How do you pursue academics with your teen? How do you help them find their niche, figure out their career, and plan their college applications? You may not be raising a bonafide genius, but neither should you ignore academics completely either. Share on X
This post is the 3rd in a series of how to get your kids ready to face the world. Click here to go back to the beginning of the series.
A is For Academics
Of course, in order for them to be successful in life, they are going to need some basic academics. This is true whether your student is going to college, seminary, ministry, trade school, or even being a stay-at-home parent. There are information and study skills they need to know so they can be lifelong learners.
It is your job as a parent to make sure they get it! I’ve created a free worksheet pdf to help you plan out what to work on as your launch your student.
Click here to grab the free pdf worksheet for how to launch your teen!!
I’ve seen a lot of parents over the years who don’t actually take the academics seriously enough. And then their child gets to the 12th grade and is trying to apply to colleges and they are not prepared.
It really does take some solid years of foundational work that builds year upon year to make him successful. Don’t be left out! As far as it depends on you, do your job helping them learn and grow each year and then the future will be up to God.
Eight Tips for An Academic Home:
Set the tone in your home – create a schedule of who is doing what and when. It doesn’t have to be rigid but a guideline for how you will be getting all your subjects and homework done. Evaluate weekly what is working and what is not. Use a checklist!
- Don’t accept lame excuses about deadlines. Follow through and make your student turn it in on time. Help your children understand that the real world has deadlines so they must learn how to meet them.
- Oversee middle school and high schoolers to make sure they are doing their work. Just because they can work independently doesn’t mean that YOU should abandon doing YOU part. Give them accountability and coaching. Meet with them daily, twice a week, or every week, depending on their needs and their level of ability to work diligently on their own.
- Help them learn how to divide up long reading assignments and projects, develop study skills, increase their notetaking, and learn how to study from a textbook.
- Don’t allow them to get behind in math. They should complete a lesson AND grade and correct a lesson every day. Work towards a completely corrected lesson each day. If you find they are struggling, figure out what they are missing and search for videos, tutors, or other help online to help fill in the gaps. Acquire a tutor if you need one.
- Keep records and papers organized. If you are homeschooling, make sure you keep your transcript updated each year so that you are not scrambling at the beginning of the senior year when it’s time to fill out college applications.
- Do grade-level standardized testing, as much as you can afford. If you can test every year, do it. Look for gaps in their education and create goals for the next year to work on filling in the gaps. The test is not really a report card on them but on you! It will show you areas that you can improve and add to your homeschooling.
- Help your high schoolers take the PSAT, SAT, and ACT at appropriate times and work on studying them more for even higher scores. Scholarships are tied to these test scores, so don’t skip this step!
- Teach your kid how to work hard but also how to rest and have fun together. Make the relationships with God and family your first priority and academics will come along.
Specific HOW-TOs:
Here are some specific ways I handle academics and the resources I use.
1. Keep an Assignment Notebook I use a notebook to keep lesson plans, syllabi, and grades. In this notebook, I have a tab for each student. Behind the tab, the first page is a list of what my goals are for them for the year. It lists out the curriculum they will study and the books that are required for them. Behind this page, I put their reading list for the year.
After that, I have subject assignment pages. I got mine from Donna Young’s website years ago when it was free. I think now you have to subscribe to it, so I have created my own. You can download it here. It is basically a spreadsheet with 6 columns and 10 rows. The first row has M-F across the columns. The following 9 rows are for the assignments. I write in things like Lesson 1, Lesson 2, Lesson 3, etc. I don’t assign lessons on days when I know we are going to our Classical Conversations class. The left column has the dates for each week written in. Click here to see what mine looks like: Quarterly Lesson Planning I have one of these pages per subject that needs to be planned out.
For my high school and upper middle school kids, this is also the place where I keep records of syllabi from any classes or courses they are taking, record lists of assignments they have done and grades received.
Sometimes I will make a copy of the Table of Contents of a textbook we are using and record grades right on my copy of the subject matter. Or in the case of Saxon Math, I will tear out their Test Schedule from their Test and Worksheet workbook and record the test scores on that.
2. One thing you will find with homeschooling, if you are keeping up with academics, you are constantly checking work and asking for things to be redone or corrected. One way I have communicated back and forth with my kids is what I call the “Sticky Note Method.” I put a Sticky Note on top of the notebook that needs to go back to them and I write on it things like “Correct p. 29” or “Fix #5 on Lesson 54.” In this way, we can communicate without having to have long meetings about it.
3. By the time they are in 7th grade, my goal is that my kids are beginning to use a planner and are independently working. Sometimes this takes a bit of weaning off of yourself. You will need to help them work on studying on their own, dividing up their lessons, and planning out projects. Start by using a timer and working for one hour and then getting a break.
4. For anyone in Pre-Algebra and higher levels of math, I highly suggest having a Formula Notebook. This would be any kind of notebook or composition book that they can keep running lists of formulas. This is so helpful to create a reference notebook they can refer back to as they are working on their homework problems. It also gives them something they can study before they take a test. Even my college girls are keeping lists of formulas!
5. I’m often asked, “What records do you keep each year?” I keep a typed-up report that is a 2-3 page document and describes how the year went, what subjects the child studied and the curriculum used. Then for grades K-8, I get a plastic, accordion-style filing folder and file in it the highlights of each subject: best papers, math tests, spelling tests, examples of handwriting, smaller art projects, etc. I box these up and store them in case I need to reference them. I have never had to get them out, but I know they are there and they are proof of our work that year. As the kids go off on their own, eventually we’ll sort those out and pare them down to a few keepsakes.
6. We kept a schedule daily when I was homeschooling so many younger kids. Now that I have all teens, they pretty much manage their own schedules. I do remind them to work on their hardest subject when they are most alert during the day.
7. Work on keeping their focus for an hour per subject. A great tool for this is the Time Timer. See my post on that here.
I hope these ideas and tips help you to have an academic home! What are you doing to pursue academics with excellence?
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Love,
Michelle
