Homeschooling High School

I have been working on finishing this post for two weeks now and today is the day!  We are in the middle of summer swim season here in beautiful NC and that means we are swimming or at swim meets or trying to keep our house clean between all the swimming for what feels like every minute of the day.  Every year I think I can get it all done and catch up on some chores in June, but mostly I end up hanging on for dear life and getting further behind!  So here is the post on high school.

I recently spoke at the LDSHE Conference on high school recording keeping and I was reminded how very scary it is to home school high school.  I remember well the day when my now 22yo son was finishing 8th grade and told me he didn't want to go back to school.  I was overwhelmed and scared and I had no idea if I could teach him at a high school level.  I was shaking in my boots and really that feeling didn't go away until he was accepted to college.  Fast forward eight years.  I have now been homeschooling high school for 8 of my 12 years of homeschooling and although I don't know if I am any better at it I do know I am much more relaxed.  I know homeschooled kids can get into college and I know how to keep records to show what we have been doing all this time and I know that different kids home school high school differently and that's ok.  I also know that our Heavenly Father helps us all along the way.  I have been blessed to interact with some wonderful people in my journey of homeschooling high school and Heavenly Father has given me help in the very hour that I needed it.  My children have had wonderful people who have been willing to tutor them, teach them and share their knowledge with them.  It has been a wonderful blessing to watch my children grow up and become amazing adults.  So for those wonderful ladies who were in my class and anyone else who is overwhelmed with the thought of high school here are some of my favorite resources in no particular order:

A Well-Trained Mind by Susan Wise Bauer (also any of her CD's - Susan has some great talks on independent learning, high school and record keeping).  Now lest you freak out, I do not do everything in WTM, but she lays out how to do a high school education that is thorough and rigorous so you can get a good idea of what needs to happen in those four years from her book.  I especially love her literature and history reading lists.  She has a fabulous resource section in the back and she covers testing and gives you lots of websites for further research.  I also love A Well Educated Mind also by Susan that helps with the literature study.

Teaching the Classics by Adam Andrews (this is a teach the teacher program for literature - we are more math/science at our house, but Adam and Missy make it pretty straightforward and yes you really only need a library card and their program although we bought all the books our kids read so they could start their own classics library).

Tapestry of Grace by Marcia Somerville (this is a great classical program with lots of teacher helps covering history, lit, geography, government, fine arts and philosophy - I don't use everything here, but the program is great).

My math preference is Jacob's Algebra and Geometry.  I have ruined one child with Saxon math the next did just fine with it, but when my third was struggling with Saxon we gave it up in favor of Jacob's and things are going better, but we are still tweeking here.

I have only used Apologia for high school science so I have nothing to compare it to, but my daughter who took 5 Apologia science courses is a junior in college majoring in physics and she has no complaint about her high school science education.

For government studies we loved the 5000 Year Leap and the Making of America both by Cleon Skousen.  I also used A Patriot's History by Larry Schweikart.


Here are some elective things my kids have really enjoyed:

The Uncle Eric books by Richard Mayberry
Personal Finance by Dave Ramsey
Secrets of Great Communicators by Jeff Myers

I have farmed out foreign language for all three of my high schoolers.  I speak a small amount of German, but not enough to teach high school and I found the CD programs to be pretty worthless even though they were expensive.  Tutors are very expensive, but it is the best way to actually learn a language and have someone who is able to explain the intricacies of the grammar of another language and speak to the child and help them correct mistakes as they are learning.

I also have a wonderful art teacher here that I really love.  She is super cheap and amazing - did I mention that Heavenly Father gives us blessings! :)

One of my favorite finds was Lukeion.  They are a husband/wife team that teach ancient history, ancient lit,  Latin and Greek.  My oldest was a total history buff and he quickly out paced me so I had to supplement him somehow and that is when we found Lukeion.  The Barr's are amazing and William loved them.  They are both retired college professors who are homeschooling their own children.  They do online classes that are interactive.  They meet at the same time each week and you have to be "in" class at that time.  Their classes are very well done.  I highly recommend them.  Did I mention that Heavenly Father blesses us in the very hour of our need?  I have used their College Research Writing class for all my high schoolers even the ones who didn't like history.

I hope this helps all you wonderful moms out there who are struggling with the idea of home schooling high school.   I hope it also helps to know that a very ordinary mom with no particular training just a strong love of the Lord and of her children has been able to home school two children all the way to college and has one more only two years away.  May God bless you in your labors!