Day in the Life of a Homeschooled 12th Grader

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I can hardly believe that our oldest will be graduating soon. When he started his schooling journey, it was in public school, but he eventually decided to join his younger brother and sister on our homeschooling quest. 

Prepping for the Homeschool Year 

As this was our oldest's last year of high school (after I had bookmarked a variety of possible courses on SchoolhouseTeachers.com), I invited our son to sit down with us to go over all his options. (And there are a lot of options on SchoolhouseTeachers.com!) Little by little, we narrowed them down to pick ones that would fill out his final year of homeschooling. 

We created our own schedule for the year based on the courses at SchoolhouseTeachers.com, but you don't have to do it all alone. If you are not looking to create your own course schedule, you can use the School Boxes on SchoolhouseTeachers.com. For 12th grade, the box includes: 

• Precalculus 
• High School British Literature 
• For writing: 
• Writing: College Admission Essay 
• Writing: Advertising Copy 
• Writing: Compare and Contrast 
• Words and What to Do with Them 
• Specific pieces from Writing and Classics-Based Writing
• High School Spelling
• High School Physics 
• Two History Options: 
• Traditional: American Government (Part One) and Economics (Part Two)
• Classical: Understanding Modern History 
• Art 
• Studio Art for Teens
• Digital Art and Product Design for Small Business
• Inkscape Online Adventure

Prepping for the Homeschool Week 

My methods for preparing our senior's homeschool week are very similar to those of last year. I use an editable PDF to plan out the days and weeks using the lesson plans from SchoolhouseTeachers.com. I often just copy and paste the information if it fits into the boxes. For some courses, I have printed out the lesson plans so that our son has a full list of assignments. I then just type the unit's title or week number to follow in the weekly plan.

For those courses where I print out the materials, I try to print several weeks in advance and have those in a three-ring binder. He can access this binder whenever he wants so he can look ahead or look at work he has completed. If I do not print the materials (usually because there are a lot of links within the document), I email them to him each Sunday night or Monday morning. He can then work through that week's assignments online. 

What Courses Is Our 12th Grader Taking? 

This year, our high schooler had a lighter course load as he has completed most of the requirements he would need to fulfill if he was following a public school course load in our state. But this doesn't mean that he didn't actually take a lot of courses. Many of his courses were short – 9 weeks or 18 weeks long, so he actually learned a lot from a variety of disciplines this year. 

• Introduction to Worldview and Philosophy
• Apologetics: Creation vs. Evolution
• United States History: Exploration to the Present Day Lessons
• Business Plan Creation 
• Money 101 
• High School British Literature
• Introduction to Graphic Design 
• Spelling High School 

I can bookmark all of our son's courses on SchoolhouseTeachers.com, so they are easy to find.

A Typical Day 

As both my husband and I are working from home now, we have schedules that vary and need to be on conference calls or online meetings. With our days being busier, we have asked our oldest to help with his younger siblings in the morning by getting them breakfast. And on some days, I have asked him to help one of them with various homeschool assignments. By asking our 12th grader to help more around the house, we hope to teach him how to run a household.

For the majority of his homeschool work, I give our son a lot of freedom. I let him pick and choose what order he wishes to complete assignments in and on which days (with the exception being tests or quizzes). Like many children who receive a lot of freedom, there are times when we need to push him along to make sure he is completing his assignments. 

In general, he completes his work for each subject in one day. So Mondays, he may focus on Spelling and do the entire week's worth of work while he would forge ahead with his Apologetics course on Tuesdays. Personally, I do not have any problem with the order in which he does his work as long as he is completing it. 

I think it is important to note that homeschooling does not magically happen. Just today, we had a 'meeting' with our son to discuss a poor test grade and try to motivate him to finish the year strong. Like so many young individuals, our son is smart, but that does not always translate to schooling – whether in public school or homeschooling. As parents, it is our job to help provide the tools, encouragement, and sometimes the prodding to make sure that work is completed efficiently and to the best of our children's abilities.

And if you are curious what his 11th-grade year looked like, please visit Day in the Life of a Homeschooled 11th Grader.