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What fun things did you do this year with your older students?


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This is sort of a spin off from various discussions on the K-8 board. It's pretty easy to plan fun stuff for young students and allowing them to miss a day or two of school won't kill the schedule. But what have you done with your high schoolers that was fun as well as educational?

 

One of the things we did that the kids really enjoyed was to write a paper on the Inferno. I know it doesn't sound exciting, but my son asked if they could do something different with their papers (in my co-op class) and when he told me the idea, we decided to do it. The students wanted to pick a person and using Dante's criteria decide in which level of hell he/she would spend eternity. Because I could see potential for offense using real people, we tweaked that idea instead to have the students pick a fictional character, analyze the character, determine their "main" fault, and assign the level of hell. The kids picked: Sauron, The Grinch, Batman, The Joker, Cruella da ville, and another LOTR character. They enjoyed the assignment did a great job.

 

Another thing we did is to play Chemistry jeopardy (last year) on our last day of co-op. I used a peg board to make the jeopardy board and assigned the "answers" to $ amounts. We had daily doubles as well as audio/video. The students were able to amass an amount of money and at the end of the game they could pick prizes based on the amount of money. I purchased candy, pencils, water bottles (found an excellent sale), t-shirts, etc. They enjoyed it so much that I'm planning to do this Tuesday for our last Physics day.

 

I would love to get more ideas from all of you, especially ideas that can be done in a group. :bigear:

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Don't know if any of this can be replicated in a group, but the fun things from our year that stand out are:

 

While learning about the Enlightenment, I had my ds write a paper comparing the historical John Locke with the fictional John Locke from the tv show Lost. He wrote a great paper, and while chasing down related rabbit trails in researching this, discovered HP Lovecraft. 3 years ago we read Watership Down together after one of the characters was seen reading it. It is fun tying in literature with that show in particular.

 

Traveling to Northen California together, just the 2 of us. We listened to audio books, pulled over to the side of the road to take photos of cows, went on a guided tour of an elephant seal nature preserve as well as a behind the scenes tour of the Monterey Aquarium. I never did convince him to try a garlic shake in Gilroy (not that I'd try one myself...)

 

Not school related, but my ds taught me how to play World of Warcraft. We play together most weekends, and I'm now a level 23 Night Elf!!

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We finally saw Wicked. :) It was great fun. We went on some great family vacations, and we spent a few days piled up in the bed watching Buffy marathons. Oh, and we married off her sister...which was an epic event in itself.

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Two things we've done with our homeschool group:

1. field trips/special events specifically geared for gr. 6-12 or just high school

2. annual all-day "careers-day-plus" seminar

 

 

Field Trips

We've done a lot of really great field trips in the middle school/high school years -- many of them free! -- at our local state university here in town. I contacted the physics dept., and they gave us a fantastic explanation and tour of the radiocarbon dating lab which was both the chemistry lab and the particle accelerator. Another time I contacted the engineering dept. and they arranged for their 3 clubs (open to ALL university students, not just engineers) to demonstrate their specialities of micro air vehicles, macro air vehicles, and SAE formula race cars -- they design, build, and race/compete their creations in international competitions. Not only are these usually free, but these people get very excited when they find someone who is *interested* in what they do and wants to hear them speak/demonstrated what they do!

 

If you don't have a university, see if a local community college or post-high school institute might be able to do for you in the way of a tour or demo -- like a culinary program letting you sit in and sample!

 

We've also arranged for high school/adult level tours of local sites such as arboretum or botanical gardens, historical society museum, mine or cave tours, walking tour of historic parts of town, or tour of a radio/TV studio or news station, water treatment facility, etc. What do some of the dads of the group do? Would they be able to arrange a special demo or behind the scenes tour at their place of work that would be interesting??

 

 

Special Events

We go to some of the special student matinee showings and backstage tours of plays put on by the local professional theater group, and our state's traveling opera company also puts on student matinees and backstage tours. One year we paid the group rate and had a fantastic 2-hour demonstration of glass-blowing at their facility.

 

Many of our students enter items in the county fair in the spring or participate in 4-H, and there is a student day where the entire homeschool family can go for free so everyone can see what their friends entered. Consider having your homeschool group do a really big project earlier in the school year and enter it as a class!

 

You might also see if as a group you can sit in on a real trial in progress. Years ago, as part of one of my public middle school classes, we got to sit in for the morning on a murder trial -- it was absolutely fascinating!

 

 

Annual All Day Seminar

Each year, our homeschool group plans a big all-day event for ALL the homeschoolers in town and the surrounding area (not just for our group). We rent a facility (usually a church) with an auditorium plus 3 meeting rooms (we try to get rooms that will hold 25-50 people). We start the day with a keynote speaker for all the entire group, then have a series of "breakout sessions", each 40 minutes long, with usually 3 or 4 different speakers in the different rooms at each of those breakout time slots for the seminar participants to choose from. Then we provide lunch (part of the cost of the seminar), have an afternoon keynote and then do another 3 timeslots of breakout session speakers.

 

Ultimately, the point is to expose youth grades 6-12 to a wide range of possible careers and hobby/activity/volunteer interests they may never have thought of before that they might be interested in learning more about. It also gives the homeschool youth a chance to interact with people and organizations in the community, and it gives parents and their teens a chance to enjoy learning together, or if they went to different sessions, share what they saw and enjoyed with the rest of the family.

 

 

We shoot for:

- a "college/career track", where all 6 breakout sessions feature either reps speaking about their colleges and entrance requirements, or sessions on preparing for college (transcripts, scholarships, how to pick a college, college life, etc.) -- OR, sometimes we hold a special parent session

- career" speakers (often parents, family friends or neighbors, but also we just "cold call" places of interest) who work in a wide variety of career fields and who are enthusiastic about what they do and wouldn't mind sharing about it for 40 minutes (we've had a forensics guy who showed photos of autopsies; a physical therapist; video/film production people; rocket engineer; artist; beekkeeper; firefighter; private investigator; radio telescope engineer; newscaster; published author; veterinarian; nutritionist; missionary; etc.)

- organizations, especially those that teens could get involved with -- they often give great demos!

(Search & Rescue; Worldview Academy; Chivalry & Steel (medieval history recreation group); TOP Dog (training dogs to be companion assistants to the disabled); Sea Cadets; 4-H; Christian Youth Theater; Youth & Government; Fellowship of Christian Athletes; Toastmasters or National Forensics League; etc.)

- hobby/interest groups -- they often give great demos (martial arts or ballroom dancing school; horse training; falconry; amateur enthusiast groups such as astronomy, history recreation, rockhounding or lapidairy, etc.; magician or puppeteer)

- interesting topic sessions (how to tell if an image has been digitally manipulated; take a career interest survey; do a hands-on workshop for making jewelry, or origami, or special cards; computer and facebook "etiquette"

- a number of demonstrations throughout the day to lighten things up (see above, but also things like a chef preparing food; stunt performers; demo of astronomy, physics, chemistry, optics, etc., from a college)

 

 

Because it takes about 8-12 of us moms about 4 months to plan and execute this event (we usually have 20-24 speakers, need to arrange the lunch and facilities (including all the AV the speakers need!), plus do the promotions and early and on-the-day-of registration) and 100 people attend -- though this year we had are all-time high of 140!) -- you could do something like this on a much smaller scale. Just invite a single special guest speaker or group once a month for 60-90 minutes. OR, do a "mini" version of the seminar, for just a morning, with a keynote speaker to start you off, and then 3 timeslots with just 2 speakers to choose from in each timeslot. It's amazing how many parents in your homeschool group do fascinating things, or how much special effort the people you invite to volunteer to come and speak will do for your group! (We DO give a $10-15 gift card in a thank you note given to each speaker right at the end of their speaking session in appreciation, but it really is a volunteer to speak type of situation most of the time!)

Edited by Lori D.
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Lori D, I want to live right next door to you!

 

What I really love about the things you mention is that they are out in the world. This is something teens need to do so much more of! So many people, however creative in the elementary years, seem to do high school completely as deskwork or textbook reading, papers, and tests; yet this is the time when kids crave connection with purposeful work in the adult world, or more knowledge about how the institutions right around them operate.

 

You have given me some concrete ideas to look into for my daughter for next year (9th grade). First on my list is to observe part of a trial! Thank you for the ideas.

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Lori D, I want to live right next door to you!

 

What I really love about the things you mention is that they are out in the world. This is something teens need to do so much more of! So many people, however creative in the elementary years, seem to do high school completely as deskwork or textbook reading, papers, and tests; yet this is the time when kids crave connection with purposeful work in the adult world, or more knowledge about how the institutions right around them operate.

 

You have given me some concrete ideas to look into for my daughter for next year (9th grade). First on my list is to observe part of a trial! Thank you for the ideas.

 

 

LOL!

 

I have to confess, Karen, that the REAL reason we get out and have done so many field trips or special demos since the boys hit middle school/high school -- is *me*! I LOVE field trips! I love getting to see the behind-the-scenes of how something works. And organizing a group of homeschoolers for a field trip gives me that in. ;) Besides, I hate grading seatwork, so field trips give me yet another excuse to procrastinate! :tongue_smilie:

 

Another great trip is to visit your state capital for the day, and sit in the gallery and see government at work. And if you plan that one in advance, especially if you go as a group, very likely you can also arrange to have lunch with, or at least meet with the senator or representatives to your state legislature who represent your district.

 

And what about a tour of a military base or national guard facility? How about inviting a WW2 vet (or more recent vet) -- or a refugee from recent hostilities -- in to speak about his/her experiences?

 

Retired folks are another great resource -- since they more time, they are often involved in very interesting hobbies/activities AND they really enjoy sharing about their interests!

 

Another great opportunity to get out into the real world is to set up some "shadowing" opportunities -- line students up with someone who allows them to "shadow" (follow/watch/ask questions) them on the job for half a day.

 

Enjoy your real-life school experiences! Warmest regards, Lori D.

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