High School - Part 2

So, as I began to discover more about homeschooling high school, I figured out one very important thing about the state of Florida.

We are NOT required to teach any specific subjects or any specific amount of hours.  Whatever I define as "high school" is OK for the state of Florida.

I knew that, but somehow, I didn't think about this when I saw the requirement for a high school transcript.

However, I figure it's a pretty good framework from which to structure his educational material.  So, that being said, I started putting together a list of videos for BG to watch.  Fortunately, our local library has a TON of educational videos from which to choose.  My list is found here   along with a number of other free resources for video based lessons.

One other lesson that I think is critically important to teach our children is Personal Finance/Economics.  This is an area that I think is sorely lacking in the public schools.  So, in order to fulfill this requirement, I went searching for some Dave Ramsey materials.  I remembered that many churches offer the Dave Ramsey courses, so I began looking for one close to us that fit our schedule.  There is a Teen program, but it was not at a good time and at a church too far away, but I found a Financial Peace University  class that was starting soon and was at a great location and time for us.

So, I enrolled myself, BG and JA.  So far, it has been very good.  While some of it is not directly applicable to them (Debt Snowball), I am hopeful that having been exposed to this information that they will do the right things to begin with rather than having to dig themselves out of a hole later.

I have even been picking up some good pointers for us as parents.  We have a variety of approaches to chores/allowance over the years, but we tweaked things again after hearing Dave's ideas.  About a month or so ago, I had been to our local bank branch and asked for check registers for all of the kids.  They willingly supplied these for free!  We started having the kids keep track of their allowances and spending in their check registers.  We believe this is GREAT experience for when they are older and have a real bank account.

We had originally assigned the kids chores and paid them once a week whether they had done their chores or not.  However, when we reminded them to do their chores during the week, we charged them a "Reminder Fee".  Now, though, after listening to Dave Ramsey, we have changed how we do this.

We made a set of chore cards and included a "commission" and how often the chore needs to be done on it. The kids get to choose what they do (with some limitations) and get paid for doing it.  However, we tweaked things a little bit.  The kids have all week (Sun through Friday) to get the chores done and get paid for them.  If there are things that aren't done that really need to be done, then Mom and Dad get to assign the chores on Saturday.  The catch, though, is that the kids do NOT get paid for doing these chores (a little incentive to get them done during the week)!

Well, since this is getting long, I'll post more tomorrow.

P.S.  While I would love to take credit for the photos in the previous few posts, I can't do that.  I borrowed all of the photos from various locations on the internet.