Our Homemade Course in Video Production

Summary:  Homeschool high school electives can include the fun of video making.  Here is how we made our own homemade course, including #homeschoolelective curriculum and more. #homeschoolinghighschool is so much more than just core studies. This post may included affiliate links to products that we love and have used or would use in our homeschool, and click here for my disclosure policy.

Making things, doing arts and crafts, and photography were always big in our homeschool. And into the high school years, too.  One year, my daughter wanted to try her hand at video-making. 

Nature Study Activities for Teens - and How to Make them into a High School Elective

Summary:  Homeschooling high school does not often include #nature study.  But there is no reason not to, and we made it into an easy #homeschool highschool elective. #homeschoolhighschool #homeschoolhighschoolelective #naturestudyforteens  This post may have affiliate links to resources that we used or would like to use in our homeschool.  Please see my disclosure policy.


We are all crazy about birds in our house.  

Often, we spent a lot of time identifying birds, learning to distinguish their calls and making bird feeders when my daughter was young.  But can we still do that in high school?  And can it count as an elective?

Birdwatching Nature Study - Simple Unit Study, Favorite Bird Books for Kids, and more.

Summary:  Birdwatching is a great way to get started with nature study for your kids.  This includes tips for birdwatching, books, a simple unit study, and more.  This post may included affiliate links to products that we love and have used or would use in our homeschool, and click here for my disclosure policy. #naturestudy #homeschoolelementary #unitstudy

Are you kids so wanting to be able to play outside?  Do they miss doing nature study from last summer?

How about putting out a bird feeder, and watching for wild birds from the coziness of your warm living room?  

Today I'd like to share how we did birdwatching in our homeschool, starting with having fun birdwatching:

- Bird Photos to Identify
- Elementary Bird Activities
- Birding Unit Study 

- Science Experiments

- Holiday Bird Count

- Birdwatching Books

- Art Lessons on Birds 

We started birdwatching very early on in our homeschool.  When my child was a toddler, she noticed the birds from her bedroom window.  We enjoyed watching local birds that would fly by, or land on a tree, or sometimes on our deck.

We made a peanut butter feeder, just from a large pinecone and peanut butter, and a strong to hang it with.  You could use a toilet paper roll, too.

Then, we put up a feeding station, one for the suet, which the wild birds especially liked, and one for the bird seeds.

Below are photos of common birds seen in our country.  You may enjoy identifying these with your children.

1.  Bird Photos for Identification

Pileated Woodpecker (left) and Downey Woodpecker

One day we were blessed to see a hummingbird on one of our bushes....

In the winter we saw robins....

Canadian Robin

2.  Elementary Bird Activities

We were always on the hunt for birds.  

We watched for them, looked them up together, and discussed what they liked to eat.  At the library, we found books on bird nests and baby birds.

The next year, we started using Golden's Guide to Field Identification - Birds of North America

3.  Simple Unit Study on Birdwatching

Having a bird feeder nearby, and watching the comings and goings there, can be a great nature study and unit study activity.  

Math can be done just  by just adding in some bird count activities.  You could even report your findings to the FeederWatch site.  That touches on science, reading, and even math, for recording and reporting your stats to the site.

Moving the Bird Feeder Experiment

One year, we decided to move our bird feeding station from the side yard to the back, where we could see the birds better. This led to a great math and science activity, involving three steps:

Three Steps to Experimenting:

1.  Make a hypothesis - First we estimated how long the birds would take to find the new feeder location
2.  Collect your data - Then we tabulating how many came to the new feeder each day
3.  Do your analysis - Then we analysed our data, to determine if our hypothesis was correct.

It took over a month for all the birds to find the new location!  

Our hypothesis was wrong.  But my child was learning and using the scientific process, while developing a love for nature. 

For Older Birders

Nature journaling can become the science and art component.  

Sometimes we even joined in with  Cornell's Feeder Watch.  We enjoyed doing that each year, just by counting the number of different birds that came to our backyard feeder. 

Your older birds may just love joining in an organized bird count, and below is more information on that.

Holiday Bird Count

In December, each year, you probably hear about the Holiday Bird Count.  

This is an organized count of the number of birds found in your backyard, or your designated area.  It is sponsored by the Audubon Society, and provides vital information to help protect birdlife habitat.  

We watched from our feeder and from our neighborhood, keeping stats on what we saw.  As my child grew older, she became to scribe, and would submit the data herself.  

Pretty soon it was her data.  If you are interested, they also have a Backyard Bird Count, which goes on periodically throughout the year, too.

For winter birding, there is the Great Backyard Bird Count in February. 

This became a tradition in our home, each year.  We saw, identified and counted hundreds of birds, such a joy to discover some of God's creation.

Adding in some great books about birds can then easily complete your unit study.

Books for Young Birdwatchers

  For Little Birders

Birds, Nests and Egg

How Do Birds Find Their Way

Bird Log 

For Elementary Birders

Birdhouses You Can Build in A Day

Backyard Birding for Kids

Beginning Birdwatcher's Book - with 48 Stickers

Peterson Field Guide for Backyard Birds  

Would you like to add art to your birdwatching unit study?  Would you like to have your kids learn more about specific birds, and do art at the same time?

Art Lessons for Birders

Have you ever seen the frugal art lessons offered by Tricia Hodges, a long time homeschooler?

These video art lessons from Chalk Pastels.com are taught by a master artist and include the following birds:

• owl
• cardinal
• goldfinch
• hummingbird
• chickadee
• robin
• sandpiper
• bluebird
• Bonus! baby bluebird and bird nest

Click here for more information, a free sample lesson and more.  

Would you young birders enjoy studying leaves?  My friend, Misty offers a Leaves Unit Study that I think they would enjoy.

And Kristin shares a Bird Unit Study on Kristin Moon Science.

Birdwatching provided so many learning opportunities, and built a love of nature in my daughter, that has continued through the years.

My friend, Sarah, shares Learn About Birds with Free Resources at Freedom Homeschooling.

What are you favorite things to do for nature study?  

Thanks for stopping by BJ's Homeschool,

Betsy

Betsy is mom to her now college grad, whom she homeschooled from preK through high school.  She blogs at BJ's Homeschool, about the early years, high school & college and wrote - Homeschooling High School with College in Mind.   She offers free homeschool help through messages at BJ's Consulting. 

Want to stay in touch?

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Copyright, Revised 2024
All Rights Reserved

Our Favorite Frugal Resources for Hands-On Science Activities - Elementary

Summary:  Fun frugal and hands-on resources for elementary science to your kids.  #homeschoolscience #homeschoolelementary 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.

Are you looking for science studies for your elementary kids that are fun and hands-on?   

Learning from hands-on experiences was the best way to go for my daughter.  And she loved learning the scientific process by actually doing it.

An Interview with a Homeschool Mom

Summary:  This is my interview by the homeschool blogger at Faith and Good Works, sharing how we homeschooled our child through the years, and then how we helped her get into college with her homeschool transcript.  #howtohomeschool #meetahomeschooler

Good morning all!  Have you ever been over to the Faith and Good Works blog?  

I had the opportunity to be interviewed for their blog series - Interview of a Homeschool Mom, which they are offering every month this year.  Check it out!

What a great way to get to know other homeschooling families, and find one of two blogs to follow, that fit your own family's homeschooling style.

I am pleased to share and be interviewed today, to give your more of an idea of our homeschooling experience, and why and how we choose this path for our daughter.

As you know, we started when my kidddo was 4, and continued all the way through high school.....Here she is at 4, if you haven't seen this one yet....I just had to share, as she is still my "baby"....

She is the the one on the left, in the row of standing little ballerinas....She loved that class!

To read more about our journey, and details that I don't usually get time to share here, please click here.  

I hope that this series at Faith and Good Works encourages you, and that it might add a little spice to your Monday, while you do the important work of homeschooling your precious kids.....

Are you homeschooling a high schooler this year? All the details that you need to plan your high school at home are here.

Homeschooling High School with College in Mind - 2nd edition, 
Amazon 

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.

Want to stay in touch?

Subscribe, Pinterest, Facebook 

No spam ever.  

Just encouragement for your homeschool in your inbox. 

Copyright 2020 @ BJ's Homeschool

All Rights Reserved

BJ's Guide to Homeschooling High School - You Can Do It!

Are you homeschooling high school, or thinking about it for next year?  Homeschooling high school is really not so hard.

Looking back, I pulled together some planning resources for the high school years, for Credits, Curriculum, and Transcripts.....

First of all, let's talk about high school credits.

1.  Assigning High School Credit

It is not that hard to assign high school credit. Have you heard about the 3 simple ways to assign high school credit to your teen?

There are:..................1.  the Textbook method

                                       2.  the Hours method

                                       3.  the Mastery method

My book below explains each of them. 

All of the work that your teen does can earn high school credit, including:  

• internships
• core studies
• electives
• volunteering
• paid part time work
• courses you make yourself
• and much more!

We did a lot of different kinds of learning, and all of it counted.

Now let's talk homeschool high school curriculum.....

2.  Curriculum Search Resources

First, we started with our favorites from middle school. 

I wanted to keep whatever was working  best for my daughter.   

My daughter was a big part of this process. Together, we searched the internet, our favorite blogs and homeschool catalogs, and talked with our homeschooling friends, to find new ideas.  


Here are my favorite resources for your search:

------ Homeschool High School CURRICULUM DIRECTORYput together by homeschool moms in Indiana.

This curriculum directory was compiled by the Indiana Association of Homeschool Educators. And it includes links, too!  These are not just for homeschools in Indiana. They did a comprehensive job.

------ THE CURRICULUM CHOICE

This site is full of curriculum reviews, written by a team of authors who have used the curriculum at home with their families.  

There are reviews of curriculum such as Tapestry of Grace, IEW for literature and writing, Charlotte Mason options, and tons and tons of many more reviews, too. 

What did we use for high school curriculum?

 At BJ's Homeschool, we used a combination of faith based and secular resources.  

My book on homeschooling high school has more information on our curriculum, plus others we considered but didn't decide to use.  

It also talks about how to meet those college entrance requirements and core studies. 

But what exactly are high school core studies.....

3.  High School Core Studies

Core studies are just the basic high school courses, in math, english, social studies, and science.

What your choose for core studies is most often up to the individual homeschool family.  

Most states do not list what is required for a homeschool diploma. 

If you are unsure of this, just check with your local homeschool organization.

Now that you have resources for finding your curriculum, and you understand what core studies are.  You are ready to search for your own high school curricula.

But before we ordered anything, we spent time talking about my teen's special interests. 

These influenced our choices for core studies and also became her high school electives!

4.  High School Electives

What is your teen passionate about?  How do they spend their time, when they have free time?  What are their gifts?

My daughter wanted to learn about film making.

So we did some video making that one of her homemade electives. She learned how to make her own videos, and entered them in various contests.  

The beauty of homeschooling high school is that you get to build and nurture your teen's interests and help them to discover their strengths.

Now that we finished talking about curriculum, core studies and electives, let's talk transcripts...

5.  Making your High School Transcripts

Compiling your transcripts doesn't have to be that hard!  

If you would like a little help to put them together, just click on the word, transcripts above. It's a simple step by step guide for making those transcripts.

My book and e/book below also has a sample transcript for you, plus directions as to how to fill it out.

High School was my favorite time, of all of our homeschooling years.  Watching my daughter blossom and grow, during the teen years....That was priceless!

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

Paperback and Kindle are 

on Amazon 

Kindle version is on sale all month of June

But what do homeschool moms think of it?

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.

Want to stay in touch?

Subscribe, Pinterest, Facebook 

No spam ever.  
Just encouragement for your homeschool in your inbox.

Copyright, all rights reserved

 @ BJ's Homeschool 2025

Homeschooling Children with 2e or ADHD

Summary:  How we homeschooled our 2e child with attentional and sensory processing issues.  Sharing our favorite homeschool elementary curriculum choices plus how we set up our days, to meet her child's needs.  #homeschool2e #homeschoolADHD #homeschoolelementary



Do your kids struggle with attention issues?  Or are they very active, have difficulty concentrating, or show signs of ADHD?

When my niece was young, she was a very active child.  She had difficulty concentrating on verbal directions.  She also was a sensory seeking child. 

Homeschooling was ideal for her, as it allowed me to adapt things to the way she learned best.  

With her difficulty with auditory processing, ie, concentrating on verbal directions, listening to the teacher talk in public school at the front of the class would have been a big struggle for her.

We wanted her to have the daily support of learning at home.  I tried a number of things to facilitate her learning, and through the years, these issues became less and less of a problem.  

I happened to have a background in Occupational Therapy, so I drew on that as we homeschooled our daughter.

My niece is now a college grad.  She made Dean's list her first year there, and is studying in their honors program. 

How we went about homeschooling her, when she was young... that is what I would like to talk about today.  

During the early years of preschool to 2nd grade, we focused just on the 3 R's, and did not concern ourselves with science or other subjects until later.  

Not that you need to do that, that is just how we approached things, as developing a strong background in the basics of math, reading and writing.

At the same time, we followed her interests, too.

First I'll be sharing about the curriculum we used during these early years.  

Then I'll talk about how we set up our homeschool day......with those all important breaks, and more.

1.  Early Elementary Curriculum Choices

So let's start with the beginning and how we did phonics.....           

Phonics

We chose Explode the Code (ETC), starting with the Primers. 

The approach used in ETC is great for visual learners, and my niece. It eliminated the struggle that we had with phonics previously, when her learning was more auditory (listening) based, although we did some auditory work, too, as she learned her sounds.

Reading

My niece wanted to be independent in things, even before she knew how to, which was a challenge sometimes.  

We started with the Bob Books Readers, after she finished her ETC primers.  She loved the funny little simple stories in these very early readers.

We then moved to the "I Can Read"series, and then just continued with their next readers, also picking from what they had at the library.

Going from one reader level to the next really helped to gradually build her reading and comprehension skills.  

For fun she loved getting audio books from the library to read independently.

We also liked some of the workbooks from Evan-Moor.  These provided a helpful structure and fun hands on activities at the same time.

We set up in a special reading corner........with a shelf that blocked out other distractions in the room.  It can be a nice break where your child could snuggle up with a book, anytime. 

Handwriting

My niece didn't struggle with handwriting, but lots of kids with sensory processing issues do.  We chose a Handwriting without Tears book.

We used a multisensory approach to handwriting, included making letters in finger paint, cutting, play dough play, etc. Click here for 9 Fun Ways to a Mature Grasp.

For more fun and easy ways to help with handwriting, to build up the small muscles and more, here are the posts from my series called Handwriting Helps.......

 Small Muscle Games

Teach Your Kids to Write

 Aids/Devices for Grasp

 Develop Hand Strength with Clay Fun  

Helping Struggling Handwriters

Math

We used Math U See, after spending our preschool/K years just doing math using manipulatives, math play, and making patterns. 

Learning to make 2 or 3 part patterns introduced her to the patterns of math. This was done with beads, etc.  Much of math work can be play and done on the floor.  Giving lots of control to your child in their lessons, with guidance, can help a lot with our ADHD kids.

Numbers and Patterns - another fun math resource

"Seeing" how math works is the ticket, but "Doing" is the best for early math, counting buttons, making cookies, and the fun of subtracting them. lol.  That is how my daughter learned to love math!

Art

And don't forget art!  We did a lot of arts and crafts, fingerpainting,

clay work, and some handwork, too.  Making it into a routine can also be a help.  

Handwork such as weaving, hand sewing little projects, etc can be a great way to develop attention span, direction following skills, and more, while coming up with a finished product.

The finished product can be a great help for building confidence.  And building attention span can be a lot more fun with projects, than just with homeschool lessons, of course.

Handwork activities can also be helpful go-to activities for fun and for when we had a hard day.  

All of these activities can help build attention span and concentration skills, while giving her a creative outlet.  

For more on elementary homeschool curriculum that we liked, please click here.

My friend from 7 Sisters Homeschool also offers an extensive list of quality Elementary Curriculum Resources here - Favorite Homeschool Curriculum for Elementary Grades.

2.  Setting up the Day

Attention Span Issues

Young active learners often do better with short learning periods, such as 15 or 20, or 30 minutes at a time.  Adding in a break in between each session, as needed, where your child plays, watches an educational show on tv, etc is often essential.

Rewards Can be A Help

My child liked to earn stickers, which she chose each week or two from the book store.  Earning stickers gave her a concrete reward. We always went over her sticker chart at the end of the week, to give her extra attention for her efforts.   

Every so often, we went to the dollar store, and got little toys that she then earned with her stickers.  

Nothing like stickers to build up and instill motivation for learning and completing one's work.  

Adaptations 

 Direction Following  

Whenever there are directions to be given, I always had my child play with a small toy for a figet.  This helped to lessen anxiety and concentration tended to improve.  

When there were two part verbal directions to be given, such as for simple chores, I would say the direction first, then ask her to repeat it to me.  

Later, when she was older, she preferred to write down any directions that were given.  That technique can help all the way through middle school.

Kids who have difficulty with verbal direction, tend to be visual learners.  That is why homeschooling can work so well.  

I could set her work up so that she could learn visually, instead of the way it would have been done at public school, with the teacher giving multiple verbal cues and directions all day.

Some kids like to use weighted blankets, and find that that helps calm their nervous systems.  

Even regular blankets can do that. This can gave some deep pressure, which could be very calming.  Some kids also benefit from weighted vests, which can provide that same deep pressure.

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, coll

ege, 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.

Want to stay in touch?

Subscribe, Pinterest, Facebook 

No spam ever. 

Just encouragement for your homeschool in your inbox. 

Copyright Revised 2021 @ BJ's Homeschool

All Rights Reserved