homeschool

I am gradually going through my tabs and pulling out ones I think might be helpful to other people.  I’ve been searching out English program to use with my teen, I hope to order something by the end of the month. Anyways, so getting on with this post… English Programs for High School and what I have found!  🙂 

Looking for the Canadian

Now, as a Canadian, I’ve been looking for Canadian resources to use with my lad.  Did you know that it’s fairly hard to do?  It’s amazing how difficult it is to find solid CANADIAN based language arts for high school students. There are a couple of things online, but nothing really specific. 

Now, it didn’t help there were books I really didn’t want my lad to study…. like Animal Farm and 1984, or whatever book it was by Margaret Atwood I was forced to read.  I definitely wasn’t interested in him reading Lord of the Flies either.  BLECH to all of it! 

I took the time to check out grades 11 and 12 of the Ontario Curriculum from the Ministry of Education. Mind, I can’t say it was a whole lot of help…I thought it would be more helpful than it was.. or maybe it was just my lack of understanding on what “needs to be taught” means in real world language. 

Resources I Checked out

So I checked out these resources

• Roman Road Media – Western Culture.
• Tree of Life: North American Literature.
• Hide the Chocolate : Society of Literary Adventures.
• Progeny Press: high school study/book guides.
• Total Language Plus: high school study/book guides. 
• Essentials in Writing: a number of high school courses, I seriously looked at this one. 
• I also thought about doing a classic study on some of these books (like who has seen the wind). I’d have to re-read a couple of these first to remind myself of them.  But many I have read. 

As I looked at all these resources I started to wonder… could I use something and just do some substitution?   Find some questions online for my lad to consider?  SO that wondering led me toward…. 

So What Am I Leaning Toward?

I’m kinda leaning toward doing my own thing, based off a curriculum course I received in a ultimate homeschool bundle, or perhaps looking up discussion questions. 

The thought is, I would use it as a guide for the lad to read through some Canadian literature, both old and new.  I’ll be finding some Canadian plays the lad can read.  Perhaps read a classic Newbery book (or rather the Canadian option)… possibly reading Five Little Indians.   My friend Lori suggested that I add a book called Mrs. Mike to the list. 

I’ll be looking through the young adult winners of the CLA.  I’m hoping my friendly librarian will be able to help me winnow through them to see what might work for a 16 year old lad.  So I have a plan in mind, now to see how far I get with it!  (or well.. rather see how far my son gets with it!).  🙂 

What english programs for highschool have you discovered? 

Did you know that we have a 16 year old in our household?   Being sixteen means jobs, driving, practicing life skills, and much more.  The lad’s been working at McD’s this summer and been enjoying the job.  Mostly he bikes but lately they’ve been giving him some later shifts when I don’t want him biking home.  Also winter is coming along when biking is a tad more difficult.   Getting his license is becoming more important!   It’s been a bit of a learning curve learning about getting a driver’s license in Ontario as things have changed since I was a teen.  🙂 

Getting a Driver’s License in Ontario

So I don’t know how things work where you live, but here in Ontario we have graduated licensing.   One starts with a G1 and gradually works up to a full driving license. 

If you are at least 16 years old, you can apply for driver’s licence in Ontario. As my son is 16 we’ve been looking into this whole process.  He really has NO desire to get his license, so we are pushing him into it since it will be easier for him to do so living at home.   Just having a driver’s license is one of the easiest forms of ID and means that it’s easier for him to drive home for a visit (renting a car) should he ever move farther away from home. 

As a new driver he’ll need to practice driving at various times of day and in various situations, gaining valuable experience.  It generally takes about 20-24 months to finish getting your license. 

ThinkInsure helped me better understand the whole system as well. 

Studying for the G1 Written Test

There are a number of options for studying for the road test. 

There’s the way I did it.  Reading the book over and over and over again until I more or less had it memorized.

And there are paid options such as

• Tests.ca
• Udemy

As well as some different free options

• Practice Test Geeks.
• G1.ca
• Driving Test.
• Passemall.
• apnatoronto.

So we discovered this site that allows you to practice writing your G1 test.   It’s rather cool providing students with a variety of tests so they can practice their knowledge!   Wish I had had this before I wrote MY test!  🙂 

Use a Licensed School

When I was talking with the owner of one of the local driving schools she mentioned the need to be cautious.  As with everything in life there are always people ready to take advantage of people.  Since there is a bit of a learning curve in this whole process it’s easy to get fooled by people pretending to have all the credentials.   Therefore the Ontario government has made a list of approved businesses.  

He’ll be doing his driver’s ed through South Huron Driving School doing most of it online and then having a couple of lessons in person.   Just a matter of getting the funds together to make that doable.  

Doing driving school has a couple of advantages.  It means you can get your G2 sooner as well as often reducing your insurance premiums.  It’s also good to have a professional involved as it’s easy to develop bad habits when driving and you don’t want younger learners picking up those bad habits.  🙂 

My lad’s gramma is itching to get behind the wheel with the lad, wanting to teach him road safety and driving skills.  It’s something we are still discussing as her eyes aren’t want they used to be.  I’m glad we have the option of driving school!  

How about you?

What are the new driver’s rules like where you live?  Do you have graduated licensing?  At what age can you begin driving? If you attend driver’s school does it help with your new drivers’ insurance?   Do they differ from getting a Driver’s License in Ontario?

Oh.. the crew challenge this week is posting about what a day looks like in our household.   Well honestly, it’s still summer here… but I can tell you what a highschooler’s day in the life looks like.  At least, what it should look like in our household.  Part of homeschooling highschool is the variety of life skills one teaches throughout the day as well.  From simply doing their book work, to organizing life around work and outside commitments, to simply helping their mother out with this.   This is a day/week in the life of a 16 year old, singleton child, living in Ontario this year. 

Where Learning Happens

Last year my son could choose where he wanted to study, the hours he wanted to fill and such like.  This year we have modified that.  He no longer works alone upstairs in his room, but will be fighting with the cat for the comfy chair.  🙂  It will some days be a battle since that cat is 13 years old and getting to that “grumpy old man stage”.  He has back difficulties and has diabetes so some days are hard for an old cat.  There’s our dining room table behind this chair so we have options for the “I just won’t be moved” days. 

The lad’s day will start (once the official school year begins) at 830 a.m.   Sometimes those days will be at the local highschool taking a manufacturing course, or will start here at home.  It kinda depends on how covid affects life.  Covid has thrown a bit of a wrench into eveything it seems. Depending on what the lad is working on he’ll do his studies using his laptop, or if he needs graphics…better computing skills/speed… the desktop upstairs. 

The headphones will travel with him as the lad listens to classical music (mostly) when he does his schooling. 

Depending on what his course work entails, other rooms in the house might be involved. 

This year that will be english, math (CTCmath two courses, three if can squeeze it in), communications, Manufacturing (public high), physics (grade 12 public), and stuff that right now I can’t remember… 

So I expect I’ll see more experiments in the kitchen. 

Time Usage in a highschooler’s day in the life

He’ll have a break from 120145 to have lunch and spend time with his dad.  Currently they are playing some computer games together.  This is one of the reasons we are doing highschool at home.   His dad works a hard job doing the afternoon shift.  This way he gets to see his dad!  This is important to us. 

After lunch we normally read together.  Right now we are reading… Stranger on the Road to Emmaus and Torpedoed.  

You can read my review for Torpedoed.  My son did a year long study of WW2 and remains fascinated so we are still reading books about that time period. 

Stranger on the Road to Emmaus is an excellent book that walks the reader throughout history explaining the redemption work and promises of God fulfilled in Jesus.  It promotes some good discussion twixt a lad and his mother.  Highly recommend. 

At this time we might decide to watch a movie that correlates with a book he’s reading, or an apologetics idea as well.  Something that presents information differently to help a deep thinker think more clearly, or with questions to answer in his own mind. 

The lad will get back to his schooling and work until 5 ish, with a break for snacks as needed.  I don’t worry much on his snacking as we have ground rules (has to have one fruit/veggie) as part of his snacking, I don’t buy cookies so if he wants that he has to make it.  Occasionally I’ll call him aside to help with a project. One that he has this week is to make a top for our mealworm container that will hopefully keep flour moths out of it. 

Assignments and Checking-In

Some assignments he’ll submit to me in workbooks, others will be sent to me via email.  Today he sent me a punnett square for a biology class he’s tidying up work for. Pay no nevermind to the way too many tabs I have open!  Yes, it continues to be a work in progress. 

This leaves our evenings free for work at McD’s, finishing chores up (he has specific areas of responsibility), playtime with friends (online computer games mostly, sometimes physical army based games, or long walks on the trails), Army Cadets (Mondays), Youth group (Sunday nights), game/walk/something night with mom (hopefully Thursdays), and Karate (Saturday mornings). 

My son is mostly self-sufficient with his schooling but we’re running into a couple time management issues so we’ve instituted some changes to make it easier for him.  We’ll add a daily check in (a log of activities accomplished so he knows where he left off the day before) and a weekly “show me what you’ve done” check in. 

How do you organize your homeschoolers day?

We’ve had to talk a lot about how to organize his day, helping him to see areas of struggle, and planning out just what he needs to take yet, and how to get to where he wants to be.   Changes needed to be made, and I’d rather make them here at home where he can learn necessary skills than to have to learn the hard way later on. 

A highschooler’s day in the life is more than just book work isn’t it?   How do you help your highschool students?  Have you needed to make changes as they learn important skills? Where do they learn best?  How have you best figured out how to help them?  Let me know eh?  Together we can learn how to help our teens gain good skills. 

BEFORE I FORGET! 

The crew is doing a giveaway, this week for a mentor mom call!  Come back on Friday to enter eh? 

You know how you plan out your year?  You have an idea for how the year should go, what needs to be done, you’ve worked out how many chapters need to be completed per week to be done, you are all set.  BUT THEN you realize that a subject was missed last year, or the catch up work that needed to happen wasn’t completed over the summer, or…. well, I’m sure you can fill in the blank.  How then do you complete your planning with highschool students?   These very same students who will have their own ideas about how they want to complete their workload. 

Planning with your highschool students needs to take into account how your students learn best and needs to provide them with tools for success in the future.  How can we help our students manage their workload and complete everything in an efficient manner? 

The work that we provide our students can come from all over the place, sometimes from a single place like SchoolhouseTeachers.com which has loads of courses for highschool and later in this post we’ll be doing a giveaway for them.  My link to my most recent review.  Other times we’ll pick up courses from places like Apologia, Tree of Life, CTCMath, and such like. 

Figuring out what you’re doing

Figuring out what you are doing with your highschool students depends on a few different factors.

• What your students want to do once past highschool. 
• What the requirements are in your province or state.
• Needs or requirements for courses down the road.  Whether that’s for courses in highschool, or needed on a transcript for higher learning. 
• Available electives: make your own if can’t find what you’re looking for, so many options
• What your students are interested in… could a hobby become a job?

Planning with Highschool Students

You need to actually sit down with your highschool students and talk with them.  Sometimes those conversations will be easy, and other times they will be hard.  Sometimes our teenagers have no clue what they want to do and other times they are hyper focused and can’t see beyond their goals.  But just talk, and listen, and try to guide. 

• Talk about study habits.
• Working through a course load
• Future plans
• Electives
• Perhaps doing a college and careers class
• Fall back positions if what you want to do doesn’t pan out
• Options for scholarships
• Needs for transcripts
• See if you can combine two things into one… for instance, can they turn a hobby into a workable credit?  

For example, my son’s Karate classes and his physical fitness requirements for Army Cadets, plus some smaller health units gives him a physical fitness credit. 

When things go awry

Sometimes…. things go awry.  Covid might hit messing up how you planned courses to go (outside courses).  Sometimes health needs will intervene causes a workload to slow down. Occasionally poor work habits will get in the way and require a great deal of work to catch up. All these things will be part of the conversation about how you manage a school year, and how you get back on track. Maybe, you’ll need to do highschool in five years instead of four!  The thing you always need to remember is this….. what’s your long-term goal? 

To push through learning as fast as possible in order to start one’s career?  Or to fostering a love of learning and developing good work habits? To create faithful servants of the Lord?  Maybe, we have to remember it’s not a race.  It can sometimes feel a race, when you see all these kids heading off to college and perhaps your child isn’t quite ready for that, or has a different long-term goal, or whatever.  We have to keep in mind the needs of the particular student in front of us.  If they know how to learn and how to work… NOTHING will stop them if they have the drive to reach for it. 

What about you?

Can you tell me what your biggest tip is when it comes to planning with highschool students?  What do you do when things go awry? When you forget your long-term goals… or even when a students long-term goals change mid-way through?  How do you do with the WHAT NOW???  questions that will arise.   

I don’t have all the answers… sometimes it very tough sorting it all out. 

DO KNOW THIS.

You are allowed to take your time.  Seriouly, you are.  It’s not a race and demand or life-threatening need.  You can take your time to talk with your students and figure it out.  Sometimes it will mean long-hours for your student playing catch-up.  Sometimes it will mean changing curriculum (and the expense that brings).  You might even find yourself creating something specific just for your child.  But it will turn out okay in the long-run.  Trust your instincts, look for help when you need it, just do the best you can with where you are at. 

On to the giveaway!

The crew is giving away one membership to SchoolhouseTeachers.com.   Fantastic resource, with a variety of options for all ages through to highschool (and for mom and dad too). 

Part of the blog hop