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My husband and I went on an Alaska cruise with my parents. It was wonderful, and we had SUCH a good time! It was fun to see a client and her family on the ship, too! Midway through the cruise, I had the chance to speak to our cruise director, Jason Venner on the Holland America MS Westerdam. Jason was raised in the Pacific Northwest. He lived in a remote location of the Columbia River Gorge, without running water, electricity or telephones.
Jason was an only child, homeschooled by his mother. That was where he developed his great passion: the outdoors and adventure sports. He went to Linfield College on academic scholarships and studied business management, leadership, and communication. On our cruise, Jason was the BEST cruise director – humorous and outgoing beyond measure! When I was talking to him, I joked, “Can’t you just try to come out of your shell a little bit?” We had some good laughs about socialization. Jason said, “I loved homeschooling, and I wouldn’t change a thing about my childhood!”
Obviously, Jason is a perfect fit for the socially demanding job of guiding thousands of adults in fun activities. I wonder if his mother had any idea the profession Jason would choose. Did she think he might grow up to be socially awkward? Did she worry about the opportunities he missed? Was she concerned that she might be holding him back? I suppose she knew he was gregarious – did she worry about socialization? I looked at him, and thought about my clients homeschooling in remote locations, and military and missionary families struggling to fit in. I had a whole new appreciation for the Grand Plan.
“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”
~ Jeremiah 29:11
Don’t worry. You can’t mess up too bad. Your children are going to be who they are meant to be, and they are going to do what they are meant to do. Even if you are homeschooling in the middle of nowhere, without running water, electricity, or telephones.
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Are you looking for a way to spark learning in your children? Want a great way to kick off a lesson or unit study? This giveaway is for you! Classroom Moments is giving away great videos perfect for igniting interest and sparking conversation between your children of all ages.
Three Prizes
3 lucky winners will receive a copy of Classroom Moments Volume 1 DVD – 24 videos, ebook, and activities to teach science, history, art, and more!
To Enter
Visit Classroom Moments and ENTER HERE by October 7th.
To Win
Classroom Moments will choose the winner by random drawing. We’ll share the winners’ names on our blog by Monday, October 10th.
Please share this Giveaway with all of your homeschool friends! You know, EVERYONE likes a freebie! Good luck!
Learn how to translate all those great homeschool high school classes into the words and numbers that colleges will understand. Get the Total Transcript Solution .
This is a very encouraging news report about a regular homeschool family. Brita Wren is interviewed by WLOX News in Mississippi. ”I think I had higher expectations sometimes than the schools that they were in to begin with, that we expected them to do their best,” said Wren. “There’s no peer pressure, no bullying; there’s no busy work.” WLOX News
New law gives homeschoolers more respect, freedom
Minnesota parents who teach their children at home feel like they have received a promotion.
“The state is recognizing the validity of home education,” Lorna Cook of Willmar said of a new law that frees homeschoolers from most of the bureaucracy of old laws. “To those of us who are home educators, the statistics show that, overall for home education, parents are doing a pretty good job.” The Republican Eagle
Homeschooling: Right Choice for Your Child?
This is a great article by Fox News, with lots of interesting quotes. “I think for the parent’s perspective, research shows us it’s a better ride, but it’s not an easy ride,” says Ray. “You have to be intentional, thoughtful, humble, and talk to other people in your support group to get new ideas-it’s work, but it’s a different kind of work.” Fox Business
The easy part of earning admission to Harvard is being a homeschooler. The hard part about getting into Harvard is the same thing that makes it hard for every other student to get in. Harvard accepts homeschoolers, and if your homeschooler has an eye on the Ivy League schools, don’t worry that homeschooling will hold them back. Here is a story about one family and how they educated for excellence, with excellent results.
Here is a YouTube interview with the student and her father.
Homeschool to Harvard: one student’s amazing story – Dakota Root with father, Wayne Allyn Root on Fox News on 5-23-10 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LBxCJ43uwkA
You can read an article by her father called “Homeschool to Harvard.” http://whiskeyandgunpowder.com/homeschool-to-harvard/
Homeschooled her whole life, “Dakota Root achieved her lifelong dream. She was accepted at both Harvard and Stanford. She was also accepted at Columbia, Penn, Brown, Duke, Chicago, Cal-Berkeley, USC and several more of the elite schools in America, an unheard of record for a home-school kid.”
Just remember, if your child wants to go to Harvard, being homeschooled is NOT a hurdle they have to overcome. It’s everything else that Harvard requires that’s difficult!
Homeschooling is NOT the same as doing schoolwork at home. There is LOTS of freedom! My Gold Care Club will give you all the help you need to succeed!
Dear Lee,
“Did you schedule the art studies or simply allow them do it as they wanted? I debate a lot about whether its worth setting aside the time for art study.”
Art is really, TRULY my weak area, for that reason I basically reserved time for art study, or else we would most likely never do it! We never had a challenge getting math or science finished, only art, LOL! I planned it for 2-3 times a week, 1-1/2 or 2 hours at a time, depending on the year. Never the less, it was one thing that we from time to time simply didn’t do. (Art is so messy, you understand.)
We did the book “Art Fun” the first year, the Feed My Sheep for two years, then Draw Today. We even did a few pottery classes, and that was enjoyable. I own a few art games that they played, not to mention there were a number of books on artists that I had them read over the years. When your kids just “do” art, then it’s possible that you don’t really have to have art study. We NEEDED art study, as my kids didn’t ever Get it done otherwise.
In high school I taught them art primarily from an art history point of view, and also art appreciation. I believe in high school, it’s good to have some art appreciation course, yet might be other kids just naturally find themselves learning art free of any kind of help whatsoever. Hey, Alex studied economics without having any help! Kevin studied Russian History, of all things, without having any encouragement! Simply not art…
I have created a series of videos on creating great homeschool records for college. You can find them here.
I used Latin Road for 3 years. My boys were RATHER successful with it, not to mention my son still remembers all of his Latin even after three years without cracking a book! He was required to take a college placement test at the college he’s attending, so they could find out which course would be applicable for him. He passed all 3 levels of Latin, and began the university in Junior level! Yippee! He liked Latin Road so much that he has continued his Latin studies in college.
Latin Road applies quite a lot of memorization, rote learning, flash cards, and practice, practice, practice. It needed just as much time as a math program, not to mention we were required to undertake some Latin translating every single day, just as you complete math problems every single day. It seemed to be highly mom demanding, as you say. I used to dedicate approximately two hours on weekends getting my own lessons finished, ın order that I could understand the best way to teach it the next week. Her lessons are clearly arranged, as well as I in no way had any sort of difficulties knowing what to undertake on a daily basis. It ended up being QUITE obvious, as well as each lesson was around the equal amount of time of time to accomplish, and each lesson was very clearly marked.
Again, almost like a math book, I think! It was developed for homeschoolers, so that’s part of why it was so straightforward to use. Each day we would do some flash cards, recite some memorized lesson or maybe read aloud, and also do some copy work or translating. It was a LARGE AMOUNT of work, and challenging, however my boys truly seemed to like it, and it certainly paid off in the end.
Hope that helps!
Read to what others are saying about The HomeScholar Gold Care Club!
A while ago, a segment of one of my newsletters was plagiarized. I consulted my in-house “lawyer in training” – my son Alex.
Whenever I think of our discussion that day, it really warms my heart. On one Sunday, in our “Love and Respect” Sunday School class, I think I finally recognized why Alex’s assistance had been so important to me that day. He was defending me – which was showing that he loved me.
In the book, it tells a good deal about cycles, and ways love LEADS TO respect, and respect LEADS TO love. Therefore I started contemplating what I did to show my son respect that day. I think that the moment when I wanted to know his view of the issue, adult to adult, was the moment that he knew I respected him. We won’t even look at all the times I completely *fail* at the love and respect cycle, but I did think it was interesting to look at a situation in which it worked. I hope it will encourage you.
Catherine asks: How important is it to have a typical looking transcript with grades and a GPA vs a more narrative type of transcript or even one with courses listed but no grades, since our goal is mastery and so they’d all just be A’s anyway?
Hi Catherine,
Perhaps you might attempt to think about this a little differently. Imagine yourself being a foreign language translator. Your job is to translate what you have completed in your homeschool, into words and numbers that colleges understand. Your job isn’t to alter your homeschool – simply do what gets results for you. Your job is only to translate your activities (whatever they are) into the “love language” of colleges.
I know that many colleges don’t mind a narrative description of a homeschool. I went to a Christian college fair last Monday, and there were a variety of colleges in which 15-20% of their student body were homeschooled. Those admissions people discussed narrative records in a very nice and receptive way. This weekend I’m going to a Homeschool College Fair, and I’m certain it is going to be equally welcoming to many types of homeschool records (or else they probably wouldn’t be at a fair just for homeschoolers, right? ) However I think the vast majority of colleges might not appreciate anything besides a transcript due to the fact it will look like a foreign language to them.
You may desire to simply cluster your student’s learning experiences together into groupings that are about 1 credit worth. Name it something that seems similar to a class title. Once he has put in a year’s worth of math work, for instance, you may name it “discrete math” or “concepts in math” or something. You might look at CLEP exams, and see which ones seem similar to academic content that your student has mastered, and record those subject details on your transcript. Have you looked at Barb Shelton’s Homeschool Form-U-La book? Her book isn’t for everyone, but she gives you a good description of the best way to take what you have done and describing it in college-friendly language.
As homeschool parents, our plan is NOT to teach something. Our goal is for the kids to LEARN. I could have taught my kids “at grade level” and they might have not learned a thing. Instead, I offered them curriculum at their ability level, and then they had to learn something that they didn’t already know.
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 by themselves. College lectures are most often supplemental to the textbook – not the same. If perhaps they don’t go to college, they will certainly still need to teach themselves some computer skills, or perhaps online banking, or how to buy a car – whatever.
My kids taught themselves Advanced Math (pre-Calculus) and Calculus. They taught themselves physics. I know they understood the material due to the fact I gave them the tests. I didn’t know what the calculus symbols meant, however I knew that my kids answers matched the answers on the key! I could have taught them Biology and Chemistry (because I’m an RN and I understand that stuff) but they actually taught themselves in that also. It just worked out better for us when they were teaching themselves, while I simply checked up on them now and again. Alex taught himself economics, and is now performing graduate level work in economic thought (we’ve been told by his professor. ) He even taught himself psychology and business law, since he got fabulous grades on the college level CLEP exams in those subjects.
Here’s my point: kids will teach themselves something when they are interested in it. It’s fine for kids to do that, plus it works out great with regard to kids that are working on an intensely academic, college-prep curriculum as well as for kids that are in a laid back homeschool environment.
I have viewed SO many notes regarding “getting it all done” that I just desire to put in a plug for mom having prayer and quiet time. I discovered that when I was consistent with those things I could “get it all done” and when I wasn’t consistent with those things I got discouraged. Either I was expecting too much, or was frustrated too easily. When I spent time with God, then things went much more effortlessly in our homeschooling.
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