30 Ways to Celebrate
/We love to celebrate. Celebration is double the fun when shared with a friend or family member.
Make a someone's day, today. Celebrate an accomplishment, a milestone. Celebrate TODAY!
We love to celebrate. Celebration is double the fun when shared with a friend or family member.
Make a someone's day, today. Celebrate an accomplishment, a milestone. Celebrate TODAY!
I am thrilled to be back at FPEA again this year. New workshops. New insight. New stories and practical helps to equip and encourage at every stage of the home education journey, preschool through high school.
Come see me at my workshops! I'm walking the journey with YOU!
Friday 10:30am
7. Celebrate Simple! Intentional Home Education
The simple teaches the profound. Cheryl shares stories and offers insight from her 21 years of homeschooling eight children — the everyday teachable moments, the simple yet ingenious ideas, the interest-driven learning — the things her graduated and grown young adults say mattered most. Learning together, building family relationships, is priceless. It's simple and worthy of celebration!
Friday 3:55pm
68. Happy (High School Paper) Trails to You!
High school is not a one-size-fits-all experience. It is a time to refine the skills needed to polish a student's God-given gifts and talents. But what does that look like on paper? How do you tailor courses which will prepare your child for what God has planned for their future? Cheryl walks parents through answers to these questions.
Saturday 1:45pm
129. Celebrate Middle School: Fostering Ingenuity
Middle schoolers will surprise you! When they do, be ready to foster ingenuity, seize opportunities and think outside the box. The middle school years, ripe with potential to impact entrepreneurial ventures, employment or college/career paths, can also be conflicting for parents and children. In this workshop, Cheryl offers practical tips from experiences as a homeschool mom and a wife of a 27-year middle school educator.
Saturday 3:55pm
153. Teaching Precious Preschoolers and Little Learners
Young children have an insatiable curiosity to learn and a natural desire to work alongside people they love most. How do we utilize these innate qualities to maximize their learning potential at home? Drawing from 28 years of experience of teaching early learners, Cheryl challenges attendees to look beyond societal and educational pressures to the emotional and developmental needs of young children.
How will you be intentional to create, cultivate and celebrate in your home?
Perhaps...
We champion finding mentors in fields of interest. All of our school-aged children have gained great insight into areas most intriguing to them, from Olympic competition (we conversed with an Olympic runner from the Wilma Rudolph era) to successful entrepreneurs (no better way to learn about business than from someone who owns one). Each unique experience was recorded in our learning logs, sometimes by written word, other times photographically.
Hence, we use this means of learning whenever we have the opportunity.
Participating in the Young Eagles Introduction to Aviation class has been one of our favorite learning experiences. Recommended for children ages ten through eighteen, this eight-week class taught by pilots and aviation professionals offered my children opportunities to learn about aviation from people who know it best.
Each class focused on a topic: weather, air traffic control, flight planning, pre-flight check, and aviation careers. Each week professionals planned an applicable experiential activity. My children toured hangers took a field trip to a working air traffic control tower and learned how to navigate a flight map from a commercial airline pilot. The final class included a graduation flight. Participants in the class were divided into groups of three, each group having the opportunity to fly one leg (after safe take-off by the pilot) of a three-leg flight, flying in and out of three airports. After the flight, participants were given a flight log—which they continue to build for their aviation career—signed by the supervising pilot, a certificate of completion, and a code for ground school should the student want to continue their journey to becoming a pilot.
Though summer annual evaluation season ended a few months ago, I continue to post frequently asked questions to help equip and empower parents.
and adds confidence to the journey.
One mom asked:
This is a tremendous question with valid concerns.
First, check the home education laws in your state
Second, having some experience with online learning is beneficial. Online education is growing. And, it did prepare our graduates for post-secondary education.
Those points being said...
Home educated middle and high schoolers have the opportunity to partake in a variety of learning environments; a definite advantage over their public and private schooled peers.
Our middle and high school students learn widely from a variety of environments. One started a business and learned on the job, everywhere from church fellowship hall craft shows to convention trade show floors. Another learned from independent study, volunteering, and conversation from professionals in the field. Still another learn from contractors, field work, job shadowing, and collaboration with peers. Our home education statute allowed us the freedom to utilize these means. We are all grateful we could fit learning with learning style and student interest.
When designing courses or considering courses for middle or high schoolers the learning environment is essential and often dependent on the learning style and strengths of the individual. For example, if the student learns best by observation, perhaps best fit environments would include laboratory settings, field work, internships, job shadowing, or apprenticeship. In these settings, the student can observe to learn. If the student is an auditory learner the best settings may be research laboratories or classroom instruction.
When the course is complete, if our students were applying for a university requesting course descriptions in addition to a transcript, I made sure to be specific about which environments the student used. Often the environments, being different than a typical classroom or online setting, were intriguing.
Yes, the reward was worth the effort. The contents of the course descriptions, transcripts and cumulative folder were the documents which set a solid foundation for resume writing.
And in the end, as we--student and parent--looked over documents, the accomplishment was a part of our celebration of high school and the ability to finish with excellence.
As you consider the potential learning environments your learner may have access to, ponder how those opportunities may benefit your young adult. The results can be astounding.
Celebrating high school begins in middle school. Given opportunities to develop strengths and interests, the middle school years and their subsequent experiences set the stage for future decisions. Decisions move middle schoolers forward, or set them back.
Middle schoolers need coaches, cheerleaders, people to cheer them on, answer their questions, affirm their successes, and come alongside when ideas fail. Like adults, middle (and high schoolers) gravitate toward sources or encouragement and affirmation.
Mike and I were (and still are with our current middle and high schoolers) intentional to champion their interests. As a result we were (are) invited into their successes and their messes!
Middle schoolers need help understanding themselves. Mike and I have learned that before we can help our middle and high school young adults understand themselves, we must know them! To know them, we must spend time with them (even when it's hard to be with them). Spending time means observing, listening, and asking. We watch how they respond in both stressful and rewarding circumstances. We observe what activities they enjoy and what makes them smile. Body language and verbal responses are windows into their hearts. What they read expresses their interests. Who our children talk about gives us understanding into the character they emulate or respect. Knowing our children takes diligence and purpose, but is deserving of my time and energy.
Middle schoolers want to make a difference. Middle schoolers need time and experiences to help them understand who the are and what they can contribute to the family, community, nation, and the world.
Making a difference they feel the satisfaction of collaborating and contributing, serving and giving.
Middle schoolers need help managing their time.Several facets of life motivate middle and high schoolers to manage their time: knowing they have skills to solve a problems, having a project to complete or understanding their skills can contribute to a cause. When these aspects are discovered and fostered, managing their time matters.
Middle schoolers encouragement for organization.Middle schoolers are not usually naturally organized. They usually need parents to help them brainstorm ideas. They need someone to take them shopping for organizers.
Middle schoolers need help finding and using resources. Middle schoolers have ideas and interests they want to pursue. There are things they want to build, books they want to write, businesses they want to start, logos they want to design, and fish they want to catch. Resources, tools, and significant people put those ideas and interests in motion. One of the greatest resources is time--time to process, time to think, time to talk through ideas. In and through conversation and experience, middle schoolers learn to plan, design, analyze, and evaluate, all which work together for understanding.
Adults thrive when they understand their strengths and have the freedom to grow in those strengths, when they have people to help them process ideas and adults, when they have access o necessary tools and resources to carry out the plan, and when they are surrounded by supportive family and friends.
Middle schoolers will surprise you! Middle school years have great potential to directly impact a student's entrepreneurial ventures, employment, or college and career path by offering options of promising study. Be ready for your middle schoolers to surprise you! Ours have surprised us many times with their ideas and plans. They had solutions we had not discovered, insight we could not see. Theirs were not only better, but because they "owned" the plans, they were more excited and successful in executing the steps to reach their goals.
This content is excerpted from the new expanded edition of Cheryl's book, Celebrate High School: Finish with Excellence, A Guide for Middle and High School Home Education.
Equipping parents as they home educate using what is real and relevant to create wonder, cultivate curiosity, and celebrate accomplishment.