The Nervous Mom's Guide to College

Summary:  A step by step guide to homeschooling your college bound teen.  "homeschoolhighschool" "getintocollege" 

Are your homeschooled teens interested in college?  

Mine was and is now a college grad. 

This article has been published on the iHomeschool Network.

It is full of tips and helps for getting into college as a homeschooler. 

To reach my article on applying to college as a homeschooler, click on the link below:

Homeschool to College, It Isn't That Hard!

Be encouraged!!  My teen got into each of the colleges she applied to, with scholarship offers.

If you missed that link, here it is again.  The Nervous Mom's Guide to College is here.

Feel free to send me your questions, too.

More tips on getting into college as a homeschooler, plus how to plan your high school at home are in my frugal book below.

 Homeschooling High School with College in Mind, 2nd Edition

Frugal Paperback and Kindle are on 

Amazon 

This book includes:

>Chapter 1 - How to Start Homeschooling if you are New to Homeschooling

>Chapter 2 - 101 Reasons to Homeschool High School

>Chapter 3 - Researching and Getting Started

  Chapter 4 - Planning High School and Making a 4 Year Plan

>Chapter 5 - Choosing Your High School Curriculum

>Chapter 6 - Three Ways to High School Credit

>Chapter 7 - Making Your Teen's Transcripts

>Chapter 8 - 100 High School Electives

>Chapter 9 - Making Homemade Courses

>Chapter 10 - Writing a Winning College Essay

>Chapter 11 - Course Descriptions and Reference Letters

>Chapter 12 - The Common Application 

>Chapter 13 - Preparing Your Teen for College Writing

>Chapter 14 - Dealing with College Testing SAT/ACT

>Chapter 15 - Top Sources for College Scholarships

>Chapter 16 - Dealing with “Those Questions” from Others

>Chapter 17 - Don’t Forget the FUN!

The good folks at Lit Pick, a great place to find quality, faith based books for your kids and teens, were kind enough to review my book.  Click here to read that. 

Thanks for stopping by BJ's Homeschool,

Betsy

Betsy homeschooled her now college grad from preschool through high school.  Her teen loved that she had multiple offers for college acceptance with scholarship offers.  Betsy blogs at BJ's Homeschool, about high school, college and the early years, too.  She offers homeschool help at BJ's Consulting, and loves meeting with homeschool families.  

50 Hands-On Holiday Gifts for Homeschoolers

Note - This post has affiliate links to products that we love and would use in our homeschool.  Please see my disclosure policy.

It's December and I am still working on my holiday shopping list, or you, too?  Each year, when my 2e daughter was young, we always filled our list up with hands-on fun holiday gifts for her, that were educational.

My daughter learned so much from doing hands-on projects in our homeschool, especially during the cold winter months, when it was too chilly to play outside. It was nice and cozy inside when my daughter had a fun project to do.  So we always included two or three hands-on kits or projects in our holiday gift buying for our daughter, when she was in the elementary years.

And she loved getting these gifts!  At the same time, doing hands-on projects taught her so much, and with her ADHD tendencies, we saw improved attention span, concentration, attention to task, and more.  And doing these activities or kits together made wonderful memories, too.

Here are 50 hands-on gift ideas for you, including creative arts and crafts, fabric arts, my favorite science kits, and even some construction kits for making things with wood.

Let's start with arts and crafts, which are so great for developing small muscle skills, and more.

ARTS AND CRAFTS KITS

Arts and Crafts were always big in our homeschool.  My daughter learned to hand sew early on, and loved making small sewing projects.  We also enjoyed spinning art, origami, and crafting with clay.  And anything project oriented from American Girl.  Here's some creative kits for each of these activities that I just mentioned.





Have you ever thought about teaching your kids how to knit or weave, using very simple projects? Oak Meadow Homeschool curriculum got us started with some knitting and weaving.  These projects were so fun to do together and also helped my daughter with her attention issues and concentration skills.

HAND ARTS  - KNITTING & WEAVING



Each year, in the elementary years, we spent Thursday mornings working on a hand arts projects, using VERY small, VERY easy projects.

Now that we have touched on Arts and Crafts and Fiber Arts, let's turn to hands-on science FUN with science kits...

SCIENCE KITS

Do your kids like to do science hands-on?  For science in the elementary years, we mostly focused on simple science projects from Evan Moor, and hands-on science kits that my daughter chose herself. These make great gifts for your young scientists!

One of my favorite companies for science kits is the Magic School Bus.  Do you love using Magic School Bus for science, too?





Then, when my daughter was a middle schooler, we found some great educational science kits from Science Wiz Kits. We especially loved these.  Here is my review of one of them, if you would like more information.

And finally, I'd like to share some wonderful wooden construction kits that I found.   At our house, my daughter started out making things out of cardboard and tape, and here's one that she made of the rides that she took at our state fair.  Then she got into making things with wood.....

WOODEN CONSTRUCTION KITS 

Building with wood, what a great way to play and learn on a winter's day!  Making things with kits like these below, improved my child's direction following skills, attention to task, organizational skills and more.  And then, there was the pride of creating something by hand, and a job well done!

I hope that this gives you some helpful ideas for your own holiday gift shopping list. 

 Here are reviews for 5 more of my favorite hands-on gift ideas for your kids.  What would you add to this list?  If you share your ideas below, I am sure that other families would be interested in them.  I wish you a cozy and warm winter, with lots of hands-on learning fun with your kiddos!

Thanks for stopping by BJ's Homeschool,

Betsy

Betsy is mom to her 20 year old college student whom she homeschooled from day one.  She blogs at BJ's Homeschool, about the early years, high school & college and wrote a new e-book for College Bound teens.  She offers free homeschool help and messages at BJ's Consulting.

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Copyright, 2016, All Rights Reserved

Homeschool High School Transcripts FREEBIE - A Step by Step Guide

Summary:  Making your transcripts are not hard to do with this guide.  I researched top sites to put this together.  And transcripts are really just a record of what your teen has been doing and studying.  

Are you new to homeschooling high school and wondering what homeschool transcripts are all about?

Or are you already in the midst of homeschooling your teen, and are just looking for some direction on making their homeschool high school transcipts?

You will find many answers to your transcripts questions here. 

When my own teen was starting high school at home, I went about doing some research on that, and came up with a step by step guide for me to follow.  

It was a help to me and I hope that it will be a help to you, too.  My daughter got into each of the colleges that she applied to with her homeschool transcripts.  

Did you know that homeschool transcripts are being very widely accepted across the U.S. by the colleges?  

Knowing what to put on my daughter's homeschool transcripts was a big part of my teen getting into college.  

So today, I am offering my free PDF Guide to Homeschool Transcripts to you, as a FREEBIE download.

It is a step-by-step guide to making your own homeschool transcript for your teen.

I invite you to click here to get yours:  Guide to Homeschool Transcripts.

I offer much more on homeschooling high school and getting into college on my blog here.

That will take you to my high school articles.  Then if you scroll down just below them, you will reach those on college.

I also offer a book on the subject, on Amazon, which is FREE to read with AMAZON Prime, through January 15th, 2022. 

If you sign up for reading on Prime, you will be able to read it beyond that deadline.  Sign up by January 15th for that freebie.

The colleges do not ask homeschoolers to have accredited coursework.  Your homeschool transcript will show all the credits that your student earned, and none of them need to be accredited.  

Some colleges ask for Course Descriptions, which is a chapter in my book/kindle for your reference, if you like.

 I invite you to click here for more information.  And my best to your and your teen and your whole family, in your homeschooling journey.

Thanks for stopping by BJ's Homeschool, 

Betsy

Betsy is mom to her now college grad daughter, whom she homeschooled since she was in K. 

She blogs at BJ's Homeschool, about the early years, highschool, 

college and wrote -Homeschooling High School with College in Mind, 2nd Edition. 

She shares on  Facebook, pins at BJ's Homeschool Pinterest. 

Copyright all rights reserved @ BJ's Homeschool

2021

Homeschool High School Freebies - Transcripts, Planning Your High School and More

Would you like some freebies to help you get started with your high school at home?  How about a BOOK SALE on my Kindle GUIDE to HIGH SCHOOL?

Hi, I am Betsy from BJ's Homeschool, a long time homeschooler, who homeschooled my daughter through high school, then helped her get into each of the colleges that she applied to with scholarship offers.

 I am so happy to be offering my homeschool freebies from blog at BJ'S HOMESCHOOL, plus my kindle book sale. 

HIGH SCHOOL

Have you been thinking about homeschooling your teen?

Does the thought of making transcripts led to overwhelm?  It did for me, when I was starting out.  

That is why I put together my guide to making your Homeschool Transcripts, which I offer as a freebie to you.

1. FREEBIE: Homeschool Transcripts

Get your Guide to Homeschool Transcripts

Making your transcripts are not hard to do with this guide.  I researched top sites to put this together.  And transcripts are really just a record of what your teen has been doing and studying.  

Are you looking for more information on high school?  Do you wonder what kind of curriculum you would need to do high school?  And how to go about getting your teen going doing it?

2.  FREEBIE High School Helps - No Email Needed!

Are you looking for more  tips and helps for high school?  To give you more of an idea of what is involved?  This download comes to you directly, without any need to subscribe or share your email at all.

 High School Helps 

This FREEBIE is something to check out and save for later reference, too.  More information on this freebie is here - What's in High School Help? - Where the Contents of this Free PDF are explained.

3.  High School BOOK/KINDLE

On  AMAZON

It does take you through all the important things you need to know for high school.

And it really is not that hard!!

It is a easy-to-read guide includes 12+ Downloadable High School Planning Printables, plus chapters on:

• homeschool transcripts
• assigning high school credits
• making your own homemade courses
• high school curriculum
• college scholarships
• my Common Application guide
• course descriptions

Are you wanting to see what the book/kindle is like? 

4. FREE Chapter of my Book 

 FREEBIE 

For this freebie, no need to sign in.  The link above takes you to the free PDF directly.

It explains how to find and then deal with your teen's college entrance requirements, and also shows you how my book is written.  Easy to read, and full of tried and true tips.

We started homeschooling when my daughter was 4, as she was so ready to learn and we wanted to teach her at home, to give her that extra attention and to teach our family values and more to her.

So my blog also includes articles on the early years, below and also the middle school years, too.

Do you have younger kids in your home, too?

THE EARLY YEARS

Click the link THE EARLY YEARS for:

• how to get started homeschooling
• FRUGAL homeschool elementary curriculum
• homeschooling kiddos with ADHD, or Sensory Issues
• and more!

Does your child struggle with handwriting?  Or are you looking for a frugal way to teach it? 

As both a homeschooler and a retired O.T, I put together a bumch of specific, easy to do activities for handwriting.  And they are FUN for your kids!  And made them into a FREEBIE!

FREE HANDWRITING HELPS 

Playful ways to help with handwriting!

Thanks for stopping by BJ's Homeschool, 

Betsy

Betsy is Christian, veteran homeschooler, and mom to her now college grad, whom she homeschooled since the early years. 

She blogs at BJ's Homeschool, about the early years, middle school, high school, college, 2e. 

Betsy shares on  Facebook, pins at BJ's Homeschool Pinterest.  You can also reach her on BJ's Twitter.

Copyright all rights reserved @ BJ's Homeschool

2022