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Homeschool Help and Curriculum
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Homeschool parents want to do an excellent job preparing their teens for life after graduation.
Many of you have asked us for help in doing that, particularly when it comes to a solid, comprehensive Career Exploration plan.
We listened!
Introducing a NEW 10-component curriculum bundle in our ebookstore, available for immediate download for $9.85 (10% off the cost of each ebook purchased separately – limited time offer only May 2015 – price goes up after June 1st).
Here’s what’s causing all the excitement:
Career Exploration might just be the most important element of your teen’s high school experience.
Instead of graduating from high school with a shrug of the shoulders and a sigh of, “Well, I guess I need to figure out what I want to do with my life now…” your teen should be intentionally exploring areas of interest, strength and talent. He or she should be seeking God, seeking wise counsel from trusted people, and trying out different types of job fields.
High school is the perfect time to go exploring! You need a comprehensive high school career exploration curriculum.
The High School Career Exploration Curriculum Bundle from 7Sisters includes TEN components for success:
Purchased individually, these resources would be a bargain at $10.95.
(Actually, several of these are available for FREE download…you’ll have to click on the links to EXPLORE and learn more!)
Buy the BUNDLE and get a 10% discount —
pay just $9.85 (before June 1, 2015) for a comprehensive high school career exploration curriculum!
All 10 .pdf files download immediately in a zip (compressed) file that can easily be opened using any operating system on your device.
Introductory pricing
Homeschool Videos! You chose your sisters as BEST Homeschool Vloggers for 2014 — WOW!!!!
THANK YOU to all who voted!
We LOVE sharing homeschool encouragement with you, and it makes us so happy to learn that our vlogs (video-blogs) have been a blessing to so many homeschoolers.
If you haven’t seen the 7 Sisters Homeschool YouTube channel, pop on over for a visit!
The HSBAPost is a fantastic resource for homeschool information and encouragement.
Need some encouragement for your homeschooling day? Here are some fun and encouraging vlogs to get your started:
How about a video for you and your homeschool high schoolers about why they should study psychology?
Here’s a fun video about why ebook curriculum works well for homeschooling high schoolers.
Thinking about homeschool high school? It is a magnificent way to educate teens! Grades 9-12 are so formative in guiding adolescents in looking for God’s plans for them, discovering their strengths and not being defeated by their weaknesses.
Thinking about homeschool high school? Feel intimidated?
Homeschool High School: You Can Do It! has been a favorite since its release almost 2 years ago. Its $2.99 cost (on Kindle) is worth the investment in encouragement and wisdom from your homeschooling sisters.
You know, between the bunch of us 7 Sisters, we’ve homeschooled 26 of our kids through high school. We are also active in our local homeschool community as academic advisors and group-class teachers. We have helped guide our local students through solid academic and life preparation experiences so that they are ready for college, career, or calling.
We want to help our many other homeschool friends feel confident in making the homeschool high school decision.
We talk about:
Some of my kids at son #3’s college graduation
Now to get you started, here’s my vlog about the perfect homeschool high school transcript:
As homeschool academic advisor, I’ve enjoyed looking back at various ways of combining credits for great high school experiences. Today I’d like to share how we created useful and inspirational combined credits for my youngest.
Seth is a musician. He has played guitar and drums on church worship team for years. He is a thinking musician and wants to know how and why we do contemporary-style worship . So starting off high school with a good foundation in Christian experience and the how’s-and-why’s of worship was a good use of his time. We ended up combining credits for his literature, history elective, and fine arts in a inspirational and meaningful way.
7 Sister Sabrina was teaching Great Christian Writers in our homeschool group classes. My son, Seth, and I were excited that he’d have a chance to start his high school years with some really meaningful (and some of it downright fascinating) literature.
In his group classes (which he loved), they covered these writers (using Sabrina’s excellent study guides):
The Practice of the Presence of God- Brother Lawrence
Click here for more information.
Pilgrim’s Progress- John Bunyan
God’s Smuggler- Brother Andrew
Something Beautiful For God (Mother Teresa)- Malcolm Muggeridge
The Hiding Place- Corrie ten Boom
and several others inspired Seth by the Christlike characters portrayed (and some truly adventurous reading with Brother Andrew)!
Click here for more information.
To understand his church’s passion for contemporary worship, Seth needed to understand the history of Christian worship. He started with ancient Hebrew worship and worked his way through the birth of the church, up to the Middle Ages. (He stopped there for the year and finished the study in senior year.) He used The Oxford History of Christian Worship, The Story of Christian Music and more. Then he wrote the 10-page research paper that our umbrella school required for Language Arts on the topic. (You can find a copy of the paper as a sample paper in 7 Sisters APA Style Research Paper Writing Guide.)
To tie everything together, Seth earned a fine arts credit in Church Worship Theory. He logged 68 hours in watching instructional videos by Paul Baloche and a number of others (even a fun “how-to write a worship song in 5 minutes” by Blimey Cow).He studied Music Theory for a solid foundation. He filled in the time he needed for his 135 hours for Carnegie credit with his practice time on the worship team.
By combining credits for literature, history elective, and fine arts, Seth finished the year, grounded in Christian experiences and solid foundation for the callings God has blessed him with.
In case you haven’t seen it: just for fun, here’s my vlog on the perfect transcript.
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Literature, Geography, History, and Writing! They must show up a number of times on a homeschool high school transcript. Here’s how to work combining credits!
As academic advisor to the local homeschool high schoolers for the last 18 years, I’ve had the blessing of helping teens and parents develop courses that combine interests, gifts, and useful academic experiences. One of the teens needed to earn a .5 credit elective history credit, his required .5 geography credit, and a literature course that wouldn’t hypnotize him with boredom.
We came up with a course that included combining credits to maximize his interests in the World Wars. This is what it looked like:
Literature
Tony (not his real name) was required by our local umbrella school to read 25 real books for his literature credit. Tony did not love reading but he was fascinated by the World Wars. We decided to combine credits for his history, geography, and literature. Thus his book list would be totally World War related for this school year. Here are some categories:
Novels
Tony could demonstrate his reading comprehension without wasting his time on busywork by choosing a few literature study guides. Two good ones were:
A Separate Peace by John Knowles
Click here for more information.
The Hiding Place by Corrie ten Boom
He filled out his list with books he truly loved on weapons, airplanes, timelines, battle strategies, and biographies and speeches of famous people from the wars. Some of these were audiobooks that he played when he traveled in the car to various homeschool and church activities.
Geography
Tony combined credits for his .5 credit in geography by reading 4 books on World War locations and maps PLUS logging 37 hours in hands-on activities.
The 4 books became part of the booklist for his Literature credit, so he was getting 2 for 1 in his combining credits efforts.
The 37 logged hours included intensive map work illustrating the progress of the wars and several battles (with detailed topography and ecosystems noted). In Tony’s opinion, this was FUN geography!
History
Tony was able to utilize combining credits strategy for history and literature. Our local umbrella school allowed him to count 16 of his books from his literature list (not the 4 books used for geography), along with a summary paper for each as his history credit.
Click here for more information.
Tony went above and beyond the requirement by logging nearly 50 hours in museum visits, attending some actual re-enactments, and interviewing some relatives who were alive back in World War II. His combining credits efforts made his history hours engaging and purposeful.
Writing
Tony went further in combining credits by writing his required 10-page research paper (umbrella school language arts credit requirement) on the World Wars. He wrote his history-book summaries as essays or reports, thus fulfilling his remaining writing requirements.
I can’t say that Tony loved the writing part of this process, but he loved the rest. His work at combining credits in literature, geography, history, and writing made sense to him. It was the perfect combination for Tony!
For another idea on combining credits, check out this post!
One way to capture interviews of people who lived in a time period that your homeschooler is studying is with an Oral History paper. Check out Sabrina’s vlog.
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Here are wise ways to plan for high school courses for the fall: Combining Credits.
Advising season has begun! I have served for 18 years as an academic advisor for homeschooled high schoolers. Today I would like to share one of my experiences (names and identifying information changed, of course).
Some years past, I met with a homeschool senior and her mother. She had chosen wisely with her high school credits over the high school years. For her 12th grade year, she only had an elective history and language arts to complete- she could fill out her requirements with courses within her interest areas. She wanted to concentrate on her involvement in the local Civil War re-enacting community and some solid career exploration- apprenticing the the office administrator at a local business. In order to steward well her time, we decided to combine her history and literature courses with a Civil War History, Literature, and Art course.
This is how it played out:
Civil War Literature/Language Arts: -25 books over the year, including 10 historical novels, 5 biographies, 10 non-fiction books on the culture, fashion, religious movements, and politics of the time. -Her papers, stories, and research papers on Civil War topics (her 10-page research paper explained fashions of the era) -Public speaking (talking to groups at re-enactments) -Vocabulary, grammar (didn’t quite fit the Civil War topic, but had to be done)
Click image for info about MLA Research Paper Writing Guide!
Civil War History -Our umbrella school required approximately 16 books with summaries for a real-book credit in history. Her rich Literature course could be double-counted as history.
Art -She also 68 logged hours illustrating Civil War fashions and sewing some era-accurate dresses of the time for a Civil War Fashions art half-credit. This homeschool high schooler’s senior year proved to be memorable and rewarding. After high school, she went on to the community college where she specialized in office administration (a career that allowed her to keep her Civil War re-enactment involvement).
What are some interesting courses your homeschool high school student is working on?
Our 7 Sisters Literature Study Guides help homeschoolers build comprehension and inferential skills WITHOUT busy work! They are “levelable” so that average high schoolers and honors high schoolers can all adapt the learning experiences to meet their needs. $4.99 makes them affordable- download some today! What history is your homeschooler studying next year? Check our Literature Study Guides and download one that you can double log!
Click here for more information.
Here are a few of our high schoolers’ favorites: God’s Smuggler The Good Earth Les Miserables The Hiding Place
Watch Sabrina’s vlog on double-logging credits:
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This is the second in a 2-part series. For the first part, click here – High School Career Exploration: Our Experience.
High School Career Exploration: Our Experience Part 1 left us ready to look seriously into three career fields:
* Chef/Restaurant Industry
* Architecture
* Fitness/Personal Training
We found people we knew who were working in these fields or had connections to people working in them, and picked their brains. One of the most powerful of those brain-picking sessions was with a friend of my older children who had just finished chef school and loves working in his field. He came to the house and shared glowing stories about his time in culinary school, about what he loves about the restaurant industry, about all the various special disciplines you can study. It was great fun, and as we were winding down I figured visiting some culinary schools was going to be added to our calendar. Gordon asked Jonah, “So what thoughts do you have, now that I’ve shared my experience? You’ve asked lots of specific questions, but what’s your gut feeling? Think you might want to go further with this?”
With no hesitation, Jonah said, “I feel bad saying this because I can tell you love it, Gordon, but no. I actually think I’m definitely taking this option off my list.”
I was so surprised! I asked him why.
He said that it had never occurred to him how fast-paced/high-pressure the restaurant environment would be (he’s a pretty laid back guy) or how much his nights and weekends would be totally dominated by his work if he pursued this career. His time with family and friends is very important to him, and the schedule in this field would not mesh well with others who work more traditional daytime hours. He said he thinks he’ll keep his cooking for fun and entertaining his friends, but culinary school was off the list.
What a valuable opportunity! Finding out you definitely DON’T want to pursue a career (and why) is just as valuable as making your choice to settle on one that you DO want to pursue.
Our investigation of Architecture started with looking at the required courses for this major at several universities. Jonah quickly decided that these required courses did not interest him enough to warrant the time and money needed to go this route.
Our investigation of school options in the Fitness field revealed that several options were available. Everything from independent intensive programs (less than one year) to prepare for the National Certification Test from 4-year Bachelor degrees in Exercise Science could be had…with several variations in between.
We met with people working in the field and learned of the need for perseverance in building personal client lists, excellence in people skills, a teaching mindset as each client has different needs and unique learning styles (remember the personality test and Keirsey report that indicated he was a natural teacher?), and flexibility in work schedules. All of this was really sounding like a good fit to Jonah!
He has made his choice and just graduated from high school. He begins his 1-year Certificate Program at our local college (very affordable option) with plans to extend for a 2nd year to complete his Associate Degree in Exercise Science. After that, he has the option to transfer those credits in to any of the state universities to be an incoming Junior in an Exercise Science Bachelor’s program if he wants to.
His very intentional decision to work on high school career exploration in 10th grade resulted in him learning a lot about himself, ruling out several careers he thought he might enjoy, and educating himself on the various ways he could pursue the field he’s chosen to go after now that high school is over.
Do we know for sure that this career will be “successful”?
Of course not! Life doesn’t offer those kind of guarantees.
But we do feel confident that he is starting in a wise direction, taking smart steps after high school graduation.
And we hope sharing our experience may encourage some of you to be intentional as you look into high school career exploration!
Jonah’s journey started with Vicki Tillman’s Career Exploration Workbook. Download here for $6.99.
Here are 5 perks and 3 pitfalls of homeschool co-op.
Learning co-ops are a great idea for homeschooling families- especially when you have kids of all ages. Here’s why:
1) It provides sparkle and a change-up from ordinary days
We have always loved our at-homeschool days, but we sure looked forward to the excitement of co-op days. One of my favorite things was our friend, Cindy, who brought a big pot of chicken noodle soup each week for everyone to share. She’s one good cook!
2) You get to hang out with your homeschool mom-friends
Each week, during lunch break, all the moms ate, chatted, and prayed. (In fact, sometimes the kids said that we prayed too long.) It was such wonderful bonding and support.
3) Your kids get to hang out with their homeschool kid-friends
Casey and Bekah- co-op friends who fell in love and got married
My kids have life-long friends from our co-op. From early childhood to weddings, their shared life and learning experiences at co-op forged their friendships.
4) You can get a mom who likes it, to teach something you hate
I never enjoyed teaching art- but Cindy liked it. I never liked science, but Marilyn loved labs. Maureen, Allison, and Jette taught lit at various times and ages. My youngest’s favorite teacher of all time was his co-op teacher when he was 4 years old- Mrs. Haley. (She made fire truck cakes with the little ones and other awesome things- something you’d NEVER catch me doing.)
5) You can take some really memorable field trips together
Some field trips are most fun if you are taking them with your co-op friends. My kids loved re-enacting with their Pickett’s Charge and
My co-op mom friends
jumping on the rocks at Devil’s Den when we went to Gettysburg together. We studied the underground railroad, too, and had the kids sneak through an underground railroad trail- all the while watching out for the scary slave-catcher, Marilyn. They still talk about running from her to this day.
co-op at Gettysburg
Here are some pitfalls:
1) People are messy
We usually had co-op at Marilyn’s house. Although each mom had clean-up jobs, there was always leftover mess for her to clean up.
2) People are people
Sometimes we got to irritating each other. That’s life. The kids and the moms learned that friendship means toughing out good times and bad. It was worth it.
3) Success
Our co-op grew. Eventually enough people wanted co-op that we merged with our local homeschool umbrella school for their group classes. These are wonderful, too.
What are your homeschool co-op memories and experiences?
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Interested in starting a homeschool co-op? Download our FREE How to Start a Homeschool Co-op.
Homeschool transcripts. As upperclassmen advisor, I get LOTS of questions about the kinds of homeschool transcripts that are college or employer attractive. I tell folks that college admission officers (and sometimes employers) are looking for transcripts that aren’t the “barely-got-the-required-credits-done” style. They are looking for transcripts that have sparkle-appeal (I’ve heard some officers call it “pop”). That is, they need to show that your homeschool high schooler is not your run-of-the-mill applicant.
Here are three sparkle-appeal features in a college-attractive homeschool transcript:
1) Beyond-the-ordinary courses
Here are some for-instances: Instead of humdrum, uninspired “health” credit (a subject your teen already did several times over the years), show Human Development or Anatomy and Physiology.
(Out of my experience as a mental health counselor, I created Human Development from a Christian Worldview for a sparkly and useful health credit for my kids’ homeschool transcript. It slips health, fitness, nutrition, and self-care into a friendly look at how humans grow and change from womb to old age. Written at so that an average high schooler can work on his/her own, it includes additional activities for those who wish to level-up to college prep, advanced, or honors credits.)
Instead of ANOTHER run-of-the-mill World History, show History and Philosophy of the Western World.
(History and Philosophy of the Western World was co-written by my son, Dr. Micah Tillman, who teaches philosophy at Stanford’s Online School. This course builds a powerful history credit for the homeschool transcript because it not only gives a survey of world history but it integrates the philosophers throughout history and their ideas. We are finding that some colleges are LOOKING for philosophy, not as a requirement for admissions, but as a sparkle course over the competition.)
Click image for full product description.
2) Clearly recorded levels for core courses (with a key to explain them)
Each core course (Language Arts, Mathematics, Social Studies, Science) should record the level of academics performed by the student. For instance, according to our local umbrella school, an honors (level 5) course requires fully double the work of a college prep course (level 3). College prep courses require more work than an average high school level course. Here is our post explaining levels.
7 Sisters materials are mostly written to be accessible to any average high schooler, with no-busywork or wordiness. Instead, our texts are lighthearted while they cover the necessary topics for their subject. Each text includes additional activities or readings for students who wish to level-up. This adaptability makes 7 Sisters curriculum great for homeschool families or co-ops- and useful for homeschool transcripts.
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3) Involvement
Record extracurriculars, service, and competitions on the homeschool transcript in order to show the richness of your teen’s life experiences.
Download Human Development from A Christian Worldview and History and Philosophy of the Western World for some sparkle appeal, record the levels your teen worked on, and show involvement for a more attention-getting
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