Get a Fresh Start with SchoolhouseTeachers.com

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January turns a fresh page on the calendar. Are you ready to turn to a new page in your homeschooling journey? Is it time to start planning for high school? If your are going to have a student ready for high school in the fall, the answer is yes! If you have little children and need a new start, the answer is also yes!

Two things seem to trip up parents getting ready for high school: planning and transcripts. These are seen as the beginning and the end of high school, but in reality they are topics you'll circle back around to from before your children start high school until after they finish. You don't have to plan ahead for high school, but it really does help! A good way to get started on basic planning is to check your state's graduation requirements. Save them to your computer, but also print them out so you can talk them over with your spouse, and your student. The next step you will want to consider is looking at college entrance requirements. Start by picking a state university and see what they require. I know that the end of their eighth grade year is too early to know if they will want to go to college, but you want your student to be prepared if they do want to later, and it will not hurt them to be college ready but decide on trade school or an apprenticeship instead. Better to be prepared then behind.

Life has a way of changing your plans, so I suggest you start planning with a pencil. If you know your student will need four years of science, plan on one for each year, but you don't have to know just yet which one will be for each year. If you are looking for some planning pages to help you work out which courses your student should take, and where to plug in electives, you should check out the High School Schoolhouse Planner at SchoolhouseTeachers.com. It is a 400 page resource that allows you to print any and all of the pages you want to plan your student's courses, as well as having lots of options for them to record their work. It has many great helps pages, like a chronological Bible reading plan and goal setting pages.

One of the things I have heard parents ask frequently is where can they find good curriculum for high school? Purchasing books can get expensive. One of the great benefits of a SchoolhouseTeachers.com membership is that there are no book fees and no per-student fees. One yearly membership covers the entire family from Pre-K through high school. January is the best time of year to check out SchoolhouseTeachers.com because during the Fresh Start sale you can get an Ultimate Membership for only $90 for an entire year if you use the code: NEWYEAR19. Why is this an amazing sale? The normal price is $179 for a year, which is still a value, but $90 is even better! Also, when you purchase a new membership you can lock in that price for as long as you keep your membership. Imagine that, only $90 a year for over 400 courses. It is not uncommon to spend that much just on print books for one high school science course, but with SchoolhouseTeachers.com you get access to six different high school level science courses.

High school electives are also a concern for some parents. How can we teach what we do not know? With a little help from our friends, or an online curriculum like SchoolhouseTeachers.com! There are a variety of electives to choose from, like accounting, ACT/SAT prep, or photography. Is your child wanting to learn more about the world of graphic design or website management? There are courses on creating images, graphic design, copywriting, keyboarding, internet entrepreneurship and more.

Want an introduction to art for your students? From your preschooler to your high schooler there are options on SchoolhouseTeachers.com. Your student can learn about drawing, art history, art appreciation and even digital art and product design. 

I'm not sure why only homeschoolers use SchoolhouseTeachers.com, even though it was designed for homeschool families, since there are so many great resources that any family could use. There are a lot of science unit studies to choose from, as well as all of those science resources from World Book that would be great starting places to plan a science fair project or classroom report.

After all these great resources I still have not told you about my personal favorite: applecore recordkeeping. The gold level of applecore is a benefit for yearly memberships with SchoolhouseTeachers.com. It is a really easy to use software for recording grades and creating transcripts. I like how customizable it is. While there are plenty of course names available on applecore, it also has the option to name your own courses, which I used a couple weeks ago while finishing up Arlene's high school transcript. She had courses like Fiber Arts and Fashion and Textile Design. Homeschooling allows a lot of customization, so make sure you are giving them credit for their work!

Want more details about SchoolhouseTeachers.com? Check out the Start Here page and read some of the FAQ's. You'll be glad you chose a fresh start to your new year!

The End of Homeschooling ~ Part 3

When you come to the end of your home education journey, you will have to come to terms with all of the books you have collected over the years. Picture books, field guides, chapter books, textbooks, art books, novels... the shelves go on and on and on.

Evaluating your book collection

How do you decide what to keep and what to let go? Maybe you've already purged your shelves of all but the most treasured of childhood books and now you are down to the high school level reading material. Here are some questions to ask yourself as you begin to sort those shelves:

1- will my children (or grandchildren) ever want to read this book again?

2- will I or my spouse ever want to read this book again?

3- is this a fairly recent edition in good enough condition that I should consider selling it?

4- is this book a solid resource that would bless some family I know because it fits with their teaching and learning styles (should I gift it to them)?

5- was this a book I wish we had NOT used? If so, is it a poor quality or content weak resource... or did it just not click with my kids?

6- in five years will I wish I still had this book to re-read or loan to family friends?

7-is this book worn out or used up and just needs to go in the recycling bin or kindling pile?

(If you have not already begun this process with the children's picture books and middle school resources, then choose just one area to start with. Move to another area in a month or two.)

Finding new homes for your books

After you've evaluated your books, or at least a few shelves' worth of them, talk with your spouse or adult children and make sure no one is upset by your rating of each book. You might have listed them by final destination spots in a notebook, or simply put color coded post-it note flags in them. Another option is to fill each shelf with books destined for the same end.

Once you've got your piles and the OK from the family for those you want to part with, get online and decide where and how you want to offer those titles from category #3 for sale. Does your local homeschool group host an annual used book sale? Is there a local facebook group to sell them from, or are you going to list them on one of the nationwide used-curriculum sites? Sometimes all you need to do is let your friends with middle school aged kids know what you want to part with. Books from popular homeschool publishers like Apologia, Math-U-See, IEW, and Memoria Press tend to find their new homes quickly!

Next, look over that pile of #4 books. Gently offer these books and resources to families you would like to bless. They might be thrilled with the offer, or they might decline. Don't be pushy, give them time to think over your offer before they need to decide. On a similar note, do NOT make them your dump site! If they only want one or two of your 40+ chapter books, then just gift them those two. You can find somewhere else to dispose of the others.

If you have a pile of #5 or #7 books because they are falling apart or because they were just horribly written, then look for one of those large book and paper recycling bins in the parking lot at the library or supermarket and give then a toss. If that book truly was awful - it can better serve someone after it is recycled into couple of egg cartons. :)

Final thoughts about your book collection

Overall, you probably will not get rid of as many books on this first culling as you initially think. Be willing to lower your price if necessary on books you want to sell, or look for places that collect free used curriculum to bless others with. After six months or a year you may want to go through the process again.

Our house will probably always look like a small library. That's OK with all of us since we have books we love. Our goal is not to get rid of all of the books - just to move the ones we are done using to new homes so that we can better organize and find the ones we love!


Come back later this month for part 4 in the End of Homeschooling series - What about mom?

In the meantime, you can read parts one and two in this series again anytime!

The End of Homeschooling ~ Part 2

Planning for the end of homeschooling

Back in Part 1 of this series, we talked about what happens when you realize this is the end of homeschooling as you know it. There are many reasons why it might be the end for you, but if the ends because your last child is getting ready to graduate this year, then you had better start planning for it!

I’ve written before about planning for a graduation open house, how to order a diploma, and how to make a transcript. Those are the three biggest “to-do’s” when looking at a homeschool graduation, but something needs to come before that in your planning. You need to sit down with your spouse, and then your teen, and evaluate if they are really ready to graduate yet or not. God did not hand us little robots to watch over for 18 or so years, he gave us children - really unique little children - each with a special set of talents and weaknesses. 

Now is the time to evaluate. 

Do you think you have a year left until graduation? Great, then actually write down on a piece of paper what you hope for your student to accomplish in that year: courses to complete, life skills to learn, character traits to work on. As you’re looking at that list, is there something you can cross off because they’ve already learned it? Maybe they did so much volunteer work at the local theatre that you don’t really need a curriculum for their acting credit. Or maybe, they’ve had their own yard service business for four years and you can convert that experience into a business course credit. 

Seriously look again at your state’s graduation requirements. 

Have they met them, or will they by the end of the year? If not, give serious consideration to adding another semester, or even another year to their home education. It is much better to delay their graduation date than to send them out unprepared for their immediate future. Our oldest daughter spent 9 semesters in high school. Our younger daughter will as well. She will graduate sometime in December of this year,  if, and only if, she completes what is still on her coursework list to graduate. This girl has never had a problem completing electives, but because of her dysgraphia, advanced math takes her a long time. We want her to be prepared, and to have sufficiently covered what she needs to before graduation.

Now, look at life skills. 

Keep the same mindset, of if they could thrive, not just survive, on their own. Just because your high school senior may never write an actual check, this does in no way exclude them from learning how to balance a checkbook! Your young adult needs to understand what kind of tools they have at their disposal for managing their money, and they need to know there is a finite amount. Dad and Mom are not an ATM, and the real ATM will not give them any cash if they are overdrawn. Take time to make sure they understand how to budget, how to pay bills, how to read a bank statement, how to apply for and accept financial aid of they are going to college, and make sure they know that you love them! It is good to have the opportunity to succeed or fail with money while still at home, when they won’t have the electricity turned off if they make a mistake, and where you’ll still feed them if they run out of “their food” two days before payday.

You also need to look at life skills like basic cooking, bathroom cleaning, vacuuming, and laundry. If your children have been helping you with these things for years, it is an easy check to make sure they can do them independently. If not, there is no time like today to get started! Do they get up with their own alarm, or do you have to go remind them? Do they actually brush their teeth every night? Simple things make a huge difference when Mom and Dad are not looking over their shoulders!

For your last thought, what should you have known when you moved out on your own? 

Did you struggle with putting air in your car tires? Knowing when the chocolate chip cookies were baked but not burnt, or how to write a resume? Decide if any of those things need to get added to the list.

Now, you’ve got a plan. 

Remember to adjust as needed. Your children will not and cannot know everything before they graduate, but they still have time to learn the necessities. They’re wonderfully bright, loving, almost adults. Give them extra room to grow, and extra grace to find their way.

4th of July Flash Sale at SchoolhouseTeachers!

Ok, I know that you know that we usually only have one post a day, but this one just could not wait until tomorrow! I knew there was going to be a big Flash Sale for the 4th of July at SchoolhouseTeachers.com, but this is bigger than I thought... and it is starting a day early!

From today (Monday, July 2nd) through Thursday July 5th night at 11:59 p.m., you can get an Ultimate Annual Yearly Membership for your entire family for the low price of $99! This is an offer for new members, and it is a whopper of a deal. The usual price is $179/ year, but if you subscribe by Thursday, you will lock in that low annual price for as long as you keep your membership! We started our family membership back in March of 2012, and we still use SchoolhouseTeachers.com often, so you can see how the savings add up.

PLUS - there are a whole bunch of freebies included in this sale: a SchoolhouseTeachers.com tote bag, the summer print issue of The Old Schoolhouse magazine, four back issues of The Old Schoolhouse (US addresses only) AND there are a boatload of digital freebies as well.

And if that wasn't enough - Paul and Gena are having a big 4th of July SchoolhouseTeacher party with prizes: every 100th new membership will win a laptop, and every 10th new membership will win a big patriotic Jelly Belly jellybean collection!

Trust me, just get over there and check it out! And hurry - it only lasts through Thursday night! The code you'll need for the special price is: AMERICA

If you want to learn more about SchoolhouseTeachers.com, check out these previous posts where we've talked about it!

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Preparing for a Homeschool Graduation ~ Ordering Announcements

January is in full swing and all of the sudden... you realize...  your child is going to graduate this year! 

ACK- what do I do now?!? Do not fear dear parent - this has happened before - to thousands upon thousands of homeschoolers - and there is help available !

One of the defining moments in a person's life occurs when they graduate from high school. For those in the public schools, this is a large ceremony with caps and gowns, formal diplomas and sophisticated graduation announcements. 

Far too often, for those who have chosen to homeschool their children - graduation is a rather unimpressive time. This should not be the case! We have spent years investing in the lives, hearts,  and minds of our children, and now it is time to mark that achievement. Graduation should be a time of celebration, of memory making, and of great joy!

We chose to make a big deal about our daughter's high school graduation, and I'd like to take a few minutes to tell you why - and to encourage you to do something special for your graduate as well.

Homeschoolers need a diploma. Not just a nod from Dad and Mom that "you're done" - but an actual diploma. Did you know that even in this day of technology, there are still jobs that require you to present your diploma as proof of graduation? Although this is not as common as it was 15 years ago - it still happens. But more importantly - your child - now a young adult - needs a physical reminder of what they have accomplished. They need to be able to find joy in the accomplishment of this huge task - this finishing of their childhood and the passage to adulthood that accompanies high school graduation here in the US.

There is something else your graduate will need - an event to remember. Now, your event may be really small - only 20 people, or it may be really huge - 200 guests, but you need to plan some sort of event to mark this graduation, and use it to give them that diploma. Too often homeschoolers fail to give their children this special event. It need not cost a lot of money, or require a lot of time - but you - the parents - need to take time to cherish this moment with your graduate. 

There are several options as to how to host your graduation event. Many homeschoolers have a group graduation ceremony - all the local (city or county-wide) graduates work together to put on a event similar to what public or private schools host. Another option is to have a private ceremony at your home, community center, or church that you invite family and friends to. 

But what if your graduate does not want a formal ceremony? Then work with them - not against them - and find a way to celebrate. Many times we have been invited to homeschool graduation Open Houses when there was no formal ceremony beforehand. At the beginning of the open house, the parents (or at least the Dad) stood up front with their graduate and said a few words before handing them their diploma. Sometime your graduate is really shy, and wants to invite their friends for a party - but does not want the speeches. Then consider having a family graduation time before the open house begins and tell them then how much joy their accomplishments have brought you, and then pray for your graduate and their future.

But please - PLEASE - have some sort of event for your graduate. You have invested 12 or more years in their education, invest some time, and a little bit of money in this milestone. Make it a day for memories. Make it a day of celebration with family and friends. We have attended so many various homeschool open houses, and public school ones too, over the years that I want to share some of those ideas, and a way to announce them well.

Graduation announcements are the first thing you will need to order, and the sooner you get started on it - the easier it will be. If you are joining a group graduation ceremony, you can either all order matching announcements, or you can order your own style (but include your graduate's personal flair to theirs.) When our oldest daughter graduated in 2016, we ordered her announcements from HomeschoolDiploma.com. They have a really wide array of styles to choose from. 

Over the years we have received many graduation announcements that I know originated from HomeschoolDiploma.com. Their Tri-Fold announcements and their Christian Education announcements have been the most popular. These cards are the classic styles you probably remember from your own graduation, but updated a bit, and these come with the option to include your own wording - so you can give the credit where it is due - to God. The Christian Education announcements open like a traditional greeting card, and have a slot for your graduate's name card (which is included in the price.) The Tri-fold announcements are the vertical style ones that unfold to reveal the details of the events and have the graduate's name in elegant script at the bottom. Both of these are priced around $3 per announcement, but offer discounts on orders of 30 or more. These volume discounts can lower the price to $1.88 a card for the Christian Education announcement, or as low as $1.14 for the Tri-Fold announcements . 

One of the best reasons we have found to use HomeschoolDiploma.com is that their graduation announcements are available in quantities as low as 20, with additional ones available by the 10's. They have a relatively new photo graduation announcement option. These are lovely and highly customizable, and are offered in groups of 25, with add-ons by the 5's. These options allow you to purchase as many, or as few announcements as you need, without breaking the budget.

There are some important steps to take when getting ready to order your announcement, the first being this: make a list! We were on a tight budget when Emily graduated, but we knew it was important to make a big deal out of her graduation, so we opted for finger foods and an afternoon graduation party, instead of an evening dinner-style event. When we had made the list of who Emily wanted to invite - both family and friends, we looked at the various announcements on HomeschoolDiploma.com and decided to purchase their Simply Stated announcements for her Open House. Our budget would allow for a lot of this style, or a much smaller number of the traditional announcements, and we went with letting more family and friends know about her accomplishment!

The Simple Stated announcements are available in three colors: white, black, and navy, and a variety of foil printing colors. We let Emily choose her own, and she went with Hot Pink letters on the white cards. While this is a less expensive option, it is not a cheap card. It is elegant and formal, and you can use one of their popular texts, or create it entirely on your own. There are several fonts to choose from, so this card truly is customizable even while being easy on the budget. This card still comes with the traditional two envelopes, and can be upgraded to foil lined envelopes, just like the other styles.

Recently HomeschoolDiploma.com has added a hand-lettered Hope and a Future announcement option that I think will appeal to a lot of homeschoolers. It is much less formal on the front, while still retaining the elegance of a traditional graduation announcement on the inside.

HomeschoolDiploma.com has a team that is dedicated to making your graduate's day special from beginning to end. They have volume discounts available for Co-ops and Schools that want to order announcements, caps and gowns, and diplomas for the entire gradating class. Whether you are all ordering together, or individually, they will work with your group or school to get you the best products to fit your needs.

Remember I said there were some steps? Making the list comes first, because you want to order all of your announcements at once, along with any other add-ons like foil seals,  or invitation cards for the open house if you are using the formal group graduation ceremony announcements. The second step is to order the announcements. Third is gather the address of the recipients. While your teenager may just want to send a text to their best friends reminding them about her graduation party, the Grandparents and Great-aunt Jane are going to expect an announcement in the mail. You cannot mail them if you don't know where to send them. ;) Fourth is to sit down and address the invitations and mail them out. 

For some more thoughts on announcements, and why to send them, read this thoughtful post.

Whichever graduation announcement design you choose with your graduate, know that these announcements should bring a smile to the face of the recipients, and the event you are planning for your graduate will hold many memories for all of you!

Next time, we will talk about choosing a diploma, and why you should order one for your graduate that fits their personality! Can't wait? Check out this post about when we ordered Emily's diploma.