our same family values sharpened my sons’ values.
  • Although as a parent I was glad we went to the field trip at the end of it, some moms felt like we really didn’t need it. Older kids are not like us. They need and want friends. Loneliness can run rampant among young people. Don’t forget that just because you have made your friends and are comfortable with your circle, that may not be the case for older kids.
  • Nurturing a love for a new hobby, course or career happens at a field trip. If a kid spends his summer outside at the beach learning about science which he may love then that can feed his desire for a career or college track in biology.

Two/ Move away from the books!

To say as kids get older that they can be moody is an understatement. In the same day they can be relaxed and restless. With their bodies changing, it means that their brain is not always in gear for learning. When we had days like that we just put away the books.

Don’t worry about the stress of high school. There are many more days that your kids will have good than bad. So ease up on them and savor the days of homeschooling them while they’re older.

Unit studies are my way of giving my sons control over their learning.

When they could control very little in their day, it gave them a sense of empowerment to study something they chose. Not only did it break up the day, but it kept the joy for learning while they hit the lows and highs of hormones.

Look at just two of these hands-on middle school unit studies which a highschooler who needs a break would enjoy soaking up.

Zoology: Amazing Animals and Estuary Ecology are both great for hands-on learning and for getting older kids out of the house to learn.

Three/ They need to get physical. (And no, it doesn’t have to be an over the top class or activity.)

Getting past the younger ages, I just knew my boys energy level would settle down. In one way it did and in another way, they needed more physical exercise.

Although I don’t consider myself an exercise enthusiast, we do love to walk and stay active. We’ve always had some kind of exercise in our daily routine. But it was nowhere near what my boys needed.

One year my boys had asked to be around other young homeschooled teens more,  I also knew they needed more movement, and we needed another one-half semester credit.  I combined all three needs into one and chose ball room dance lessons as my teacher mandated elective (ha).

Moans could be heard far and wide because ball room dancing was not for macho men – right? Or at least that was their preconceived notion.

The Mr. backed me up on my new brainstorm and we gave our teens no choice. We were reasonable and told them that if they didn’t like it after the first month, we could do something different.

It took only one lesson and they were hooked. Did I mention to this day, they all love to dance?

They are not the shy boys at the party, but the ones soaking up fun times and dancing the whole time they are there.

Prior to that, I had to clear out the garage for a couple set of weights and benches. Sharing my garage with exercise equipment is a small price to pay for the boys to have a place to stay physically and mentally fit.

These are just three easy things that have worked with my boys through the years. I have a few more things to share in my arsenal.

What works for you?

You also may want to look at my tips at how Teach Your Homeschooled Teen the Art of Studying (without nagging), When Homeschooling is Not an Overnight Success (Is it Worth the Risk?) and When Homeschooled Kids Are Not Excited About Ordinary Days.

Hugs and love ya,

 

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