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 requirements to fulfill.
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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
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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.....
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
For these college entrance requirements:
4 English
3 Math with one math-oriented science in senior year
3 Social Studies
2 Foreign Language
Electives to equal 22 - 24 credits
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______________________________________________________
9th grade
World History
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
PE/Health
Take the PSAT
________________________________________________________
11th grade
Foreign Language - Spanish 2
US History
Science - Chemistry with lab
Science - Chemistry with lab
Math- Algebra 2
Elective
Take the SAT or ACT
_______________________________________________________
12th grade
US Government
Science - Physics
2 Electives
PE
Take SAT or ACT again if needed
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
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.
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 as well,
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!
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/College Planning
We, at BJ's Homeschool, started our planning on notebook paper, we really did......
.....Then as we worked together, I created our college planning forms, which are now in the appendix of our book, Homeschooling High School with College in Mind, 2nd edition, below.
What are people saying about our ebook/book:
by Lessa, a College Counselor
Or here's our Google Review:
"Homeschooling High School with College in Mind, is a well-laid-out how-to guide for setting up a high school homeschool so teens wind up having knowledge and skills that colleges expect in their students."
More information about it is on Amazon. Below you will see more options for your planning.
A Well Planned Day Planners
A 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!
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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 years, highschool,
college, gifted/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.
college, gifted/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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