Lately, I’ve been looking at how we will continue to homeschool once my daughter reaches high school. I know how we will homeschool middle school, because our homeschool curriculum goes through eighth grade. I think that once my daughter begins high school we will be doing most courses “a la carte” which means each course, each subject will be a stand-alone course, not a part of a major curriculum.
I feel certain I know what we are going to do for science and I already have some of the social studies planned out. I feel pretty sure I will be using a homeschool writing curriculum as part of our English courses. My biggest concern right now is how we will work through high school math. Algebra and geometry were not my strong subjects in school. I did not have calculus at all. I know that I will have to someone to teach calculus.
This brings me to the idea of dual credit courses. Some local community colleges are offering to give credit for courses for both high school and college. By using dual credit courses my daughter could see not only high school but college courses on her transcript. These credits will be transferrable to a four year college at full credit. I will be looking into this further as we get closer to high school, but doesn’t it sound like a great idea to be able to take one course and get credit for it on two different transcripts, high school and college? It almost sounds too good to be true, and because of that I will look for other students who are doing this and see how it works for them.
If you know about dual credit would you drop a comment on this post?

Have you ever wished you were one of those people who always use amazing vocabulary in every day conversations? I have found that the more I hang out with people who use great vocabularies, the better I get at using words that have been floating around in my head.
I find that my child is the same way. When she hangs around older kids, or kids that are avid readers she always comes away from that encounter using bigger words appropriately. I love the influence these outside sources have on her language use!
I have been looking for ways to get that same boost from things we do at home and in school.
One way to get the words in her head so that she can use there where appropriate is to boost her reading vocabulary. Reading great books allows her to see new words in context. Listening to audio books has an added bonus to boosting her vocabulary in that she not only gets to experience the word in context, but she gets to hear the pronunciation.
A second way to boost her vocabulary is to use vocabulary flash cards. I’m not talking about a box of cards for a school supply store, or the dollar store. We make our own vocabulary flash cards to through Spelling City, where we input our word lists from books we are reading, or new words she has asked about during a chapter. We can put in science and math words as well as vocabulary from literature.
What kind of things are you using to improve your child’s vocabulary? I would love to hear your comments!

My child is 11 (and a half, she would remind me!) years old. I am fortunate that she is a great reader. She is not afraid to pick up books that are older than her age/maturity and read them with a fair amount of understanding. I would love to take credit for this, but I am not sure that is the case. From the time she was able to sit up by herself she loved to hold books in her hands. The condition of her earliest board books attests to her repeated use of them.

We did a lot of things to help her with her reading fluency early in her reading career. We read to her, she listened to audio books, she saw us reading which showed her that we considered reading important. We pointed out words as we read, and we encouraged her to “read” to her pets and stuffed animals even before she could actually read. Books and reading are an important part of our lives and for that I am really grateful.

So, the actual mechanics of reading is not a problem, but sometimes the subject matter is. One of the biggest problems we have is finding books that do not speak of the dynamics of public and/or private schools, but deal with the issues that she faces as a homeschooled student. This is not because we want to isolate her, but because she sees the trials and tribulations of traditional middle school as something that she just doesn’t get. She can’t relate.

She was overjoyed to find out that her favorite trilogy about dragons was written by a homeschooler. It gave her a connection that she thought was important, and maybe it is. We continue to look for books by homeschoolers, and about homeschoolers, because she can relate to them more than to books set in traditional school settings. From the beginning we have done everything we could to encourage her abilities and love in reading, and at this point, finding books that she can relate to is just another step in that encouragement.

Do you have frustration with your child about learning math? I do at times. I find that she gives up very easily and she doesn’t show her work. In addition, she does not do math drill work like workbook pages. And woe be unto me if I ever asked her to do a timed exercise!
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining. There are many things that she does well. For example, she is a wiz at science. She reads well above her grade level. She is a creative problem solver. And she is an exceptional artist.
It turns out, that my daughter is practically the definition of a right brained visual learner.
I’ve looked into this learning style. Visual learners tend to be artistic, and do not tolerate very structured learning, especially if it involves repetition or the pressure of timed exercises. My daughter practically melts down if I tell her she has a certain amount of time to finish an exercise. Many visual learners are like this.
Because visual leaners learn well by seeing something demonstrated they often will learn math better if it is hands on. Teaching math to visual learners involves using lots of manipulatives. This can be anything from Legos to Skittles. Visual learners gather information by seeing it, and touching it. Like kinetic learners, they learn more by doing than by hearing.
If you have a visual learner, be willing to try some different methods and make sure you loosen up on the timers. You may also have to accept that your visual learner can give you than answer without being able to show the work. Part of this is because visual learners “see” the picture/answer in their head
It may require some adaptations for you to teach your visual learner but there is no reason they can’t learn as well, or maybe better than other types of learners.

What are you doing with social studies this semester? My daughter is in sixth grade, but for some reason we got things all turned around. We were supposed to cover the Revolutionary War in fourth grade. Of course, we got side-tracked and we did other things. Besides, I don’t think my 4th grader was ready for the Revolutionary War, and all of the people, politics, and battles associated with it.

So, we did other things that I thought were of more interest to her in social studies. We did geography, and government and current events. We studied other cultures, and we studied other time periods. One particular favorite was the medieval period. We played social studies games online. We cut out maps, and reassembled them. And we moved to fifth grade.

In fifth grade, I looked at the hundreds of lessons on the Civil War (ok, so I exaggerate!) and so we did alternative social studies again. Maybe it is because we live in the South, but I have never enjoyed studying the Civil War period. History is written by the victors, after all. I have to put aside my own dislike for that historical period and play catch up. I decided it was time to buckle down and do the Civil War period. After all, it was scheduled for 5th grade, we are doing 6th grade, and it is just a place that needs to be checked off of my list of things my daughter needs to do.

The only problem is that I also think that my daughter should be exposed to the building of a nation, the Revolutionary War, before we study tearing a nation apart, the Civil War. So now in our homeschool social studies, we are studying the Revolutionary War. I was surprised to find that my daughter gets the politics, and understands the implications of declaring independence from the mother country. She can speak eloquently about the events that lead to revolution.

I think that by putting off the study of the Revolution for 2 years has allowed my daughter to gain some knowledge of our country today that are helping her understand the history. I am actually looking forward to finishing the Revolutionary War and moving on to study the Civil War.

I guess I have said all of this to explain that sometimes it is better to do what your child is interested in at the time, and even rearrange the order that he learns things in. By being flexible and changing the study of the historical timeline, my daughter is better able to understand those historical periods on a deeper level. This flexibility is one of the best things about homeschooling. Don’t be afraid to utilize that flexibility to your child’s best advantage!