Homeschooling the Latter Years

The older the kids get the less comfortable I feel using the word ‘Homeschool’ because less and less of their education actually takes place at home. I am more an educational facilitator than a homeschooler.

(Our homeschool looks nothing like that anymore. It's kinda sad!)

But I also feel like there is very little information about ‘homeschooling’ in Jr. High and High School, so I’ll put something out there.

Here’s how we do it.

We’ll start with the boys. Though they’re not in highschool anymore, what we did for them in high school prepared them for what they are doing now.

Bryce – in the last 2 years of his high school he took classes at our local community college. He was able to get credit for both highschool and college in one class. He took all his basics; math, English, Spanish, Speech, etc, but we tailored his sciences. He wants to be a Fireman/Paramedic so we had him take health related sciences like Anatomy and Physiology. We also looked at what is required for an Associates in Paramedics and took the ‘Electives’ that would count for that. 

Spanish was required as was Sociology or Psychology. He took his EMT Basic and did Fire Academy after he graduated and now he is about to start the Paramedics Program. Because he’s got all the required academic classes already done, he will be receiving the associates degree instead of just the certification when he is finished.   

Gunnar – Gunnar his similar goals as far as being a Fireman, but he is less interested in the medical portion of the job. In Texas it is required that all Fireman be certified in EMT Basic so he will be taking that class in the Fall. He graduated in May, but we allowed him to do something a little different to prepare for his future job. He started taking duel credit classes at our local community college when he was a sophomore. He took the basics, but once he got to his senior year, he’d already had many college credit hours and he really wanted to enroll in the HVAC program instead of taking academic classes, so we let him do that. When he graduated highschool he had several college credits, and all the certifications required to do residential HVAC repair. In the Fall he’s going to do his EMT classes and then Fire Academy in the Spring. By May of next year he’ll have all the schooling and certifications nessessarry to be a Fireman and do HVAC repair on the side. That is what he wanted to do, and we used his highschool years to make that happen.

Evelyn – Evelyn is taking a more traditional college track. I suspect she will be my 4 year college degree girl, perhaps in business or maybe even law. This year she will be a Junior and will be starting at the community college. She’ll be taking English 1301 and 1302, Spanish 1 & 2 (not sure what the official class numbers are for those classes) and College Algebra.  (she’s hoping to add an art class in the Spring semester but we’ll see how that goes.)

At our Homeschool Co Op she’ll be taking an Anatomy class. She’s already taken Biology and Chemistry.  She had a choice of Marine Biology, Physics, or Anatomy this year and Anatomy is what she chose.

She will be finishing World History and moving into American History. This will be done at home. I also have a Government/Economics curriculum she’ll be going through, as well as a list of required reading for the year. This is how her Junior year breaks down:

English – CC & Book list at home

Spanish – CC

Algebra  - Tutor and CC

Art – CC (maybe)

Anatomy – Co Op (Apologia)

World/American History – home (Notgrass)

Government/Economics – Home (Uncle Eric Books)

Annika: Annika is really the only one I’m teaching this year and I use that term lightly. She is taking several classes at our homeschool Co op. Because Annika loves music and is already talking about majoring in Music we’re letting her run with that. She also loves kids and works at our church's Mother's Day Out program most of the day on Tuesdays. 

She will be taking part in our co op’s Show Tunes class that culminates in a major performance at the end of the year. This year they are working on the Musical, State Fair.

She also takes private voice and piano lessons.

At co op she will be taking a creative writing class, ASL for her foreign language, a dancing class, Biology and Show Tunes.

At home we will be working through Teaching Textbooks Pre Algebra  and still slogging through Sequential Spelling. Spelling and math are her weakest areas so they require a lot of time and effort. 

Annika will also be finishing up her World History curriculum and moving into American History this school year using Story of the World and various fiction books.  She also has a list of ‘required reading’ this year. Books like Lord of the Flies, Animal Farm, 1985, Jane Eyre, etc. This is how her Freshman year breaks down:

English: Creative Writing (co op)

Spelling (home)

Literature (home)

Math: Teaching Textbooks Pre Algebra (home)

Science: Apologia Biology (co op)

Music : Show Tunes (co op)

Private Lessons

PE: Dancing (Co op)

Foreign Language: ALS (co op)

So there you have it. Homeschooling Highschool. It looks nothing like homeschooling at all!