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If your student is considering college, take a look at our college preparation and admissions resources. For students interested in military service, visit our page for homeschoolers joining the military.
Help for Homeschooling High School
Course Planner & Transcript Template – Our spreadsheet planner, Homeschool Planner Plus, includes several resources to help you plan and keep track of your high school student’s courses and credits. It includes a transcript template that will calculate GPA for you based on the grades input for each course.
Senior High: A Home-Designed Form+u+la and other resources – Book by Barb Shelton of Homeschool Oasis; great for preparing your child for life after high school
How to Study – Studying is a skill to be learned, not a talent one is born with. From taking notes in class to how to succeed on an essay test, this site gives useful and practical ways to succeed. When you click a link, scroll down to see the results – the page will not appear to change when clicking links since what changes is out of site below. The site is provided by two education professors who developed more detailed study skills programs that can be purchased from the site.
Build a high school transcript – Building a high school transcript can be a daunting task. It doesn’t have to be. Teascript enables you to create a professional transcript in minutes instead of days.
Suggested Reading From Our Blog
Instead of Curriculum: Earn High School Government Credits Differently
Don’t depend on boring government textbooks; use an activities approach to learning how government works. If teens do these activities, talk about their experiences with you and others, and follow rabbit trails online, they will likely retain more knowledge about how government works than if they just read from a government textbook.
Read More »
Resources for Homeschooling High School When Mom’s Not the Expert
When negative people who don’t know anything about homeschooling start talking about why it can’t work, one of their criticisms is that homeschooling parents can’t possibly know enough to homeschool the “hard” subjects of high school, which is why homeschooled kids won’t ever get into college. Of course, this would be a shock to all the homeschooled kids who’ve not only been accepted to college, but also already graduated.
Read More »
College Admission Requirements: Homeschooling High School
Homeschooling is not public schooling, and homeschooling parents have wide latitude in what their children should study, how they should learn, and what qualifies a teen for graduation or a diploma. Homeschooling is governed by state laws, which vary from state-to-state, and you should check with a homeschooling organization in your state to see if there are course or “subject” requirements, and how homeschoolers show they have met those requirements in that state. If there are no course requirements, as with homeschoolers in most states, what should your child study and learn during high school, if college is on the ... Read More »
Bad News/Good News of Starting Homeschooling in High School
Starting homeschooling during the high school years can seem intimidating or liberating — or both. There is both good news and bad news about starting out homeschooling in high school, but for many people the good outweighs the bad.
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Ask Jeanne: Do Homeschoolers Get a Diploma?
Dear Jeanne,
Do homeschoolers get a diploma? Half of my family is pro-homeschooling and half is anti-homeschooling. How do I convince my family that homeschooling would be a better and more positive solution than public school?S.H. in Colorado
You have a couple of overt questions and a couple of implied ones. Let’s see what we can tease apart here, because these are common concerns for prospective homeschoolers.
Homeschool Diplomas
What you are talking about when you mention the diploma, I think, is whether homeschooling will open or close doors for your children. It sounds like your family – and maybe you – have concerns ... Read More »
Teen Tech Project: Building a Computer
This week I visited with a homeschooling family whose son was anxiously awaiting his shipments from New Egg and Tiger Direct — full of the components he would assemble into his own PC.
This brought back fond memories, since two of my three sons undertook this same project during their teen years, and my oldest actually did the same after he graduated.
Read More »
Homeschooling Teens: Finding a Third Place
Homeschooling teens means a lot of questions about preparing for college admission or getting experience and training for a vocation or artistic endeavor. We wring our hands over curriculum and credits, and we help our teens learn to drive and manage their money.
But another little piece of life experience we can help our teens with is being able to work in “a third place.”
Typically, a third place is talked about in the world of adults, as the place that is “not home” and “not work.”
College students and some high school students often study or socialize in a “third place” that ... Read More »
Homeschooling High School: Our 11th Grade Plan
We are homeschooling high school all the way through. If you would like to see how we track credits and create transcripts, see Our 10th Grade Plan. If you haven’t checked out our free Homeschool Planner Plus download, you should take a look at it for creating high school transcripts. It is easy to plug in your courses and credits and the spreadsheet calculates your GPA for you.
The 11th Grade Plan: DE English – This year’s focus is on composition through the local community college’s ENG 111 course. Over the course of the semester, students work to complete a ... Read More »
5 Homeschool Graduation Ceremony Ideas
Do homeschoolers have graduation ceremonies?
Some do; some don’t. And those who do have graduation ceremonies may mark the occasion differently from one another. If you are looking for homeschool graduation ceremony ideas that fit your family, there are many options from which to choose. Here are a few that work for many different types of kids and families.
Read More »
Two Vital Factors for Homeschooling Teens
The teenaged years are actually the most rewarding of the homeschooling years. That’s what we’ve found with our four homeschooled kids. And that’s what I was told by many of the 110 families I interviewed for my book Free Range Learning: How Homeschooling Changes Everything. People in Ireland, Australia, India, and the U.S. described coming to this realization in similar ways. Their concerns about helping a young child master the basics or their struggles to find the right homeschooling style gradually resolved. Parents grew to trust the process of learning much more completely and, perhaps as a result, they saw ... Read More »
9 Benefits of Hosting an International Exchange Student
Hosting an international exchange student can be a great experience for homeschooling families. We hosted a student from Ecuador, and while the commitment can seem daunting, having Isaac José with us for a school year enriched our lives.
What are some of the benefits of hosting an international student?
Read More »
Challenges to Homeschooling High School
Homeschooling a teen can be really hard. While I’m overall glad to be homeschooling, I have a high school age daughter who is difficult to work with and who is inconsistent in her approach to homeschooling. She has always been a challenging child, and as expected, the teen years have had a lot of turmoil. Homeschooling seems to catch a lot of blame for our problems — but it’s not from outsiders or family members. She spends a lot of time lamenting being homeschooled and blaming us for trapping her in home education — despite the fact that she has ... Read More »
Homeschool High School Composition: The Assignments
Part I of Homeschool High School Composition gives an overview of how to approach teaching homeschool composition. It is important to read it before using the assignments below, since it is a different perspective for teaching composition. Below are the assignments for composition using this part-to-whole process. The assignments use the UNC Writing Center’s free online resources.
If you would like to download the assignments, we have them as a PDF download here: Homeschool High School Composition
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Homeschool High School Composition
The Writing Center at UNC has put together a large collection of writing resources for college writing that are excellent tools for teaching homeschool high school composition. The center’s downloads and videos offer detailed explanations about research, sourcing, organization, editing and proofreading, voice, fallacies, thesis statements, and dozens of other writing topics. The resources are arranged alphabetically, making them easy to find by topic but not offering much in the way of an orderly progression for teaching. The following is a suggested order of study for using the resources for composition for a homeschooled high school student. In our case, ... Read More »
Homeschool High School: Our 10th Grade Plan
From the feedback and questions that we get on our Facebook page, there is a great deal of interest in how to homeschool high school. This year my daughter is a sophomore in high school, and I thought it might be helpful to share our 10th grade plan with you. Contrary to popular belief, homeschooling high school is often easier than homeschooling younger grades. Students are older, more mature, and better able to manage their own academics. When they need assistance, the material is more difficult, but between teacher guides, online resources, and friends with a knowledge of the subject ... Read More »
Contextual Learning: Homeschooling Through Fashion
This year in my role as a homeschool evaluator, I met a number of tweens and teens who are interested in fashion. As we went through their portfolio of work and talked about their year, I was fascinated with the ways they had woven their interest in fashion with their academic studies. Two of the teens I met with had taken their interest in current fashion into the past — studying the typical dress and accessorizing of women and men in earlier periods of history. They also took their fashion interest international — studying the current typical dress of modern-day ... Read More »
Instead of Curriculum: The Great Courses
Our family has greatly enjoyed using The Great Courses audio and video recorded classes. The first of The Great Courses we used was The Story of Human Language, presented by leading linguist John McWhorter, who gives 36 lectures about the development of human language, why languages change or become extinct, dialects, how languages and their grammars affect thinking, and what the study of language can tell us about history and interconnectedness of early peoples.
From there, we began listening to every Great Courses CD set the library had. They offer courses in science, math, fine arts, music, religion, philosophy, history, ... Read More »
Dropping Out Was a Great Idea
Lately, I’ve been hearing a lot of questions raised about how innovations in technology will change education as we know it – Can machines replace teachers? Do internet resources provide everything needed to develop professional skills? What happens if you replace school with online learning? I’ve spent my life trying to find out, and the answers I have are both promising and a little horrifying.
Read More »
A Homeschool Guide to High School Grades, Credits and Transcripts
If you didn’t have a chance to attend our free webinar ,"A Homeschool Parent’s Guide to High School Grades, Credits and Transcripts", the full webinar recording is now online. Lee Binz of TheHomeScholar covers a variety of topics and spends over 45 minutes answering participants’ questions at the end of the webinar, so be sure to listen to the Q&A session as well as the presentation itself.
Read More »
High School Graduation Checklist
Parents can provide a college preparation during high school for every student, which can benefit every child. If they ultimately don’t go to college, then your homeschool education will be the only education they get. Make it great! They’ll be well prepared for life and their civic responsibilities. Plus, if they ever change their mind and decide to go to college, they will have a much easier time getting in. On the other hand, some parents know early on that their children are college bound. ... Read More »
7 Reasons to Homeschool Through High School
Why would you want to homeschool through high school? Do the advantages really make it worth while? My husband and I homeschooled all four of our boys from kindergarten into early college, and we’d do it all over again in a minute. It was a joyous journey! Here are seven reasons you may want to consider homeschooling through high school. Read More »
How to Homeschool in High School
How do you homeschool in high school? The greatest encouragement someone gave me when I was contemplating what high school home schooling looked like, was – “It’s no different; you just keep going.” When our children were entering the “high school” years, I had an idea that homeschooling was going to change completely. However, our routine stayed the same, and most subjects stayed the same. The difference was our learning methods and our focus. By the time our children have reached the high school years, a foundational base of knowledge should have been laid. They should have a basic grasp ... Read More »
Homeschool High School’s Most Essential Subject
What subjects should you include when homeschooling your teen through high school? Answering this question can and does fill entire books. Personally, I think at least some of the subjects should be related to your teen’s interests as much as anything else. But there’s one subject that should be mandatory: personal finance. Now that our economy appears to be in freefall, a quick look at the comments section of online articles about the subject reveals people complaining, lamenting and sometimes bellowing about the lack of financial education offered to teens in our public ... Read More »
Homeschooling High School
Step One– Thinking About It! Does the idea of homeschooling your high schooler sound scary and uncharted to you? Just as homeschooling is an adventure no matter what grade or age level, homeschooling for high school can sound intimidating! Please know that many, many families have successfully (and happily!) completed this chapter of education for one or more of their children. Speaking as a parent who has done this, these capstone years are do-able, really fun, easier, and more rewarding than our family imagined they’d be. What’s wonderful is that just as in the other years, you can find courses and help them ... Read More »
Online High School Programs
* Our listing of these schools does not imply endorsement. Please research and use wisdom research when choosing an online school. There are several websites listed under Miscellaneous Helps that can help you evaluate online schools.
ALEKS – Assessment and LEarning in Knowledge Spaces is a Web-based, artificially intelligent assessment and learning system. ALEKS uses adaptive questioning to quickly and accurately determine exactly what a student knows and doesn’t know in a course. ALEKS then instructs the student on the topics she is most ready to learn. As a student works through a course, ALEKS periodically reassesses the student to ensure that topics learned are also retained. ALEKS courses are very complete in their topic coverage and ALEKS avoids multiple-choice questions. A student who shows a high level of mastery of an ALEKS course will be successful in the actual course she is taking. ALEKS also provides the advantages of one-on-one instruction, 24/7, from virtually any Web-based computer for a fraction of the cost of a human tutor. Although not every subject is covered, there is a wide selection of courses available with an emphasis on math and business.
American School – The American School has been offering educational programs by correspondence for over 100 years. Their goal is to give each student personal attention, including the personal grading of examinations. Tuition is very affordable
Citizen’s High School – Citizens’ High School provides quality coursework for people to earn a high school diploma from an accredited program. They observe a year-round calendar and students may begin and complete coursework and grade levels at their own pace and in the comfort of their own home or wherever their travels may take them.
K¹² International Academy – The K¹² International Academy is an accredited, private online school that offers the world-renowned curriculum from K¹², the market leader in online curriculum programs for grades K-12. K¹² also offers a virtual public school; be sure you understand the difference as the virtual public school is under the umbrella of a local school district.
Laurel Springs School – “Laurel Springs School, founded in 1991, is an accredited private school offering distance learning college preparatory curricula and teacher services for grades K-12. Located in Ojai, California, Laurel Springs serves students in all 50 states and in 43 countries. Current enrollment is 3,000 students, with more than 2,000 students preparing for college in the online high school program. Laurel Springs uses web-based communication tools, a standards-based curriculum, and personalized instruction to offer students the highest quality home education experience.”
Liberty Academy Online – Liberty University Online Academy is a web-based curriculum specially developed for students in grades 3-12 and supported by Liberty University. LUOA offers a turn-key home learning system with proven curriculum that is simple to use. Features:
- Online academic support through a unique faculty/student messaging system
- Automated lesson planning
- Instant grading feedback
- Flexible, yet structured program, customized to meet the needs of each student
- Biblically-based, Christ-centered curriculum
- Rolling enrollment: enroll and start classes at any time of the year
- Qualified academic support with your personal academic advisor
- Record keeping and transcription of all student work
- Access to Liberty University’s extensive online library services
Oak Meadow – Oak Meadow publishes homeschool curriculum materials adapted from the Waldorf method and has an accredited distance education school. For over 30 years, Oak Meadow has created independent learning materials for families around the world. Through experience, Oak Meadow provides a firm foundation for academic excellence, while offering new opportunities for learning. They offer a unique hybrid of accredited standards delivered with imagination and heart. Visit their website to request a catalog and view sample lessons, or call their office in Vermont to speak with their supportive staff.
Miscellaneous Helps
Diploma Mills: Degrees of Deception – FTC consumer alert advising consumers how to avoid getting scammed by a diploma mill for a high school or college degree.
Important Questions About Accreditation, Degree Mills andAccreditation Mills – From the Council for Higher Education Accreditation
National vs. Regional Accreditation – Explains the basic differences
Information about Diploma Mills – From eLearners.com, this article explains how to recognize Diploma Mills.
Understanding Accreditation – “Will employers value the online degree you have received? Will you be able to transfer credits from your online course to another institution? Will the online program you select provide a rigorous and worthwhile educational experience? A key to answering these questions is an understanding of accreditation and the accreditation process. This article will provide you with the basic information you need to make wise and informed decisions when selecting an online program or course.”
“How Do We Know When We’re Done?” – “How do homeschooling families decide when their teenagers have completed high school? What combination of academic work, accomplishment, and time is enough? How do families evaluate their teenager’s learning and decide What’s Enough?” This article by Cafi Cohen helps answer the question, “How Do We Know When We’re Done?”
Taking Charge – “Should we homeschoolers be worried about getting conventional credentials? Are homeschoolers’ futures jeopardized because the path to a conventional diploma is less clear-cut than it is for a student in a conventional school? Why and how is the process of getting a diploma becoming more complex? What choices do we have?” This article by Larry and Susan Kaseman addresses these questions.
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