One of the joys of being able to educate our two girls at home is that they have had plenty of extra free time to teach themselves how to do new skills about which I have had no idea how to even get started. Kelsi (now 15), decided when she was around 12 years old that she was going to teach herself how to do graphic design. Not having extra $$ to buy Photoshop, she downloaded GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program) for free. Many adults and youth have learned how to develop designs and artwork with GIMP, while I've heard other adults also say that it is too difficult to learn. Myself? I can barely draw much more than a stick figure. My art skills were never developed, although I can do many artistic things - just not draw. :) Well, where there's a will, there's a way. Kelsi downloaded the free GIMP program to our computer. She got busy trying to learn how to use it. When she got stuck, she would look for online tutorials on what to do next. She searched the internet for tips and tricks on how to use GIMP effectively. Meanwhile, Mom still had no clue. Then, she began digitally painting horses of many types and kinds. She learned a lot about shading and highlighting, how to show action and muscles, and a lot more. Me? I'm still in the stick figure stage. :) She went through a horse craze like most girls do, and she illustrated horse after horse with GIMP. It was astonishing to me to see her skills develop! From Kelsi: "I can't draw horses that well, to tell the truth. You can think of this as more of an illustrating process. I find a free-use line drawing that is a simple outline of the horse, called lineart. Then I develop a theme and pick colors and begin to fill in the horse, and add shading, hair, and details. I add finishing touches and then make a background to match the theme." After seeing Kelsi work on graphic design month after month, we decided to try to figure out a way to purchase Photoshop CS5 (Student and Teacher version) for her to use. We were able to get an educational license combined with a sale, a discount, and some Staples Rewards checks on one particular week about 18 months ago, so if my memory serves me correctly, we paid under $100 for the expensive software. (CS6 is the current version, but we aren't planning to upgrade anytime soon.) This is some artwork she has completed over the last year or so. I love the variety! Kelsi has been able to use her graphic design and teaching skills to volunteer at a small, local private school for 10-13 students. Once a week, while she was in the 8th grade, she would teach basic graphic design techniques and web design skills for about an hour. She is a naturally gifted teacher; she spent hours each week preparing handouts and lesson tips for her students. Last summer, she began creating some artwork that demonstrated her faith in Christ. These are some of my favorites: She went through a phase where she enjoyed making movie-inspired artwork, including spoofing movie posters. And lately she's enjoyed putting together images that are very abstract...some with a logical explanation behind them, others just because she was bored. Ha! From Kelsi: "If you're a very big fan of Batman, and you enjoy looking very deeply into plots of films, or if you happen to speak Moroccan, this piece might make since. For everyone else, an explanation is needed. The words Deshi Basara are Moroccan for "Rise", "He rises", or literally, "come quickly". They are surrounded by ash and coal, which represent the pain and death that the phoenix rises from. The phoenix is on fire, flying away in its new glory from the shadow and gloom. All of this, however, was inspired by The Dark Knight Rises. The main chant or phrase that shows up again and again in the film is "Deshi Basara", first referencing the villain's rise to power, then supporting Batman as he escapes from prison. The ashes represent Batman's imprisonment and setbacks. The phoenix itself is Batman. The black cloth represents his cape. By now you've probably realized that I read way too deeply into films, and that I might need to visit a psychologist. This is the curse of the author-artist-musician who thinks in a detail-oriented manner." From Kelsi: "I was bored. I found these pictures and thought, wow, these would look interesting if I put them together. So I did. Normally I refrain from purposeless art, but looking back, this piece reminds me of certain dreams that you can have, that are very weird and don't make sense, but are still very pretty and interesting in their own way." Kelsi has also done a couple of pieces for other people or organizations. She was able to do a mock-up of an idea for a different private school's annual yearbook front cover. She was also able to design the front cover of my uncle's biography about his life in a Japanese internment camp. That book cover turned out beautifully! In our home, while my girls may spend hours on the computer each week, it's not all frivolity. :) Kelsi will spend her free time throughout the summer using the computer to create graphic design pictures like these, to write stories and books, and to develop speeches for 4-H county fair speech competitions. Brittany has learned how to make and edit videos, and how to become a better photographer. She has also learned many international cooking techniques, some which were completely unfamiliar to me! It's important to allow our children to pursue their interests. At times, I have been blessed to find just the perfect sale combined with coupons that will allow us to purchase that item that the girls are really needing next for their interests: a new video camera, software, etc. Without God providing the right opportunity at the right time, this wouldn't be possible for my family to purchase. If you are sensing that your child or teen needs something for his or her hobby that costs more than your family can afford, pray about it. It also helps that the girls save their money and try to pay for as much of the new items as possible. While not all children are as motivated to learn something new and as difficult as my children are, encourage your children. Explore a variety of interests. While sports are a great activity, they also take up a ton of free time where your children could be pursuing interests and developing skills that will help guide them as they seek a career or a future job. And even if they are interested in something that you know nothing about, they can learn so much by googling for tutorials and tips on how to do what they want to learn. Allow them to explore!
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Ever since our girls were tiny . . . . . . we've been sharing the heart of God with them in the evening times as a family. How precious it is to snuggle together on the couch and read the Scriptures! When the girls were very tiny, not even one year old, we were given several beautiful toddler "Bibles" and Christian books to read with our girls. How they loved sitting with us every evening, reading some of the same books over and over, giggling and smiling and enjoying being all together! As they grew into readers, the world of family Bible devotionals just opened up to us. We were amazed at how many children's Bibles and devotional books existed. It wasn't like this when we were young! One of the books we read with the girls quite a few years ago was Starr Meade's book, Mighty Acts of God. It was accurate, filled with simply told events found in the Bible, and the artwork wasn't insulting. We loved it! Starr Meade has now written a sequel to Mighty Acts of God. How wonderful! Another option for families who have younger children at home (ages 5-10), Wondrous Works of God is filled with 90 more events from the Bible, beginning with the true account of God creating Eve, and ending with the epic visions in the book of Revelation. What I thought was very unique about this book, as well as Mighty Acts of God, is that each retelling event highlights an aspect of God's character as well as includes a discussion guide to help the whole family see and understand the wondrous works of God. Each of the 90 retellings in Wondrous Works of God are typically three pages in length, including the artwork. At the end of each retelling, there are questions to think about and answer, as well as extras to do as a family. Here are a couple of samples of the artwork in this book: Beautiful! While I love every stage of our parenting that we are in, I do wish we'd had this book to use with our girls when they were younger. They're a bit too old for Wondrous Works of God now, but some day, we'll have grandchildren with whom we can snuggle up on the couch and share the events of the Bible! Wondrous Works of God is a hardbound book containing 288 pages. The pages are durable, high quality paper. If you are looking for something new to share with your children, this is an excellent option! I received one copy of Wondrous Works of God from Crossway in exchange for my honest review of this family Bible devotional. No other compensation was provided. Amid the long lists of people to visit, shopping to do, and a Santa on each corner, often the message of CHRISTmas gets lost in the busy-ness of the season. Several years ago, our family chose to simplify some of our Christmas "happenings" and focus more on Christ. We began reading through a fun and meaningful series of 3 books (we read through one book each year) written by Arnold Ytreeide (Jotham's Journey, Bartholomew's Passage, Tabitha's Travels) for our family's regular evening worship time with Advent. These three stories fascinated our girls when they were younger (about age 7+), and now that they are in jr. high/high school, they still are enjoying the stories and Advent readings! (And so are Elmer and I...heh, heh!) We simplified our gift-giving list; we actually decided to make fewer Christmas candies and goodies; etc. This year, we are decorating our home with our traditional Christmas decorations as well as these symbols of peace that my daughter, Kelsi, and I designed. People have seemed to enjoy the free October Autumn Pumpkin Scripture printables we made for October and the November "Leaves of Thanks" Scripture printables, so we decided to make some free printable Scripture decorations for December and CHRISTmas for you to enjoy! (Email subscribers will want to click on the title of this blog post to view the graphics and to download the three pages of Christmas Peace for your use.) If you would like to print out these 3 pages of CHRISTmas Peace for your own personal family use, or in your classroom or Sunday School class, just click on the page, below. White or cream-colored cardstock works well for printing these three pages. If you desire, feel free to laminate them for future use. Merry CHRISTmas to you and your family! Please remember that these CHRISTmas Peace printables are copyrighted and are not to be shared on another website without permission from Joy In Our Journey.com. Thanks! I'm thankful I don't have to admit that the Roses are Red poem is the only poetry to which my daughters have been exposed. If that was the case, I think they'd have thrown The Grammar of Poetry books directly at me as hard as they could, when it arrived in the mail. Kelsi and Brittany have actually read some poetry over the years: Shel Silverstein (although I doubt they remember that, it was so many years ago), folk rhymes like Little Miss Muffet...biblical poetry found in the Bible, and other little poems we've come across now and then. Of course, there's also the poetry they've found in greeting cards, and in some of the literature books they've read (Lord of the Rings, etc.). But as far as studying poetry together in an academic sense, we've done nothing - nada. When I came across The Grammar of Poetry, I was intrigued. DVD lessons? Yes! Professionally produced materials? Yes! Poetry taught in a classical form of education? Yes! At the junior high and high school level? Yes! From a Christian perspective? Yes! The girls and I are thrilled to let you know about The Grammar of Poetry. I feel SO blessed by being able to use this fantastic classical poetry curriculum! We could have used the teacher's guide and workbook on their own, without the DVD, but we would have missed out. This Grade 6 to High School curriculum revolves around 30 DVD lessons with Matt Whitling. And when I use the word "revolves", I mean that with the DVDs, this one-semester program is captivating and interesting! Email subscribers will want to click back to the original post (click the title of this blog post) to view the YouTube videos of the teacher in The Grammar of Poetry and to enter the giveaway! We've used several DVD curriculum programs in our homeschooling over the last 10 years. The Grammar of Poetry - by far - is the most professionally produced set of DVDs that we've seen developed for homeschoolers. It really is that good. All of the little issues we've had over the years with different DVD and online programs we've used have been completely eliminated from The Grammar of Poetry DVDs. These folks really know what it takes to make a professional looking program!
Here's my 14-year-old's first attempt ever at writing a poem, after viewing Lesson 5: Here's a better description of some of the goals of The Grammar of Poetry: This is the ideal introductory poetry course for students and teachers discovering the art of poetry. As a "grammar," it teaches the fundamentals of poetry from scansion and rhyme to more advanced concepts like spatial poetry and synecdoche. Using the classical methodology of imitation (advocated by educators like Quintilian and Benjamin Franklin), this text helps students become active participants as they learn the craft of writing poems. It also offers practical tips and helps, including:
The thirty lessons in The Grammar of Poetry contain instruction on ten powerful tropes, student activities for every chapter, riddles to solve, a glossary of terms, a list of over 150 quality poems to integrate, and real-life examples from Shakespeare to traditional tongue twisters. It is designed for a semester at the 6th-9th grade level, but is perfectly appropriate for anyone with basic writing skills and the desire to learn poetry. After one of the lessons on rhyming, we learned that it can be very helpful to have a rhyming dictionary. Since we don't have one (yet!), we found this site online that will help would-be poets: The presentation of The Grammar of Poetry, lesson by lesson, does contain poems and concepts from Christianity. As a Christian, desiring to hand down the Christian faith to my children, I welcome curricula that includes a Christian focus. Mr. Whitling also encourages creativity among the student audience. When the girls were learning about rhyming schemes, Kelsi decided to use the Tengwar (Elvish) language found in the Lord of the Rings books! Here's a close up of some of her assignment. Instead of writing: A, B, A, B to describe the rhyming schemes of the first stanza, etc., she chose to use Tengwar. Silly girl! :) Ha! She thought she was so funny when she showed this to me. I think she expected me to make her erase and start over, but while I don't know Tengwar, I could tell why she was ordering her rhyming lines in the way that she chose to do this. :) Here's another preview of The Grammar of Poetry: |
Roman Roads Media has provided two complete sets of The Grammar of Poetry (including one set for the giveaway!) in exchange for my honest review of their curriculum here on Joy In Our Journey.com.
Kristi G./W.!!!
Thank you so much to everyone who entered the giveaway. You all are wonderful for taking a few minutes out of your busy schedule to come over and enter to win.
Now, if you weren't the winner of SpellQuizzer, and you would still like to own a copy of it, I've owned our own copy since 2008, and I have NEVER seen it go on sale. Maybe it has, and I just didn't receive a notice about it - but I have never seen it be sold at a discount.
Dan Hite at TedCo Software - the creator of SpellQuizzer spelling software - asked if I would remind you all that the one-day $7.99 SpellQuizzer sale is now active. The sale is for today only (Monday, December 3rd, 2012) and will end at 11:59 pm Monday night, US West Coast Time. He's offering SpellQuizzer today at a discount of over 70% off of the normal price of $29.95. This one-day sale is a great opportunity to get a license for an additional PC as well as a great opportunity to tell your friends about so that they can get SpellQuizzer for themselves at a huge discount. To take advantage of the sale, go to the following web page today, December 3rd:
www.SpellQuizzer.com/OneDaySale.asp
If you have questions about SpellQuizzer, feel free to ask here in the comments section. We have found so much success with SpellQuizzer combined with our excellent spelling program.
Thank you again, Dan Hite, for allowing me to host this giveaway and let my readers know about this fantastic one-day sale!
- vexillology
- sciolistic
- nephrectomy
- effigial
- thesmothete
- borzoi
- dyspepsia
- iniquitous
- apotheosize
- paroxysmal
If you guessed that this bizarre list of words is from my child's spelling list, you guessed correctly!
No, I'm not offering spelling studies as cruel and unusual punishment, though at times one of my children may complain that it is so. :)
Actually, my girls finished their spelling curriculum several years ago, so we began having them study for our community's annual spelling bee. Our oldest daughter, Kelsi, came in 2nd place at the county spelling bee two separate years; 6th place one year; and in her final year as an eligible participant in the spelling bee, she won! Along with a giant trophy, she also won a laptop computer and many accessories to go along with it. With her two other second place wins, she also won a iPod Shuffle, an iTunes gift card, and a Kindle. Nice!
Why am I telling you this?
There is a variety of educational software available on the market these days to help children learn to spell or to practice their spelling words. However, we have been the most pleased with the results we've had from SpellQuizzer. I've taken a look at a variety of spelling websites (free and/or subscription), and have even viewed some spelling apps on friends' tablets or phones. None of them that I've viewed, however, does as great of a job as SpellQuizzer to help students learn new spelling words - or review past words from old lists.
Many other spelling websites or software/apps only allow word lists containing words that are commonly used. So, if your children are in a spelling bee, and most of the spelling bee words on their lists are rated G for genius, those spelling websites won't really work for you because the words you want to enter aren't recognized by their lists...or it will take an extended amount of time for the website to have a volunteer enter the new word lists into their database.
So, here's what our family does. The girls receive their new spelling lists on Mondays, typically, by dictation from me. This makes them have to really think and analyze every sound in each word. On Tuesdays, they will enter their lists into SpellQuizzer by using a microphone headset. They use the "tab" key to quickly move through the menu as they are entering their words. Our county spelling bee program contains sentences for each word, so my girls also verbally enter the included sentence with each word, although it's easy (and fun!) to make up sentences to make the program a bit more fun.
If my girls attended public or private school, I'd have them bring home their spelling lists on Mondays and type it into SpellQuizzer themselves, that evening, unless they were very young and couldn't yet type well. In that case, I'd type in the lists myself until I had trained them to do it.
If a family absolutely cannot afford a microphone, the parent or child can type in a key phrase or question where the answer will be the correct spelling word. This even enables deaf students to be able to use the software. I do recommend having a headset or some kind of clip-on microphone that is "hands free" for ease of use, however. Your child will get a lot more out of SpellQuizzer by using a microphone and headset. If the replay volume on SpellQuizzer seems too faint, there are a few "tweaks" that can be done before recording the voice/words to make the volume louder and more clear. Directions for that are on the SpellQuizzer website.
On Fridays, they can even take their spelling test using SpellQuizzer software, although they are required to show me their grade they received on their first run through their weekly word list that day.
The #1 benefit of using SpellQuizzer is that when our girls are studying from between 500 to 2,000 words for the county spelling bees, I don't have to spend many hours of my own time quizzing them on their words. They are able to effectively quiz themselves in a minimal amount of time! Hooray!
SpellQuizzer's website contains some demonstration videos to show viewers more about how SpellQuizzer works. I think you'll find these as useful as I have found them to be. If you have additional questions, Dan from SpellQuizzer has always replied to my questions quickly and carefully. I love-love-love great customer service.
And now . . . for the GIVEAWAY!
Wow! One of my readers is going to be really blessed by this software program, especially if you have a child who needs lots of diligent and consistent practice each week on spelling words...or you have a larger family and it just gets too hard to help each child practice his or her spelling words each week.
This giveaway will end on Saturday, December 1st at midnight (Pacific timezone).
Curious about why this is such a short giveaway? Well, SpellQuizzer will be having a special one-day sale on Monday, December 3rd, 2012 offering SpellQuizzer for just $7.99. That's a discount of over 70% off of the normal price of $29.95! I've personally never seen SpellQuizzer be sold at that low price - wow! :)
We thought we'd offer a free giveaway copy of SpellQuizzer here for you to try to win for yourself, but if you happen to not win the giveaway, you can more easily purchase SpellQuizzer for yourself at a greatly reduced price on December 3rd here at this link: http://www.spellquizzer.com/OneDaySale.asp
My family loves SpellQuizzer! I think you will, too!
I've placed Scripture verses on these leaves for you to print our and decorate your home. What a blessing to be able to share with your children and your guests the wonderful words of the Bible and how a grateful heart is so pleasing to the Lord!
I printed my set on cardstock, and then cut out the leaves to place up on the walls in our living room and dining room.
There are 8 pages of leaves, so you may print out all of them...or just the ones you want.
Have a blessed Thanksgiving week with your family!
We've been educating our girls at home for over 10 years now. Wow - over a decade. Seems impossible! Over the years, while we've encouraged the girls to pursue their interests, we've also tried to minimize the amount of activities in which they participate. We've never wanted to be driving children around every day of the week to various activities, events, and lessons.
Because it not only sucks the life outta you, all that gasoline is expensive!
Well, this year is unique. We have something going on almost every day of the week this year. I'm so not used to this - and this is why I haven't taken the time to share as much with you about my family life. Here's what's been going on since school began almost 8 weeks ago:
We began our school year in accordance with the local public school schedule, the day after Labor Day. Why? We don't HAVE to. We aren't REQUIRED to. We can choose to structure our school year however we see fit.
But since we live 12 feet from the public school property next door to us, and they can actually see us walking around in our living room through our big windows, we just follow their basic schedule. It's easier that way. I don't get teachers calling social services because my kids aren't "in class".
The girls like it this way because they don't have to take out the trash until after 2:15 p.m. Mondays through Fridays. Or do any outdoor chore until after the public school has released for the day. Ha!
A new plan this year:
When we first began homeschooling - oh, so long ago - we worked on every subject together. As the girls became successful readers and writers, and have learned their basic math facts, I have released one subject or portion of a subject to them each school year for them to work on their own, mostly without me. Our goal for the girls has been to teach them how to work independently and how to structure their time well.
But I still feel strongly that one of the #1 blessings of being able to homeschool is that we have the unique privilege to nurture and maintain a very strong relationship with our children, even if they are pre-teens and teens. Think about it: I'm able to spend 92+ waking hours each week with my girls. If they were away at school each day, the number of our hours together would be closer to 55 hours each week, and about 10-14 hours of that would be spent watching them (or helping them) do their homework.
I don't write this to make anyone guilty. Educating a child at home is a huge commitment, and the desire to home educate really needs to come from the Lord and a united parental decision if it's going to work well. But when I realize that I would spend 40% less hours each week with my children if they went to school next door or were dropped off at the high school each day, my time with them would be much more limited. And over 13 years of schooling, well, that's a lot of hours lost when I could have been building relationship with my girls!
I find that to be very humbling. I am so blessed to be married to Elmer, who gives up his desires for a bigger house, a boat, vacations away, and a lot more, just so I can stay home with our girls and educate them as the Lord has shown us to do.
In the midst of all those blessings, we still need to have a plan for our school days.
This year, we are still doing history lessons, geography, and writing together, most of the time. Our geography and writing curriculum require teacher involvement. The girls could do their own history readings, etc., but since I love history, we choose to do these lessons together.
This year, because Kelsi started high school (!), I decided it was about time to get down to business and lay out structured lesson plans for her every week.
Just so you don't go thinking that she hasn't done any schoolwork for the last 9 years, she has. In fact, amazingly, without me doing much in the way of lesson planning, she has accomplished a lot! But since every homeschooler (and those who don't homeschool) just KNOWS that high school has to really count, we decided we'd better do some structured lesson planning - just to make it seem more official.
Here's Kelsi's weekly planner. You'll notice that it doesn't tell her what time of the day to complete her schoolwork. Here's why: how many jobs and careers tell you what you need to do every 30 minutes of the day? Yes, there are a few: doctors, teachers, and teachers.
:)
But for most people, they keep in mind a list of tasks and duties that need to be accomplished, and they prioritize them in their heads and work on them throughout the day until they are finished. If I tell my daughters what to do every 30 minutes of the school day, they'll have a harder time learning how to prioritize and schedule things for themselves. And this will be important to know how to do when they arrive at college or at a new job. So...their weekly planners identify what needs to be accomplished by Sunday evening each week.
Their goal is to complete each day's task on the appropriate day, but sometimes things happen to make that more difficult. When something slows them down, they know that it all must be finished by Sunday evening when I start a new week's lesson plans.
We're busier this year!
Kelsi also has two students that meet with her weekly for violin lessons. Teaching music lessons is such a nice, easy way to earn some spending money. In Kelsi's case, she puts almost all of it into her bank account after she sets aside some for a tithe. She is such a little saver!
Both girls are in a free worship dance class just a few blocks from our home - actually on the same street as our home. This lasts for one hour, once a week. About every 6-8 weeks or so, they'll share the gift of worship dance during a worship service at that church in both Sunday services. I love the fact that they are able to dance in a modest yet expressive manner and that it is also a gift of community service to this church.
Brittany has piano lessons once a week with a retired music teacher. We've been friends with him and his wife for many years now. Brittany's only in her third year of piano, but is learning so quickly! No, she's not a child prodigy, but she is an excellent sight reader and often pushes herself to learn difficult music just for fun! We have to tune our piano more often these days because she plays almost every day of the week.
Mid-week, the girls and Elmer take off to church to help with our church's children's ministry program, Awana. My husband is in charge of this ministry. Both girls lead the opening singing from 6:00 - 6:30, and then Brittany helps with various groups of children for another half hour and then joins up with her youth group. Kelsi has been attending youth group but may transition to helping Dad with Awana as his fill-in helper, to help out wherever help is needed.
Kelsi is also in a new Spanish class for homeschooled high schoolers that I organized this school year. She's enjoying hanging out with around 10-12 other homeschooled high schoolers and learning Spanish together. While this does take us away from home for a couple of hours each week, it's been worth it to learn Spanish from a native speaker who is a former homeschoolin' mama, herself!
The girls will also start participating in our local Christian Youth In Action teen group in a couple of weeks. They generally help out once a month with a ministry or service project in order to raise funds for them to attend CYIA camp, where they learn how to effectively share the Gospel of Jesus Christ with children! The skills learned at CYIA help develop public speaking, volunteerism, leading songs, being a more effective storyteller, and more. This is such a worthwhile ministry!
Kelsi is also praying about joining our county's youth court program. She would volunteer several hours each week as a member of the youth court program, as an actual juror, or lawyer, or other positions in a courtroom, as teens are sentenced for actual crimes that they have committed. Since Kelsi {hearts} law and politics, this would be a good fit for her.
And then, of course, I plan homeschool teen activities for our local youth so they can have a fun social life during their junior high and high school years, too!
It keeps us busy, but we feel these are the activities in which we should be involved.
Next year? Who knows what it will look like. But for this school year, we are staying involved in more opportunities than we have in the past. And while as a family, we're generally busier, I'm generally less busy in a few ways, which I hope to talk about in the future.
If you've actually taken the time to read through what our school year looks like so far and what our girls are doing, please take a minute to comment below and let me know how you feel about children being involved in too many - or too few - after-school activities. How does your family decide what each child will do or not do during the school year?
For about ten years, I've watched a considerable number of local homeschooling families place their children into public or private school when they reach either the junior high or high school years. They've had multiple reasons for doing this. Please understand that I am not criticizing them for their choice. Often, they have felt God leading them in this direction.
I've observed other homeschooling families place their junior high or high school children into charter school-at-home programs; most of their time is still homeschooling at home.
We've been praying and thinking about several options for our girls once they reach high school. But so far, none of those other options have seemed to be the right choice for our own family. Kelsi (age 14) participated in a mock trial club at our local high school this last year. While she loved being on a mock trial team (half homeschoolers, half public schoolers), there were some things that she really didn't like about being in a public school program, and she has no desire to take classes from a public school or public school charter school program for her high school years.
We have felt peace about teaching our girls at home during their high school years.
One of the areas about teaching high school at home - that I felt I've needed to learn more about - is keeping appropriate high school records. There are many views among public school teachers and administration on how to grade student work. Throw in differing views of private school teachers, those of colleges and universities (yes, those vary, too!) and homeschool parents, and it can be tough to sort it all out.
Also, what about transcripts? How do I write one that will be acceptable for college admission, should my daughters be interested in attending college in the future?
How do I go about writing Course Descriptions to include with my daughters' transcripts?
I was excited to learn about Lee Binz's recent book:
Setting the Records Straight: How to Craft Homeschool Transcripts and Course Descriptions for College Admission and Scholarships.
Table of Contents: *The "Love Language" of Colleges *Why Make a Homeschool Transcript? *The Nuts and Bolts of a Homeschool Transcript *Making a Homeschool Transcript *Determining High School Credit *Calculating Credit Value *How to Assign Grades *Calculating Grade Point Average *Academic Clearing House *Delight-Directed Learning *Transcripts: A Work in Progress *Course Descriptions Demystified *How to Write a Course Description *Course Descriptions in Real Life *How to Avoid Writing Course Descriptions *Knowledge, Wisdom, and Character *Making a Transcript Guide *Transcript Templates *The HomeScholar Comprehensive Record *Ann's Example *Christina's Example *Expanded Transcript |
Lee Binz and her husband Matt independently homeschooled their two boys for eight years, from elementary through high school graduation. Both boys earned four year, full-tuition scholarships. She is now a homeschool consultant working with parents across the country and overseas. |
Non-fiction books are interesting to me but take me F-O-R-E-V-E-R to read! I think this is because I'm usually reading with background "noise": piano lessons, violin lessons, and even Netflix movies in the evenings at home.
Well, one of the best things ever (for a homeschoolin' mama) happened when Lee Binz's book, Setting the Records Straight came in the mail last Saturday. I took my girls plus three of their friends up to Homeschool Outdoor School on Sunday afternoon - and dropped them off for three days of fun and learning. After I arrived home on Monday afternoon, I had several hours to myself for my own fun and learning! I was able to read Setting the Record Straight in about two hours. Yeah! Um - yes, this is what I do these days for fun. And I enjoy it a lot! (See, I am a crazy, desperate lunatic!)
My questions about how to develop our own transcripts, and how to write course descriptions were completely answered. I feel very confident about how to do that now. I'm also excited that homeschoolers are able to include so much more than public school students when they submit admission applications to colleges and universities! Homeschoolers are definitely at an advantage when it comes to their permanent records and providing a much more well-rounded picture of themselves when they apply for admission.
My favorite aspect of Setting the Records Straight?
Lee immediately jumps into answering questions that you have, instead of spending 2/3 of the book in theories! She wastes no time in helping you to get started, step by step, in record-keeping and preparing your high schooler for college. I love this! I wish many other books would follow her example. And she includes page after page of samples and examples. You'll love this!
If you've had fears about teaching your older children at home during the high school years, you will gain a lot out of Lee's book. I'm so glad I've read it!
Now for the GIVEAWAY!
Lee Binz from www.TheHomeScholar.com is allowing me to give away one copy of her book, Setting the Records Straight! Just enter below, using the Rafflecopter form, for entries to this giveaway. Entrants must be 18 years old or older, and residents in the United States. |
The HomeScholar.com provided me with one paperback copy of Setting the Records Straight in exchange for my honest review of the book. No other compensation was provided.
If this interests you, feel free to download and print out your own free homeschool attendance form.
I love sharing these free printables with you, and I want to shout out a big "thank you!" to Sonia of Homeschool Treasure Trove for giving me permission to share this with you.
This form works well to print out on cardstock or printer paper and keep in your family record-keeping binder. Keeping track of attendance isn't required in all states, but here is a neat attendance calendar for you if you would like it. Thank you to Sonia of Hoemschool Treasure Trove who has given me permission to post this calendar here for you all to use. You can view more of her homeschool "treasures" at:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HSTreasureTrove/
http://www.hslaunch.com/mypage/profile/642
Hi! I'm Julieanne!
You'll find me in the kitchen
trying new Trim Healthy Mama recipes, loving God, and carrying out that love as I bless my husband and teen daughters.
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