High school: The OTHER scary part...

People have often told me the two scariest times in their homeschool experience are teaching reading and homeschooling high school. We've talked a little bit about teaching reading, let's look at high school.

First, deep breath, maybe have a cup of tea, calm those trembling hands and shaking nerves. You can do this.

A great first step (after your tea) is to make sure you are familiar with the homeschool law in your state. This will help you know what you need to comply with, such as keeping a basic log of hours spent, topics taught, etc. More about records in another post.

Before the beginning of high school, I strongly suggest you make a simple chart. I like to list the courses down the left side of my page and the years across the top, 9th, 10th, and so on.

As you fill in "X's" in the intersecting boxes, you are planning out your student's high school years. Remember this is a general plan. You can list "English" on the left. It's usually done, in some form, each year, so place X's in all four years. That's fine, even though later as you plan in more detail, one year might end up, "Poetry" or "Composition 1" or "Creative Writing".

This will help you plan out the pace of the four years so your student isn't twiddling his thumbs one year, or hearing; "Honey, guess what, you're going to earn 32 credits this year!" Along with the overall pace, you can plan out courses that need certain courses done first. For instance, Algebra 1 is usually a prerequisite, a "do-first" (or at least a co-requisite, a "do-at-the-same-time) for Chemistry.

If that sounds awfully organized, I'll let you in on a couple of secrets: I do this in pencil, not pen, and I've lost that master chart at least once for each child. You can re-create that chart if needed (because you not only lost it, but didn't find it again. Ask me how I know!).

Where do you get the courses? I've looked at the Office of Public Instruction website and the Montana state law to make sure I am exceeding that. Then at lots of college websites for admission requirements. I made sure to look at a range of large and small, public and private colleges, and a wide variety of geographic locations.

At first glance, this might seem daunting and very rigid. Keep in mind that most of those places listed something like: "Engligh, 4 yrs, must include composition and literature". As I mentioned, you have lots of freedom to both meet the student's needs and satisfy his interests, Poetry, Creative Writing, American Literature, English Literature, etc.

We've just scratched the surface! I have lots more to offer, stay tuned here, and I hope to see you at the Montana Homeschool Convention, coming up this weekend!