Don't Graduate Your High Schooler Without These Life Skills

Share this post via email










Submit
Don't Graduate Your High Schooler Without These Life Skills

Homeschool doesn’t last forever!

It's a sentiment which has the potential to wring the heart of any homeschool parent, even those who are still in the early stages, wondering if adding and subtracting are ever going to click.

They will.

And someday the kids who repeatedly misspelled school will be all grown up and graduated—moving away from home, heading off to college and careers, marriages, and all manner of grown-up life.

Someday, your homeschooled high-schooler will graduate. Besides using a curriculum that teaches them the reading, math, writing, and science they need, how else can you ensure that your kids are best prepared for life beyond homeschool?

Here are crucial life skills to make sure you cover with your teens before high school graduation. Be sure to consider these when you create a homeschool high school plan.

1. Personal Finance Skills

Your teen should have some experience with handling a personal budget and managing their finances at this point in life, but the stakes are higher when, post-graduation, they begin seeking further education or move out on their own. For most young people, this is the first time that the amounts of money that they are managing begin to number in the thousands of dollars. This is when young adults often begin paying all or a great amount of their own living expenses, from groceries and rent to insurance.

Being able to make both big and small financial decisions that are in line with their own values is crucial to starting adulthood strong. Far too many twenty- and thirty-somethings in my own generation look back on their early adult years and wish they had made different choices.

Have meaningful conversations about finances throughout their high school years and give them the tools they need to make wise decisions.

During their teen years, consider having your student watch as you file taxes, pay bills, and create the family budget. Discuss how your values and financial goals influence your decisions for spending. Talk about the vocabulary surrounding savings accounts, retirement funds, and credit cards.

Personal Finance Discussion Starters for Teens

One of the best ways to make sure that your teens are prepared to handle real-world finances is to have open discussions about money and financial choices. Here is a list of discussion starters:

  • What are your career goals? What further education, if any, will be necessary to achieve those goals? How do you plan to pay for this education?
  • Are you willing to take out a loan to complete college if it is necessary? Are there alternative ways to get such a degree without going into debt?
  • What are you willing to get into debt for? For example, are you comfortable with taking out a loan on a car?
  • Do you know how to check your account balances?
  • Do you know how to check your credit rating and how to freeze your credit?
  • What is more important—attending a specific college or finding an affordable college?
  • Are you comfortable filing your own taxes? What are the possible consequences to errors on a tax return?
  • How do your values influence your daily spending, your giving, and your long-term saving? 
Sonlight Scholarships

2. Strong Communication Skills

Your homeschooled student needs to be comfortable with receiving a phone call from a stranger and making one. This seemingly small task is one that has become a foreign experience in the generation that was raised with texting and social media! But there are still many times in grown-up life when you must make a phone call—to set up a job interview, to deal with a utility bill, or when you have a concern about your health insurance. 

Phone calls are just one aspect of the wider range of strong communication skills that are needed to prepare your teen for life after graduation. Clear email communication plays a key role in many, if not most, careers, and it’s also important to develop confidence in face-to-face communication with people of any generation and background. 

Communication Life Skills Discussion Starters for Teens

As you seek to help your homeschooled student improve their communication skills, discuss these topics:

  • How does the manner in which you talk to a stranger display your values?
  • How would you respond if a person at work was rude and disrespectful to you? Would your response be different based on whether the person was a customer/client, a boss, or someone lower in rank than you?
  • What communication strategies can you use to respectfully defuse tension during a difficult conversation?
  • What types of professional situations would be better addressed in a face-to-face meeting? Which would be better addressed via email or phone call?
Level 600 Sonlight Electives

3. Household Skills

There’s no reason for the “bachelor apartment” phenomenon to exist, among young men or women. If your teens are equipped with the skills they need to maintain their homes, prepare nutritious meals, and keep their vehicles in safe working order before they leave the nest, then you won’t have to worry about becoming that parent of urban legend whose college student mails clothing back home to be laundered.

During the older teen years, when your kids often become busier outside the home with jobs, extracurriculars, and friends, it can become harder to enforce regular chore duties. But in spite of how busy schedules can become, making sure that your teens have adequate opportunity to practice and improve their household skills will prepare them to balance the maintenance of a home, yard, and vehicle while working full-time and raising their own families. 

Household Life Skills Discussion Starters for Teens

  • How comfortable are you with doing a routine car maintenance and safety checks on a vehicle before embarking on a long road trip (checking oil, tire pressure, etc.)?
  • Given your financial situation and location, what types of car maintenance jobs make more sense to perform at home? Which jobs are better handed off to professionals?
  • How can you best balance concerns regarding health, budget, and time when it comes to meals?
  • What types of home repairs can you learn to do yourself? When should you call a plumber or electrician?
  • What does the cleanliness of your living space reflect about your values and respect for other people who live in or visit their home?

4. Emotional Skills

The ability to gracefully handle the stress of adult life will be crucial for your children as they begin to leave home. There are countless intimidating first times ahead of them. Does your teen know where to turn when they feel overwhelmed with a new responsibility or situation?

Emotional Skills Discussion Starters for Teens

  • What are healthy ways to approach conflict in personal and professional relationships? What types of rhetoric should be avoided when arguing with someone you want to maintain a relationship with?
  • What healthy coping skills help most when you are faced with stressful life situations that you cannot control? Which are not effective?
  • In relationships, are you able to recognize signs and signals of manipulation, control, unhealthy dependence, or abuse? How do you foresee responding to the end of a romantic relationship? 
  • What people in your life do you trust most when you need to discuss difficult situations?
  • What role can forgiveness play in recovery from emotional wounds?
  • What assets do you have in your toolbox to combat anxious thoughts?
  • What responses to difficult seasons are you going to decide are “not an option” for you? (I.E. quitting a job without a backup plan, causing physical harm to self or others, etc.)

At these later stages of homeschool, it's time to move beyond simple physical skills into critical thinking, discussing why and how to apply the skills you’ve taught them. This is a key season as we seek to train the hearts and minds of our children. We pray they approach their own lives mindfully, rather than merely operating on auto-pilot or following the crowd of peers.

Mix and Match High School with Sonlight

For homeschooling high school with Sonlight, you have a variety of options. Mix-and-match courses to offer you maximum flexibility! 

Share this post via email










Submit
Tagged , | 1 Comment

11 Best Fiction Books for Animal Lovers

Share this post via email










Submit

Supply your animal-loving child with a home library of books featuring beloved animals.

Continue reading
Share this post via email










Submit
Tagged , , | 2 Comments

7 Reminders to Refresh the Servant-Hearted Homeschool Mom

Share this post via email










Submit

Homeschooling mothers often struggle with the tension between joyfully serving their families and feeling like unappreciated servants. Despite the exhaustion and lack of recognition, reflecting on these seven truths can revitalize you.

7 Reminders to Refresh the Servant-Hearted Homeschool Mom

They say that no one minds being a servant until they’re treated like one.

Homeschooling mothers face this dilemma on a regular basis. We love that we are called to be Christ-like servants to our families, but we don’t love when we are treated like servants by our husband, children, or friends. It’s discouraging to serve day in and day out without any significant recognition, appreciation, or compensation. Not to mention serving is exhausting and contrary to our natural desires.

How can we think well about our role and continue to serve day in and day out? Here are seven truths that strengthen me on a daily basis.

1. Ask God for Grace, Moment by Moment

When God tells us to love Him with our minds, perhaps He is speaking primarily about developing the servant mindset of Christ. God cares about homeschooling moms who desperately need the grace to be Christlike in the daily grind. Make this one of your personal prayer requests and God will surprise you with strength and endurance.

“Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” Women who are able to serve people day in and day out need minds of steel, the mind of Christ. God alone can give us this gift. Let us appeal to him for our great need.”

Philippians 2:4-11

2. Be Honest About Your Limitations

My worst days are when I mask my limitations and keep slaving away despite my bad attitude, my need for help, or my exhaustion. When I ignore my human limits, I crash… and I usually tear down my family while I’m at it.

Conversely, my best days are when I’m honest about my need for help, when I train my children to treat me with respect, and when I speak up about my struggles to keep serving.

Here's a glimpse from my personal life. My husband doesn’t know how to help me when I grit my teeth and keep serving with a terrible attitude, but he readily embraces and helps me when I lay my head on his chest and say, “I am so worn out.”

How can you admit and share your limitations with your family?

3. Be a Faithful Steward of Your Body, Mind, and Soul

A woman who is serving other people needs to “make her arms strong” (Proverbs 31). What makes your body, mind, and soul strong? What do you have to do in order to laugh with hope, have strong relationships, and develop the gifts that God has given you?

Even though the needs around you may seem relentless, seek discernment about how you can refresh and refuel yourself so that you can continue to serve your family with strength.

4. Don’t Whine or Complain

God cares about women who have reached the end of their rope. He cares about us when we are irritated and everything’s falling apart. His advice to us in these moments is that we:

“Do all things without grumbling or disputing, that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, holding fast to the word of life…”

Philippians 2:14-16

In our own understanding, whining and complaining feels good, but it’s not good for us. Over the years, I’ve asked the Holy Spirit to help me stop whining and complaining. When I am able to choose not to complain about difficult or unpleasant circumstances, I feel lifted up and sustained by God. A grateful attitude brings life to my family and buoys our homeschool.

Choosing not to complain is always worth the effort!

5. Don’t Expect Applause, Praise, or Payment

Too often, I serve my family as if I’m a waitress: I serve with a smile until I’ve reached my limit and need some appreciation, assistance, and compensation. My demanding irritation, anger, or grumpiness is like a waitress slapping the bill down on the table saying, “Pay up!” This ruins the gift altogether. Let’s ask God for the grace to serve our families for His approval and reward alone.  

6. Use Your Imagination

You may think this one is silly, but it works for me so I’m going to share it. When I’m up at night, serving sick children, I imagine that I’m Mother Theresa, tirelessly tending to “the least of these.” When I’ve had a full day of homeschooling, and my husband needs to talk, I imagine that I’m Olivia Walton.

Thinking about the ways that other women have served inspires me. It helps me to see my family through a more compassionate and courageous lens. How can you use your imagination to inspire your serving?

7. Serve the Lord with Gladness

Nearing her deathbed, Vonette Bright (married to Bill Bright, creator of CRU), summarized the Christian life in one beautiful statement. When asked what life is about Vonette answered, “Serve the Lord with gladness!” This gem is from a woman, looking back on many years of serving her husband and children, giving up comforts, and sacrificing selfish pursuits for the Kingdom of God.

I have taken her words to heart, and they cheer me on as God calls me to serve my family and community on a daily basis. Life is all about serving the Lord with gladness. Homeschooling provides limitless opportunities to do this every day! May God bless you with a vision to serve Him with gladness today.

Refuel Your Homeschool

With great rewards, come great sacrifice... and homeschooling is no different. Boy, some days are tough, and it would be nice to have a reminder of the why behind your choice to homeschool. This guide will help.


Share this post via email










Submit
Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

How to Homeschool the Visual-Linguistic and Visual-Spatial Learner

Share this post via email










Submit
How to Homeschool the Visual-Linguistic and Visual-Spatial Learner

Do you have a child who struggles with listening and understanding while you read aloud? Would they prefer to read the material themselves instead? Do they need to write down what they are thinking in order to remember it best? Does your child process pictures better than words and loves to illustrate or sketch homeschool lessons? If any of these characterize your child, you may be homeschooling a visual learner.

There are two main types of visual learning input:

  1. visual-linguistic—using words
  2. visual-spatial—using pictures and symbols

You might find the visual child is better with visual-spatial activities at younger ages but enjoys visual-linguistic activities as their reading and writing abilities develop. Here are teaching and learning techniques to enrich your visual learner's homeschool experience.

Homeschooling Visual-Linguistic Learners

Visual-linguistic activities focus mainly on the written word. Children who thrive with visual-linguistic presentation of information are typically avid readers. Because public schools have a strong visual-linguistic bent, these types of learners excel in a traditional classroom.

They typically read a passage and remember it with very little need for review. Sometimes they can remember what they have read from years ago.

If your child seems to love words and retains information better if there is a written aspect to it, you might be homeschooling a visual-linguistic learner. In that case, the techniques below will enhance your child’s learning experience. 

Techniques for the Visual-Linguistic Learner

  • Use Sonlight’s high-quality reading materials to give a visual learner something worth digesting and remembering.
  • Allow your student to read along with you, either sharing a book or reading their own copy instead of merely reading aloud.
  • Have your child read to you while you multi-task. This method provides you the background knowledge to discuss the book and help your child process any difficult content. If you go this route, I suggest you pre-read the books for yourself.
  • Let your child take notes or use notebooking pages while you read. For example, Sonlight has a specific set of notebooking pages to use with level F Eastern Hemisphere. 
  • Use Sonlight-specific lapbooks with written information to help them visually process what they are learning. Sonlight carries lapbooks to go along several levels.
  • Allow your children to mark their books with highlighter to illuminate difficult text (especially at the high school level). 
  • Allow them to underline key passages.
  • If they are struggling with a text, let them make notes in the margins or take notes on a separate sheet of paper. 
  • Have them copy important Bible passages, poetry they are trying to memorize, or other memory work.
  • Print copies of the discussion questions for them to refer to while they are reading. 
  • Print copies of notes or discussion guides for harder-to-understand books. 
  • Use a chart or graph to keep track of what is happening in a confusing story. 
  • Allow your child to watch videos that bring history to life, enhance what they are learning in science, or demonstrate math points. Videos that use bullet points in print are helpful, as are subtitles.
  • Choose a math curriculum that caters to visual-linguistic learners: Math U See, Videotext Algebra, and Dive DVDs. Saxon Math is also very good for visual learners, as it gives step-by-step written instructions. Literature-based math programs such as Life of Fred teach through words rather than practice problems. 
  • Print or refer to written lyrics of songs so your child can read the lyrics along as they sing. 
  • Provide instructions in written lists rather than verbally.
  • Teach your child to make outlines and take notes as they read or listen to you read.

Homeschooling Visual-Spatial Learners

Visual-spatial activities are similar to visual-linguistic activities, except they focus on images and pictures instead of words. You will find a lot of overlap between these two groups, so the techniques in the above list may work for your visual-spatial learner, too. This list includes only activities that are not mentioned above. 

Techniques for the Visual-Spatial Learner

  • Usborne history and science books, while sometimes frustrating for parents to read aloud, provide visual context for the child and help them create picture-memories to store in their brain. Allow your child to pour over the pictures and point out items of interest. 
  • Children with great spatial skills often do well with remembering faces and places. Show them pictures of people and places so they can associate a face with a story or a location with an event.
  • Sonlight's Timeline Figures placed into the Timeline Book create a visual representation of major historical figures and events.
  • Map work done with a markable map is probably the best way to teach geography to a visual-spatial learner.
  • Use lapbooks, activity packages, and coloring book supplements
  • Have your child draw pictures of what they are learning. Even if the pictures aren’t very accurate or seem convoluted, the child is forming a mental picture that helps them understand and remember. 
  • Allow them to doodle in their math books and along the edges of their worksheets. 
  • Create charts with pictures of the characters and events as they go along. 
  • Show them pictures of various historical figures and events. 
  • Watch videos that bring the history to life. 
  • Create a visual representation of the events with LEGO bricks, playdough, toys, or acting.
  • Teach them to take notes, using symbols for repeating words. Allow them to be creative, and teach them to use a key to explain what each symbol means.
  • Devise your own version of the Inductive Marking Approach. Using a copy of the text you can mark, highlight certain words, draw pictures to mark themes, and look for keywords that work together. This method works well for the Apologia textbooks in Sonlight’s high school levels as well as history spines that have a variety of topics.
  • Visit museums, learning centers, and other areas for field trips. Walking around a museum adds both visual and spatial aspects to your child’s learning. 
  • Hands-on math programs, such as RightStart or Math U See, where children need to physically manipulate numbers on a spatial plane, are perfect for these learners.  

While everyone learns best when material is presented in a variety of ways, visual learners will especially benefit from the two lists of techniques above.

Visual-linguistic students are avid readers who adore a book-based homeschool curriculum. See what it could look like for your family.

Share this post via email










Submit
Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

5 Tips for Homeschool Organization in Small Spaces

Share this post via email










Submit

A dedicated homeschool room sounds like a dream! Imagine maps on the walls, neat bookshelves, and pencils and markers neatly arranged in coordinating jars. However, don’t be discouraged from homeschooling if your living situation can’t provide a dedicated homeschool room. My family has homeschooled in a variety of small spaces, including in a 1000 sq. ft. apartment with no yard - when there were still seven kids living at home!

Continue reading
Share this post via email










Submit
Tagged , , | Leave a comment

How to Homeschool the Tactile, Movement-Oriented, and Sensory-Seeking Child

Share this post via email










Submit

Whether your child is tactile, movement-oriented, sensory-seeking, or a combination, the following methods will help you teach your kinesthetic learner.

Continue reading
Share this post via email










Submit
1 Comment

Seven Tips for the New Homeschool Year

Share this post via email










Submit
Seven Tips for the New Homeschool Year

Box Day came and went. You snapped that first-day-of-school photo (or not), and now you may be weeks into your new homeschool year. How is it going so far?

I know the excitement and trepidation a new year can bring. So as a mom who has been there, done that, here are some tips to help you settle into a great year.

1. Start Small

Remember this verse from Zechariah as you start. Do not despise these small beginnings, for the Lord rejoices to see the work begin. (Zechariah 4:10)  No matter if you start with a lot of glitz or small beginnings, both are okay. God loves small starts … and small restarts.

Just like when a new baby comes home, I found it takes about six weeks to establish new patterns at the start of school. If your schedule now is a big change from your summer schedule, give your family some grace. You'll find your groove soon.

2. Allow Time to Deschool

For every year your children were in school, allow (at least) a week of homeschooling for them to get used to it.

3. Ask for Homeschool Help

You don't need to be a superhero. If you struggle with any part of your homeschool and want some fresh ideas, contact a Sonlight Homeschool Advisor at no charge or join and ask in the Sonlight Connections Facebook group.

Sonlight Connections Facebook group

4. Ask for Household Help

If you're feeling swamped, brainstorm ways to lighten your load in your non-homeschool duties.

  • Perhaps you could teach your kids to do more chores.
  • Maybe your spouse could cook dinner one night a week.
  • Could your older students work more independently in some subjects?
  • You might even hire a high school student to be a mother's helper and watch the kids at your house once a week while you organize, work or relax.

Asking for help doesn't mean you're weak, just wise.

Seven Tips for the New Homeschool Year
"Sonlight is such a wonderful program. We look forward to the start of each new year. Box day until first day of school is always hard, because we all just want to go ahead and start reading all the new books."—Kristin W. in Grand Isle, VT

5. Read and Learn Together

Don't know everything your kids are supposed to learn this year? That's okay! You'll learn alongside them and gain incredible knowledge as you go. It's wonderful to say, "I don't know, but let's look it up together."

You get to model the joy of lifelong learning.

6. Set Goals

If you haven't already done so, write down goals for the school year. When daily progress seems slow, long-term goals are key. If you write down physical, intellectual, emotional and spiritual goals for each of your children now, you'll have something to evaluate at the end of the year. You'll be amazed at how they grew.

7. Keep the Long View

I love being a mom, but I don't love everything I've had to deal with as a mom. I loved homeschooling, but I didn't love everything about homeschooling.

In reality, there's not a job in the world where you'd love every single aspect. So keep the long view and remind yourself that there is no job more significant or important than raising and teaching the children God has given you.

Be encouraged as you adventure into the new year. I believe that God has equipped you to teach your children. We are here to help. You can do it!

Share this post via email










Submit
Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment