Planning Homeschool High School with College in Mind



How to plan your homeschool high school for your teen, in case they decide to go to college.  #homeschool high school #getintocollege This post may included affiliate links to products that we love and have used or would use in our  own homeschool. Please see my disclosure policy.



As homeschoolers, we already know so much about planning. We have searched for, and chosen curriculum each year for our kids.  And we have decided what subjects to focus on and how to teach them to our kids.  

Planning for high school, with college in mind is really no different, except for one important thing.....

Now your teen has their college entrance entrance requirements to fulfill.

Starting classes, freshman year.

It can be overwhelming, thinking of how to get these requirements in.  What we did to combat that, was to lay out a tentative overall plan for the high school years.  

Making this plan helped us in 3 ways..


First, if I had an overall plan to follow, I would be less likely to forget a requirement or two.

Secondly, having this plan freed my teen to focus on building her interests, because our core studies were already set in mind, and on paper.

Finally, it really cut down on our initial nervousness about homeschooling to college.  


Making An Overall Plan for High School

My teen was  a big part of our planning.


It is nice to start this planning early on, if possible.  But it is not necessary.  

If you are starting later, say in junior year, you can still do this, by just looking back, and recording what has been done, then adding in the remaining courses that would be needed.

With our list of admission requirements in hand, we sketched out what our high school years might look like.....

This consisted of our best guesses of "what" courses we wanted to do "when.  We wrote them out in a notebook. 



Our overall plan was very flexible, and revised and reworked every year, as life happened. 

Yet, it was a helpful to guide for us, and ours looked something like this:

 BJ's 4 YEAR PLAN

For these college entrance requirements:

4 English
2 Science with labs
3 Math with one math-oriented science in senior year
3 Social Studies
2 Foreign Language

Electives to equal 22 - 24 credits

My teen's first day on campus.
______________________________________________________
                                             
 9th grade

World History
English (lit and composition)
Science - Physical Science (good prep for bio next year)
Math - Algebra 1
Elective 
PE
________________________________________________________

 10th grade

Foreign Language - Spanish 1
Science - Biology with Lab
Math - Geometry
English (lit and comp)
 PE/Health 

Take the PSAT
________________________________________________________
  
11th grade

Foreign Language - Spanish 2
 US History 
Science - Chemistry with lab
Math- Algebra 2
English
 Elective 

Take the SAT or ACT

___________________________________________________________

12th grade

 US Government
Science - Physics
English (lit and comp)
2 Electives 
PE

Take SAT or ACT again if needed
______________________________________________________


  Your plan could be similar or entirely different from mine, depending on: 

1.  your college choices-admission requirements
2.  your homeschooling style

3.  your teen's unique interests and talents


What if you don't know the exact college entrance requirements for your teen?  

In that case, you just have to make your best guesses, when it comes to planning.  Here's a couple more examples that may help:

Donna Young has an overall high school plan for kids aiming towards college.


Let's Homeschool High School also has examples of high school requirements for college admission to ivy league colleges and more.

Fulfilling theses requirements, still left lots of time for special interests, activities and electives, too. 

Once we had our overall plan, we packed it away,  pulling it out each year only at curriculum planning time.  

This was a very important step for us, as it helped us both to focus on the year at hand, and to build in the FUN, too!


High School Planners 

high school planner
photo credit - The Curriculum Choice

We, at BJ's Homeschool, did our plan on notebook paper, we really did......But if you like, there are many great planners out there, including this one, from A Well Planned Day.

A Well Planner Day Planners

4 year planner for high school, from A Well Planned Day, and here's a review of it from  The Curriculum Choice.


"Now, I’ll say right away there’s also a one-year planner available in case this sounds overwhelming, but we took a leap to try out the longer version.  Wow…an excellent resource for my high schooler!"  (read more about this planner and Daniele's review here)


Aiming towards college, step by step, allowed us to prepare for the college admission process, yet still keep our focus on our nurturing homeschool, front and center!  


Building in the fun with the penguins at the zoo.




Have you seen my facebook group called Homeschooling Through High School?  Join us!


After helping my homeschooled high schooler get into each of the colleges she applied to, I wrote this guide:


Paperback is at Amazon $11.99

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Thanks for stopping by BJ's Homeschool,

Betsy

Betsy is mom to her now college grad, whom she homeschooled through high school.  She blogs at BJ's Homeschool, about the early yearshighschool
collegegifted/2e and wrote -Homeschooling High School with College in Mind, 2nd Edition,   She offers homeschool help through messages at BJ's Consulting and has had some of her articles picked up by the Huffington Post.


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