Planning the BEST Homeschool High School Graduation Celebration!

So choose a number of credits, but base it on subjects that will benefit your teen the most.

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Mix and match community college with online courses and self-guided learning. More listening than talking was hard for me. Not easy, but I did it.

Beyond Academics: Preparation for College and for Life by Lee Binz

My son knew the value of preparing for a career; he was just ready to get on with it now, not later. Now that my son is close to finishing college at his pace, on his own terms, and I add giving a hundred percent and advancing with excellent grades, anything he told me in his teen years pales into comparison. Also, I have many other tips to share with you. Planning two homeschool graduation parties has been one of the happiest times in my life and yet overly emotional at the same time. Every day life affects how we feel when the time finally arrives to celebrate a special time as homeschoolers.

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For example, in my life the Mr. You can imagine how eternally grateful I was for not just the family gathering, but for life itself. Awesome graduated, we savored our time living overseas in Ecuador and celebrated that time differently and uniquely. Although we focused on the achievements of Mr. Awesome , it was again a time to cherish our family being together. Your journey up to this point will also define what this time will be for your family. Embrace it and make your time with family, loved ones and homeschooling friends a treasured time.

Let your party reflect those values. From mundane to memorable, from fun food ideas to family fun, I hope you can use one of these 21 amazing homeschool graduation ideas. He could play a musical piece or have a collage to showcase his art talent.

We recently went to a graduation and the graduate had a beautiful voice as a jazz singer. We enjoyed a film presentation of her singing.


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It was nice that it was a prerecorded film so that the graduate could enjoy her family and friends. Senior loves to public speak and prepared a short speech at his party. I found that about 5 minutes or so is enough time to talk to his audience.

homeschool graduation

However, he did know that he would have to make remarks to express his gratitude for the volunteers of his party. That is all we required of him. Each kid has a different personality for sure. It showed what an enriching introduction to a wide range of learning topics we had covered.

We love having a gathering where we can enjoy a meal. Senior , I felt like we had the best of both worlds, ie. I ordered food at a local favorite restaurant and had it delivered, but not catered. I saved hundreds of dollars by having everybody go through the food line buffet style. Awesome , we provided some of the main dishes like turkey and dressing, but had several volunteers bring side dishes. Those are great and fun options. I went to one party where all the toppings for tacos were lined up down the table and everybody built their own tacos or nachos.

Use crock pots to carry food to the party because they can travel easy and be turned on low to keep food heated. So the boys told some of their friends ahead of time the songs that we would playing. This allowed their friends to practice their polished dance moves ahead of time. Then they all did group dances together.


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  7. It made for a lot of fun and laughs. Also though because my boys took ballroom dancing in high school, they were able to make that part of the party. Senior wanted something a bit more dressy casual and Mr. Awesome was all about shorts and comfort. We gathered up items from the dollar store and made some other props. Browse thrift shops for costumes and fun things to use in a photo booth.

    This was so much fun because it allowed for friends to take pictures together as well as a whole family to get in on it. Even the little kids had fun doing this. So we got music from different time periods. I wished I had done that but you have to remember, I have all boys. A prepared program along with taking pictures of their homeschool classmates was on tap for the evening too. I had a list of photo ideas for the photographer that we hired.

    Some photo ideas were non-negotiable meaning the photographer had to be sure to capture certain moments. Other ideas we had on the list were for fun things to take pictures of while the party was going on. I know some people forget to put the ending time on invitations and that makes it hard to clean up or pack up when everybody has been having so much fun.

    However, because you and your family are probably doing most of the work, be sure you have enough time to shut the party down and not be dead tired the next morning. The graduate was adopted by her grandparents and you could see her deep moving gratitude. The obvious emotion in the dance was full of meaning to all present and tear jerking because we all knew the story. One party the family had a huge poster board where all the family and friends could give their tidbits of wisdom.

    One party we went to recently, the graduate passed around a small book decorated by her for her special night. For the non-sugar eating friends, we assigned out a few deserts made with splenda. This was a big hit as not everybody can eat sugar. A lot of our family is diabetic. We have it on both sides of the family. So this night was one time to splurge — just a bit. They ask family and friends to bring their favorite recipe to put in the jar. Such a memorable and practical gift — a first cookbook. How do I put all my plans, fears, successes, failures and momentary lapses of insanity in one blog post?

    Instead, I will share 10 days of planning a homeschool high school graduation so that not IF, but when your turn comes, you will have a place to start. Right away I will ask for your forgiveness during this series too because sharing our homeschool journey has never been so scary for me as it has been over the last few years. Much of life and school was up, up and down, down. I have had feelings of overwhelming happiness at the same time sadness, feelings of joy yet fear wondering if I did enough with Mr. A tear or two may run down my cheek as I type this because that has not been the only feelings I experienced as we celebrated the next chapter of Mr.

    Nothing mattered more on ending Mr. Even at the end, he was still learning valuable life lessons. Here are some things to think about and that will affect what type of homeschool graduation you plan. The beginning is about brainstorming and including your young adult. In the end we both realized we had some ideas that ended up being too much work or that really were not that important to us. Next post, I will share some of the details and plans we reached early in our planning and share with you a few time and budget saving tips I found along the way.

    I luv your questions and always try to make time to put them in my blogging calendar because you are one of the reasons I blog. Look at the one I want to help you with today. I can never answer questions like this with just a short answer because I want you to always be in the know. Good Morning to you. What was your system? How to determine time? I will break both of these down because there is no need to feel overwhelmed and not get a simple answer. The answer though will depend on what courses you want your teen to do in high school. You have a lot of flexible so be sure to remember that too.

    For most courses, you count either 1. Some special occasions you can count 2. All of my courses were the standard 1. Think about that and it makes sense because if you take either Algebra I or II for example, it takes normally about one school year to finish either one of those subjects.

    A high school publisher knows it will take that long to finish math if your child studied it every weekday for 1 hour in a 5 day week for a normal school year which can run anywhere from a to days. Then 6 times 4 which is the number of years for high school if you do a 4 year plan would equal about That is a pretty good number of credits for high school.

    It can be higher for a college bound student, but again anything between about 21 to 24 credits is good for high school completion. This was by far the easiest method for me to determine credit for Mr. Where I went wrong in the beginning when I was reading about high school and giving myself one big giganto headache was when I was tracking every waking minute or thing he did. For example, he did ballroom dancing for a fine art elective and if we missed a week for some reason I freaked out got a headache recalculating. If only I realized sooner that we did this year round and so he had so many more hours than the 0.

    I gave up tracking the actual hours because we were way above it and just assigned the 0. You can see how quickly I realized that it was more easier to track the core subjects by completing the book or course than it was at times the electives or other projects I assigned. While not wanting to split hairs or overwhelm you either, I do want you to be aware of a very fine point and it is the difference in how you assign credit. So you can see this topic dovetails on setting a standard about how you grade and expecting a passing grade before you assign that credit too.

    Celebration Countdown

    I have some examples of a grading system you will want to adopt too on my page Step 5a. Balancing this thinking for you, I want to throw in one more counter weight and that is about how I counted Bible study. It is not a subject he will ever complete and never come back to like say Algebra I. So I had to come up with some way of tracking it though and I did that by covering certain topics each year that I assigned. So I did keep up with hours, but more than that my standard for him was one of my very own that had nothing to do with a grade. My standard was more about how his heart was moved as we had Bible discussions.

    Lee Binz, The HomeScholar, brings a fresh approach to homeschooling the upper grades, an approach that combines rigorous academics with mastery of the "science of daily living. Designed especially for parents who don't want to spend hours reading a page book on homeschooling high school, this series combines Lee's practical and friendly approach with detailed, but easy-to-digest information, perfect to read over a cup of coffee at your favorite coffee shop!

    Never overwhelming, always accessible and manageable, each book in the series will give parents the tools they need to tackle the tasks of homeschooling high school, one warm sip at a time. Lee Binz, The HomeScholar, understands what it takes to graduate homeschool students who are fully prepared for college and for life. Lee's practical advice and organized presentations have helped thousands of homeschool parents muster the courage to complete their homeschooling journey.

    She is both reassuring and empowering, and will give you the knowledge you need to successfully graduate your high school student, and have confidence that they are ready to take on the world. A firm believer that homeschooling provides the best possible learning environment, and that parents are capable of providing a superior education for their children, Lee's mission is to encourage and equip parents to homeschool through high school.

    Preparation for College and for Life. Train Your Children to Succeed in Life! In this book, you'll learn the three overlapping areas that are important for success in both college and life: Her mission is "helping parents homeschool high school. Upon graduation, both boys received four-year, full-tuition scholarships from their first choice university.