I’m glad you’re here, because I’ve been standing right where you are and I REMEMBER feeling just how you’re feeling today.
- You did okay during the early years, but you don’t feel smart enough to teach middle school and/or high school.
- You remember hardly anything about your middle school/high school years, so how in the world would you be competent to teach them?!
- Many of your homeschooling mom peers are giving in to the pressure from family and friends and putting their children in school. So how would you do this all by yourself?
So what do you do with this fear?!
You’re going to get prepared. I’m going to give you some big picture information about teaching middle school and planning for high school, suggestions for great books to include, free lesson plan ideas, and perhaps a discount coupon or two on our upper grades curricula.
In other words… the more you know about what’s coming and how to handle it, the less fearful you’ll become. Teaching the upper grades is not something you have to do by yourself, either. There are lots of ways to have someone else teach those areas you aren’t as comfortable with.
I’m living proof that you can do this.
I don’t have an advanced degree. I was not a child prodigy, nor did I get straight A’s in school. I wasn’t homeschooled myself. My children weren’t perfect. Most of the people who were homeschooling at the same time as me had younger students. I did have some peers with children about the same age, thankfully, so I did have a small group of friends at the same stage.
But the homeschooling moms who had older students pretty much either put them in school or weren’t an active part of my homeschooling support group. So the moms who had already successfully navigated those upper grades were just not around.
But y’know what?
Our reasons for homeschooling had not changed, just because our kids were approaching the middle and high school grades. We knew that having their hearts and continuing to mentor and disciple our children was still what we were called to do…. so that’s what we did.
And we survived… and our kids thrived. In fact, those upper grades years ended up being some of my favorites!
So what are you going to learn here?
I’m going to send you posts that will help you teach the upper grades. A lot of practical things — like lesson plan ideas and books you’ll want to include in your studies. I’ll also talk about attitudes here and there. Sometimes it’ll be about dealing with your students’ attitudes… sometimes it will be about yours. ;-D
Let’s start with some big picture planning.
The big picture purpose of middle school is to review and solidify skills before high school. So let’s start with high school here in the spirit of “keeping the end in mind.”
I invite you to read this post — but you don’t need to fill out the form a second time to get the free high school planning pages with examples. I’m going to send them to you in my next ‘upper grades’ post. But if you didn’t fill out a form to get here, you’ll have to fill out the form to get the high school planning forms. (You’ll need to use another email address if you’ve already subscribed to our regular list.)
And if you have any questions, comments or any particular topics you’re struggling with, please feel free to shoot me an email at [email protected]. I read every one!