How I'm Planning & Record Keeping for High School | Flexible Homeschool High School Planning

Hey everybody, welcome to the walled up way. I'm Jessica. Today's video is going to be all about planning for homeschooling high school. When I started thinking about homeschooling high school, it wasn't the homeschool part that scared me because I've been homeschooling for years. That just comes second nature at this point. It was the record keeping part of high school that scared me. It was the transcripts and the college admissions and the graduation requirements and like knowing that I had to now do all of these things and kind of feeling like I was going to have to change the way that we homeschooled in order to do them. So I have done a ton of research and thinking and trying to figure out a way that we could still homeschool the way we love to homeschool, keep that freedom and that flexibility and kind of still have the confidence to move forward, but make sure I was finding a way to track it and like make sure that there would be a way for us to have transcripts and all of that in the long run because at this point, Emily is pretty sure she's college bound. So I needed to make sure that she had transcripts and that I kept up with course descriptions and just all of those things. So what I did in the midst of all of my personal research for high school is I went ahead and made it into a downloadable ebook kind of thing with the forms that I'm personally going to be using. And so that is now available if this is something you would like. It's homeschooling high school made easy. Inside this, it basically covers everything. What is a credit, making a plan, setting up a system, grading and record keeping, and then there are high school planning forms. And to make it as easy as possible, the forms are included in the ebook where you can just print them and fill them out. Or they're also available in a Canva template as well as a Google Doc template. So there's links in here for you to be able to use either of those. So whatever works best for you. So today, what we're going to be doing together is we're going to go ahead and basically go through the forms and go ahead and like prep them and set them up. And we're going to print them. I'm going to add them to my planner. Basically, we're going to get ready to be able to record keep for high school. So I'm actually going to be using the Canva version of the forms mainly because I work in Canva all the time. So I'm kind of used to that. So that's what I'm going to use. Although Google Docs works fine too. The first thing you're going to see is that it says like, stop, this is a public document, make a copy. You're going to definitely want to make sure you make your own copy. But mine already is a copy. And then I'm going to go ahead and start working on the four-year high school plan. So for example, I'm going to change the name to Emily's four-year high school plan because why not? And then I know that her ninth grade year is going to be 2026 to 2027. So I'm going to go ahead and change the dates all the way across on that as well. And then I'm going to start typing in the classes that I know she's going to take. So for example, what I know is going to happen in the four years is English all four years. So English one, English two, English three, English four. Then I know in ninth grade, she's doing geometry. So 10th grade will be algebra two, 11th grade will be trigonometry. For 12th grade, I'm just going to put in personal finance because I don't know what we're doing for math. She might dual enroll, but personal finance will be like a flex kind of holder course for now. And then I'm going to be doing biology for ninth grade, chemistry for 10th grade, physics for 11th grade, and then we're going to call zoology for 12th grade. Again, that's a flex kind of holder. World history and geography for ninth, American history and geography for 10th, U.S. government and economics for 11th, and then world mythology is what we're going to use as a holder for 12th. The reason I'm putting holders in for 12th grade is because in the state of Florida, she only needs three math, three science, three social science. So she doesn't really need that fourth one in any of those core things. So they're flexible. They can be whatever she wants. They can be like more on the job training. They can be dual enroll. I just know that I want to get everything else in those first three years and 12th grade is basically going to be flexible. And she has more flexibility in math because she did algebra one in eighth grade, where that is normally a requirement for high school. So I'm going to go ahead and fill in the four years now, basically what we just talked about, and I'm assigning each of them their credit value. So all of those things are one credit, except U.S. government and economics. And those are each half a credit. And so basically I'm not going to put a total in yet for my high school year plan for the credit because I'm leaving myself space to write in electives that might happen each year. So that page is done. My four year high school plan is done because that's like my basic, that's what I have. Now let's go ahead and go on to the course title pages. So basically the way that I'm still going to homeschool the way I want to homeschool is yes, we're going to use some curriculum, but we're still going to use books and games and resources and all of these things. So I have printed the standard diploma requirements for the state of Florida. So I know what she has to have as far as hours spent to count as a credit, as well as what classes she has to have. So basically what I'm going to do is take this course title page, which just says resources used and activities complete and time spent, and I'm going to duplicate it a bunch of times for each of the courses I know she needs in the long run. So for example, English one, like we know that's going to be a course. So I'm going to title it English one. I'm now going to duplicate that and make English two, English three, English four. So I basically, I'm going to have like one of these for every course that I want her to end up with a credit with in the long run. I'm not going to do it for math because math is the one thing that's easy for us because we're just going to use Denison and if she finishes Denison that, that was a credit. So that's like the only course class that she's going to get a credit for that we're making easy. So I'm not going to do math, but I will do all for English. And then I'm going to go ahead and do all of like biology. I know I want that. I know I want chemistry. I know that I'm going to want physics. Now I'm not going to do any of the 12th grade classes that I said were flex yet. I'm just going to print blank ones of these so that I have extras. Like I'll just put a line that way I can handwrite things in. Now that I have all of those done and I have those pieces of paper, like I said, I'm going to make one that just has a line. So basically I end up with five or six where I can write something in. Now let me explain what my plan is. My plan is to take these logs and literally log the things that we're doing. So for example, let's say she watches a crash course video that's biology. Write that down. Write how long the video was. Let's say we go on a field trip. Write that down. Fill it out. Let's say we do something that's chemistry based, even though right now she's only in ninth grade. I'm still going to write that down on the chemistry one, which is why I'm making all of these and putting them on my planner now. Because the transcript that I'm going to make for her is going to be subject based, which I will show you guys that now. Included is also a volunteer log, which I'm going to go ahead and really, really quick take that off so that I can have that added in my planner. And then there's a transcript for years if you do it by years. And there's also one that is by subject. So that's what I'm going to use to make my life easier. So all of my English credits will go in one spot. All of my math credits will go on one spot. All my science, my social studies, and then my electives. And so what that's going to do is it's going to give us the ability to basically earn these credits throughout the whole course of the next four years, which is why I'm using the logs in the state of Florida. A half credit hour is like 60 instructional instructional hours. A full credit is 120 instructional hours. So that just means that she needs to be doing 120 hours of something to have a full credit. So basically, let's say for example, film, because I know we're going to do a film credit. I'm going to make this really easy. One full credit for film credit. Every video that we watch and discuss by the time we watch and discuss it is two hours. In the course of four years, we need to watch and discuss 60 videos. Boom, there's your full credit like that. It's that easy because you spend the time watching the movie and discussing it. So basically that's what these logs are for. It's for me to be able to write down the things that we're doing when we're doing the books that we've read, the time spent in instruction in that credit or that topic. So that's what I'm going to be printing and adding to my planner. And that's how I plan to still be able to read books, play games, watch videos, go on field trips, live life, and still get everything within those credit hours that we need. So now that I have all of those pages printed, we're going to punch them and put them in the planner. One of the reasons I love the ProFlix so much is because you can take the planner that I have already and just open that sucker up and add the pages without me having to worry about anything else. So that's going to be really nice. And now my homeschool planner is ready to go for the upcoming homeschool year. The first thing I have is National Holidays at a glance just in case I want to, I don't know, plan for the fact that Tooth Fairy Day is on February 28th. I'd like to have that. Then I have our standard diploma requirements for the state of Florida just so that I can reference them anytime I need to. And then we have Emily's four-year high school plan. Again, just that I have a reference and I will fill in anything else kind of as the year goes on. And then this is where I will be logging everything. So like, for example, English 1, I will log any resources that we've used or activities that we've done and how long we spent doing that activity. And I have one of those for all of the different credits that I want her to get in the long run. So we'll just keep filling those out. And then after we get through the logs, which you can see I went ahead and made film study, and I also made a miscellaneous log of activities. If we do something and I'm not sure where I want it to go yet, I'm going to log it on this page. And then I can put it somewhere later. So like, let's say, for example, we went and did a tour of the White House. Okay, like we went on a field trip, we did a tour of the White House, that could easily go in our American history and geography credit, or it can also go in our US government credit. So if I'm just not sure where I want to put it yet, then I'm just going to put a miscellaneous log and then I will file it away later. So that's kind of my catchall. And then again, I left a couple blank so that I can make up courses as we go. And then after that have our unit study pages, which is where I'm basically going to be keeping up with the books, shows, games and activities that I have that will work with a credit. So like, for example, I know we're going to be doing biology and world history. So I will just write biology or world history. And I'm going to write like all the books we have all the I want us to watch all the games and all the activities and experiences that way I have them to reference. So when I sit down to do our weekly plan, which is the next thing in here, when I sit down to make our weekly plans, I can reference that unit study page and say, okay, for biology, this is what I want us to read or this is the activity I want us to do. So then I have a bunch of just the weekly pages. This is the basic planner layout that I have. I just want something basic. I have a very kind of crazy personal and work planner. So this is where I like for homeschool just basic. I use this side for things that Emily needs to do independently. And I use this side for things that she needs to do with either Kevin or I and I color code Kevin is one color and I am another color. So she doesn't have to ask am I doing this with dad or am I doing this with mom, she automatically knows one color is dad and one color is mom. So that is kind of how I plan and how I am planning to make high school transcripts and record keeping just a little bit easier for me.