How did they teach themselves Biology? Did they do dissections and was it a lab course? I am planning to teach them Apologia Biology this year, but it’s the one subject I didn’t think they could teach themselves, even though they’re waaay more gifted in science than I am. Did you just give them the book and a schedule and let them go for it? I would really love to know, as I’m feeling very intimidated by the time requirements of Biology! Thanks so much! ~ Lisa
Dear Lisa,
Learning to be independent is a process, and biology usually comes along pretty early in that process. I’ve seen children successfully learn biology on their own, but we were just beginning the process of independence at that point. I’ll be glad to share how we did it – just remember that every child and family is unique.
We used Apologia Biology as well. I did have a list of assignments that told them what pages to read or what lab or test to complete. I prepared that during the summer months. It was in a checklist format, so I could easily see if it was checked off each day.
With biology we had a morning meeting like I described in a earlier blog post: Homeschool Accountability – Try a “Morning Meeting”. During that meeting, I went over their vocabulary words, and would sometimes ask them questions found in the book (not very often – I didn’t have it all together that much!) They were responsible for reading the chapter on their own. I think going over the vocabulary helped the most. That’s a tip I read in a book about college success; if you know the vocabulary words you can pass most college tests.
The labs were a little different. I’m a nurse, and I love biology. I loved every dissection and every microscopy lab. Sometimes I had trouble giving the microscope to my children to use, but I don’t believe I taught them anything. I was present in the room when they did their experiments. With biology labs kids are either working with expensive microscope equipment or are wielding sharp dissection tools. Not wanting them to get hurt, I was always in the room. They read the labs on their own. They followed the directions, and I watched – usually while getting some laundry folded.
Once complete, I would leave them alone to complete the lab write-ups. I asked them for a paragraph of what they did and learned, and a drawing, graph or chart explaining the lab. At the end of the day I would look at their lab report to make sure they truly had a paragraph (not a sentence) and they had some sort of chart or drawing. If those things were present and I understood from their lab report the purpose of the experiment and what happened, then I gave them 100%.
When it was time for a test, I simply handed them the test, confiscated the solution manual and walked away. I corrected the tests when they were working on their next course. I gave them the grade, and wrote it on a piece of notebook paper I kept in their binder. Then had them correct their answers.
I suppose you could say they were learning independently. They did all the reading, and I didn’t lecture (except about how expensive the microscope was. ) They did the experiments with an adult standing by. Perhaps I did try to teach them how fun and exciting biology is, because I remember I did a lot of squealing, but it didn’t work. Of all the sciences, they liked biology the least.
I know other successful mothers who took a much more hands-on approach. Dealing with learning challenges, they may read the entire chapter, or carefully assist them in following directions for labs. It’s important to remember to do what works for YOUR family. Some parents may want to judge others, and call it “spoon-feeding.” I think it’s important to remember that some students will learn and thrive with one-on-one tutoring because of challenges that others don’t understand, so do what works for your student,
regardless of what others say or think.
In the four years of high school I became less involved each year. The following year I found that chemistry didn’t require as much help, so we didn’t include it in our morning meeting. The labs were rarely dangerous, so many times I would just peak in. With physics I felt completely overwhelmed, and I didn’t understand any of it. They worked completely independently with that science.
I hope that helps! Learning to become independent is a process that has to start somewhere and then build.
Thank you for your informative web site. My eldest child is entering eighth grade, and I’m educating myself on how to homeschool high school. We’ve always homeschooled, but I’m learning that high school will have added complexities.
I’m considering buying your book Setting the Records Straight, but I’ve been unable to browse a copy beforehand. Do you include many sample transcripts and other record-keeping forms in the book? I love to keep records and thrive creating files in Microsoft Publisher, Word, and Excel. I suspect I could create my own files if I can copy your ideas from enough sample pictures in the book. Would that be feasible? Is that the intent of the book?
Thanks for your help.
~ Julie Larson
Dear Julie,
Thank you for your interest! You can go to Amazon and see their “look inside” feature to browse a few random pages here
When I discuss transcripts, I use my own homeschool transcripts to list the discussion. You can see two of my transcript samples.
The course description portion of the book also includes homeschool records from two other parents who were also successful with college admission and scholarships.
If you do best with downloads, then you may want to consider getting the Total Transcript Solution. It comes with ten transcript templates, not just my own, so you have a wide variety to choose from. The Total Transcript Solution also comes with one month of support through the Silver Training Club, which has a new course description every month, so you’ll have lots of those to choose from as well. The Total Transcript Solution does not come with Setting the Records Straight, and it’s intended to help you mainly with your transcript, not with course descriptions. To read more about the Total Transcript Solution, you can read this page
As I often say on this blog, our goal as homeschool parents is NOT to teach something. Our goal is for our kids to LEARN. Sometimes they will learn how to learn a subject on their own, without having a teacher teach them.
I believe that older teens MUST learn how to teach themselves. If they go to college, they will be expected to learn all the textbook material on their own. College lectures are most often supplemental to the textbook – not the same. If they don’t go to college, they will still have to teach themselves some computer skills, or online banking, or how to buy a car – whatever. Learning to teach yourself is a critical life skill.
I could have taught my kids “at grade level” and they would have not learned a thing. Instead, I gave them curriculum at their ability level, and then they had to learn something that they didn’t already know. When we got into high school, some of things that we “at their ability level” were truly above my ability level. I thought I was stuck, and unable to teach them. I felt inadequate. How could I teach them subjects I didn’t know myself?
My kids taught themselves Advanced Math (pre-Calculus) and Calculus. They taught themselves physics. I gave them the answer key and the textbook, and they read the books and worked on their daily work using the answer key until they felt comfortable with the concepts. I know they knew the material because I gave them the tests. When I gave them a test, I went shopping, taking the answer key with me. When I returned from the grocery store, they were done with the test, and I would use the answer key myself to make sure my kids answers matched the answers on the key. The answers had to be exact, because I didn’t know what the calculus symbols meant. If the answers weren’t exact, my children would contact the email or telephone support provided by the homeschool textbooks to get some clarification.
I could have taught them Biology and Chemistry (because I’m an RN and I know that stuff) but they actually taught themselves that as well. It just worked out better for us when they were teaching themselves, while I just checked up on them from time to time. Alex taught himself economics, and is now doing graduate level work in economic thought (we’ve been told by his professor.) He even taught himself psychology and business law, because he got fabulous grades on the college level CLEP exams in those subject. Your children may not teach themselves in EVERY subject, but parents can feel confident in allowing their children to learn things on their own. When children use a video tutorial for the first time, that does NOT mean the homeschool parent is a failure, and failing to teach. Instead, it means the child is becoming an adult, and learning how to learn by teaching themselves.
Here’s my point: kids will teach themselves something when they are interested in it. It’s fine for kids to do that, and it works out great for kids that are working on an intensely academic, college-prep curriculum as well as for kids that are in a relaxed homeschool environment.
I’ve recently been connecting with friends on LinkedIn. I invite you to send me an invitation if you want to connect with my business.
20/20 Hindsight is a wonderful thing. Wouldn’t it be nice to know exactly how everything should go, and see how it will all end?
When you see your current challenges, it’s difficult to know why you are going through certain struggles. The same thing happened to the disciples at the triumphal entry. They knew Jesus would die, and they knew the crowd was acting like Jesus was a King. They couldn’t understand how these two different things could fit into God’s long-term plans.
John 12:12-19
The Triumphal Entry
The next day the great crowd that had come for the Feast heard that Jesus
was on his way to Jerusalem. They took palm branches and went out to meet
him, shouting,
“Hosanna!”
“Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!”
“Blessed is the King of Israel!” 14Jesus found a young donkey and sat
upon it, as it is written,
“Do not be afraid, O Daughter of Zion;
see, your king is coming,
seated on a donkey’s colt.”
At first his disciples did not understand all this. Only after Jesus was glorified did they realize that these things had been written about him and that they had done these things to him.
I would love to tell you exactly why we struggle with our teens, and why calculus is so difficult to teach, and why teenagers can be hard to deal with. I would love to explain why your specific situation is the exact thing needed to create a mature adult with character in the long run. Unfortunately, we don’t understand. We will be able to look back afterwards, though, and say, “Ah ha! So THAT is why it happened!” But for now, it’s hard to figure out.
Parents have to deal with disappointments. A child doesn’t get into the program, isn’t elected as an officer, performs poorly in front of others, or doesn’t get admitted into the “for sure” college. We may not understand why these things happen. However, one day, when our children are grown and older, we’ll be able to look back and see purpose in our disappointments – and the successes.
20/20 Hindsight may be lovely, but if we knew what was happening, would we still learn? Perhaps our ignorance of the big “why” questions is part of the reason we can learn. Faith abounds when you don’t know the “why” of life. Faith also reminds us that one day we will know the answers, and see the positive results of our struggles from today.
I have multiple redundancies for my computer because I use it for business. External hard drives and remote back-up systems like Carbonite Online Backup serve a great purpose. Most homeschoolers don’t have the time or energy to back up all their data like that, but disasters can happen. A single computer virus, a major computer crash, or a household disaster or theft can destroy all the hard work you put into making your transcript.
There is a very simple solution. Send an email.
Once you have finished or updated your transcript, email it to yourself. When you receive the email, save it! If you can create email folders, then save it under “Back up Copies.” If you have online email access from anywhere, then you will always have access to that email you send yourself.
This is a great strategy for saving your teenagers written reports as well. Each time they complete a paper, they can not only save it on the computer but also email it to you. Saving those emails will make sure you always have samples of work to give to any college that wants to see something.
My sons have used this technique throughout college, so share this idea with your college-bound students. Alex would work all day on campus, and then email himself his work. From home, he would check his email, download his work, and continue working from home. It was a great alternative to using an expensive flash drive (which can easily be lost.) It allowed him to transfer his work easily between computers and gave him free online back up as well.
If you don’t have online email access, consider getting a gmail account just so you can use this amazingly cost effective back up strategy.
Do you like getting this sort of help for homeschooling high school? Gold Care Club members get extended answers to their most challenging high school issues.
Junior high is your training ground. For parents, junior high has two purposes. First, it’s a time to learn how to high school, taking classes and reading books that will prepare you for the task ahead. Like reading “What to Expect When you are Expecting” the learning process should be both fun and educational for you. The second purpose is to practice high school record-keeping skills. That way nothing will come as a surprise, and you won’t have moments of panic or terror because you don’t know what you’re doing.
For the children, junior high also serves two purposes. These two years are set aside for remedial work, so if your child needs extra help in math, or writing, that’s what this time is for. You can’t be behind, because the purpose of 7th and 8th grade is to spend time getting those skills up to grade level. The other purpose of junior high is to allow children to take high school level classes in any areas where they are ready. If they are ready for Algebra 1 or French 1, then they can take those high school level classes (and you can put it on the transcript) even if they are doing remedial work in other subject areas.
So you see, it’s not possible to be “behind” or “ahead” in junior high, because the purpose is to serve both needs.
I’ve recently been connecting with friends on LinkedIn. I invite you to send me an invitation if you want to connect with my business.
How do you know when a homeschooling curriculum just isn’t working for you? Listen for the words you use to describe it!
“We used Jay Wile for my two oldest. We struggled/battled/survived but it is just not working for my 9th grader. We stopped halfway through Physical Science, switched to Alpha & Omega Switched-On Schoolhouse, which wasn’t much better. I’m dreading Biology next year but will struggle through Jay Wile if there is nothing else out there for the non-Science family.”
Struggled, battled, and barely survived? Those words indicate it was a curriculum mismatch!
I love Apologia, but I recognize it isn’t for everyone. I have heard more complaints about physical science and general science than I have heard about their biology, chemistry and physics. It may be just that particular BOOK that wasn’t good. Biology, chemistry and physics are so different from one another, it’s very easy to love one of them and loathe the other two! Don’t completely give up hope on the other Apologia books.
You can search for a science that is interesting to your children. Check out or call HomeScienceTools.com to find other options.
You might consider taking a year to learn a science that truly interests your children; astronomy, geology,botany, electronics, crime scene investigation, or computer science, for example. Then the following year, when they have forgotten how much they loathe science, you can reintroduce biology or chemistry.
For a non-sciency family, remember that you want to find something that your children can tolerate, even if they don’t end up loving it. You want to make sure they are consistent, because if they do science only sporatically they may end up hating it even more. Try to find some fun and meaningful supplements, particularly if they are kinesthetic learners. A field trip to the zoo or hospital, a hands-on first aid class, or botany lab work outside can help.
Do colleges want work samples mainly from the child’s senior year?
~Theresa
Dear Theresa,
Thank you for your question! Some colleges will want samples of work, and other colleges will not. When a college asks for work samples, they may not all want the same sort of thing. In the colleges that we applied to, one wanted a written lab report from science, another wanted a math paper in the student handwriting, and a couple of colleges wanted a graded English paper. Other colleges may request a sample from other subjects. None of our college specified that the work samples had to be from senior year.
To make sure that you have any work samples that may be required, it can help to be a little bit organized. I kept a binder with a tab for each subject. I tried to collect work samples in every subject. My goal was to have a few work samples in every subject that was listed in the transcript “just in case.” I figured that no matter how many colleges we applied to, even if they all asked for exactly the same thing at exactly the same time I would still have enough work samples for everyone.
If you haven’t kept work samples all along in high school, then it’s fine to provide them just from senior year. If you are applying to college early in the fall, then you can always create any necessary work samples that may be required (“Honey, you need to do a lab report this week, because the college needs one.”) If you have kept work samples from every year of high school, then use the BEST work sample you can provide. In other words, give them the scholarship-winning essay, not the one that has red corrections allover it, and give them their best math test from their best math year, not the most recent test when they were distracted by other things.
Read to what others are saying about The HomeScholar Gold Care Club!
Has anyone homeschooled college using things such as MIT’s Open Courseware, and would completing courses through this be an acceptable path?
~Stephanie on Facebook
To get college credit while you homeschool (“homeschooling college”) requires credits to be accredited by some organization (like CLEP) or some college (like Thomas Edison.) While MIT’s Open Courseware classes are extremely cool, they aren’t accredited. You would probably need to find a test to measure knowledge gained from the Open Courseware and then a college to grant credit based on that test. Sounds like a job for superman – I mean CollegePlus!
Your e-book on transcripts changed my life this year, and thus, the lives of my children! My oldest is in 8th grade and earlier this past school year, she thought she wanted to go to high school. I wasn’t sure what to do for high school, so I was having trouble getting her excited over the idea of remaining homeschooled. I saw your book, ordered it in December, but did not get around to reading it until about February. That is when things started to change in two ways. I was able to share my excitement about your e-book with my oldest, especially your transcripts with Sonlight courses, as we have used Sonlight in the past and really liked it. We attended various homeschool meetings with co-ops to get high school ideas, and over the course of 4 months, we have decided to homeschool all 3 kids, the middle one coming to me out of the blue in March and asking if she could homeschool again (she had 1 year previously).
I especially like some advice you have given to stay with curriculum you have already successfully used. For us, that would be Sonlight. However, a few things have come up lately making me question that. Do you think I’d be compromising my own beliefs by using Sonlight for history/literature, even though it bothers me that, as a company, they won’t take a stand on the old earth/young earth issue? Would you even recommend trying 3 separate Sonlight cores and work 4 hours a day?
We used Sonlight through Core 100, and then we had read all the books, so I had to branch out on my own. My son worked at Discovery Institute as an intern at the think tank responsible for much of the intelligent design debate. He has worked closely with many of their writers, including Jay Richards of Privileged Planet, etc. We had MANY discussions in our home about creation, evolution and “intelligent design.” Because of that, Alex was able to pass a CLEP exam in Biology – carefully noting all the “icons of evolution” included on the test. We used Apologia, so my children had the science background for new earth. When I was talking to my son a few months ago, he wished that we had presented MORE non-new-earth material. He wanted to have more information so he would have been better prepared to handle it in discussion from school with evolution and old-earth students. I think at a college level, you really want them to be prepared with more information, rather than less. Of course it’s a huge balance, because you don’t want to freak out the younger children while you are instructing the older children in wisdom.
Here is how I look at it. You want them to learn the information so they don’t totally do a 180 in college. You don’t want them to think it’s like Santa Claus, and they can’t trust you anymore. So more information is better. At home, at least you can talk about it and better prepare them to have their beliefs challenged (as they will be at some point, whether they go to college or not.) In my opinion, it’s better to use mildly-evolutionary material and discuss it rather than young-earth-only material and have them flip out when they are first experiencing the other viewpoint without their parents around to guide them.
As far as using three levels of Sonlight goes, I didn’t interact with my children and their schoolwork in the older grades. Still, three levels DOES sound difficult. It can at least help to study the same time period if you use different cores, so your supplemental experiences and field trips and coordinate. But speak to a Sonlight Rep to get a better response. I don’t think I would eliminate a curriculum because of a mild disagreement if it is working. You’re right, there will ALWAYS be some belief issues in ANY curriculum – nothing will be a perfect fit. Instead of completely changing to a different curriculum, you might want to try a SIMILAR curriculum, like Tapestry of Grace. It’s also literature based, but all ages can work together. You might want to also consider reading Managers of Their Homes over summer, so that you can learn strategies for making your homeschool coordinate with your job.
Do you like getting this sort of help for homeschooling high school? Gold Care Club members get extended answers to their most challenging high school issues.
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