Some homeschooling parents are really organized; they keep up with high school course descriptions each year, so when senior year rolls around, they’re ready to mail their student’s complete records with all those college applications, and sit back and wait for the scholarships arrive. Then there’s the typical homeschooling parent, who never seemed to get started with those course descriptions…
If you find yourself falling into that second category, now is the time to catch up! Set aside just one weekend and you can put together a pretty good complete record in time for college application deadlines. Although this marathon approach isn’t the recommended way, here are some helpful tips when you’re in a bind and need course descriptions right away.
During this marathon weekend, take your transcript and expand it with as much detail as you can from memory, use whatever records you have and add as much detail as you can. Even if you haven’t kept records, you have saved some things. Perhaps you have receipts for your purchases that you can review and get as much detail as possible about what you purchased.
Keeping a high school planning guide, which reflects each class your child takes each year, will be a great help. If you start with the current year, that is usually the easiest to remember and will encourage you to keep it that way, well into your child’s first year.
There will be little things you’ll forget doing it this way, because there’s so much to remember, but if you start with the current year, you’ll remember you took World History, which probably makes you remember you took American History last year, etc. List each curriculum or experience for each class on the planning guide, which is like a worksheet to help you fill in as much detail as possible.
If you are not fully prepared for course descriptions and do not have records of previous courses, start by making a list of classes you remember your student taking. After you have that list, break it down into sentences, and if you can, break your sentences into paragraphs.
This is like having your child brainstorm ideas for an essay; take the list and just add a few words in the middle. Begin with a writing prompt such as “In this class, the student will use Saxon Algebra 1 by practicing with 26 tests and 13 quizzes.” Basically, just take what you’ve written on your list and write it in a complete sentence.
Cutting and pasting descriptions that others have already written will also help a lot. If your child is in a classroom situation, such as a co-op or online course, you can use that course description in your own writing. Do a Google search for the curriculum used and edit to reflect your student’s experience.
