A Game-Changing Approach to Homeschooling High School

Pam Barnhill [00:00:01]:
Are you ready for homeschooling to feel joyful again? Do you long for support as you learn alongside your kids? Welcome to Homeschool Better Together, a podcast about building a homeschool experience that works for your family. I’m Pam Barnhill, and it’s time to step out of the overwhelm and into the wonder. Let’s do this. Hi there, and welcome to the podcast. Today, we have a special treat for you. Our customer service manager, miss Dawn Garrett, also our community manager. She just takes care of so many things around here. She is going to be hosting the podcast today, and she is going to be joined by Elizabeth Overcash, who is a homeschooling mom.

Pam Barnhill [00:00:51]:
Right now, she’s homeschooling two kids, but she has graduated another, not from her homeschool though. So this is a very interesting perspective that Elizabeth is bringing to us because her oldest child finished schooling in a more traditional manner. And so now she’s stepping up in homeschooling high school for her remaining children. Now she has a very eclectic style of homeschooling. Next episode, I will be joined by Meg Angelino, who is a member of our team here at Homeschool Better Together. And we are gonna be talking about her homeschool high school experience. So jokingly behind the scenes, we’ve kind of called this series a tale of two high schools because we wanted you to see that really there is no one right way to homeschool high school. And while Elizabeth is very hands on and very much leading her kids through more of a eclectic literature based homeschool style, Meg has chosen to outsource a number of classes for her teen boy.

Pam Barnhill [00:01:59]:
And so right now, she’s got this one high schooler who just started this year. And so we’re gonna be talking about what the year was like for Meg and her high schooler, what they’re planning on doing next year, and kind of her experiences with homeschooling high school. So we think these two podcasts are gonna be a great great combo for you to get a view of what homeschooling high school is like. And so here is Dawn with Elizabeth Overcash.

Dawn Garrett [00:02:26]:
Hi. And welcome to the Homeschool Better Together podcast. I am not your normal host. I’m Dawn Garrett. I’m the community manager for Homeschool Better Together, and I’ve worked with Pam for a number of years. I’m a homeschooling mom of two graduates and one senior, and we’ve homeschooled all the way through. And I’m excited to kind of have my first outing as the host of the podcast today. Thanks to Pam for giving me this opportunity.

Dawn Garrett [00:02:59]:
Today, I am interviewing one of the members of our community, Elizabeth Overcash. Elizabeth is a homeschooling mom. She has three kids. One is graduated adult and did not homeschool, and then she has two homeschoolers, one in high school and one in eighth grade getting ready to high school next year. And so we wanted to talk a little bit about homeschooling high school. So welcome to the podcast, Elizabeth.

Elizabeth Overcash [00:03:29]:
Thank you, Dawn. It’s nice to be here.

Dawn Garrett [00:03:32]:
We’re so glad to have you joining us. Elizabeth very often answers questions and participates in our community, and I’m excited to get to talk to her today. I guess my first question is, can you tell us a little bit more about your family?

Elizabeth Overcash [00:03:45]:
I sure can. So we are a retired military family. We moved every two years for a very long time. My husband served for twenty seven years, and we traveled a lot. So, we are kind of like gypsies, I guess, in a sense, and we decided to move to Idaho and retire here. So we’ve been here a little bit over six years. It’s a quiet place. My husband says that we are in transition, recover, and growing mode, and we are still in transition.

Elizabeth Overcash [00:04:25]:
So it’s a great place. And, like Don said, we have a 29 year old, a 16 year old, and a 14 year old. And I’ve been homeschooling for nine years. So I’m going on 10 coming, you know, this upcoming fall. So I’m very excited about being in just the high school years now because I actually really enjoy them.

Dawn Garrett [00:04:47]:
I have enjoyed my high schoolers so much. It’s like we’ve done all this work to get to this point, and then we have, like, these conversations. These are the things that I homeschooled to get to in the younger years, and I so it have enjoyed homeschooling high schoolers. So what inspired you to choose homeschooling for high school?

Elizabeth Overcash [00:05:10]:
I feel like I already had seven years experience in a sense, I guess I would say. And I felt successful with homeschooling. I felt comfortable with the time that I had already done it, and so it just seemed like the most natural thing to continue doing. And I’ve also seen so many others that have gone before me that I’ve been very inspired by, like the ladies in the community, like you, Dawn and Pam, and also people like Sally Clarkson and Cindy Rollins and Sarah McKenzie. When I see others that have done it, I feel like, well, that is what’s possible. And the other thing is that I do have the perspective of a mother who has an adult son. So I have trust in what is possible, and I have that long view of what education looks like and how we have that ability to just continue learning and growing because we have so much information that’s available to us all the time. So I see my older son involved in so many different things that I never expected.

Elizabeth Overcash [00:06:37]:
Mhmm. And the possibility of what is out there just I just have that trust. So I think that being that older mom, I’m not worried as much. I feel a little bit more settled. I don’t know if you feel that way, Dawn, but I just because I know that you have adult children too, but it’s there’s just a piece that I feel that everything will be okay.

Dawn Garrett [00:07:02]:
My kids call themselves baby adults because my adult children are 20 and 19.

Elizabeth Overcash [00:07:06]:
Yeah.

Dawn Garrett [00:07:07]:
But I really identify with that confidence of seeing, like, Cindy Rollins and other friends of mine who have graduated adult children, and their adult children have gone on to do adult things and be productive members of society and, have interests and continue in their faith and, I mean, all of those things. That also gave me confidence. I mean, I always kind of intended to homeschool all the way through high school, but it gave me confidence that, yes, I could I could make this actually happen. So as the parent of a high schooler, how do you see your role? Does it does it change from what you did with, you know, elementary kids and middle school kids? How has it changed or shifted with your sophomore, and are you doing different things with your eighth grader as you prepare to go into high school?

Elizabeth Overcash [00:08:01]:
Well, I was definitely more hands on when they were younger. I would say, like, in the elementary years, I was definitely right next to them, side by side, helping them, you know, hold their pencil or showing them where things belonged. And I feel like my role now has been more I think of it about it kind of like sports. I’m more of a coach, more of a, excuse me, a guide. I’m there to come alongside them and help them navigate, like, their work, their days. I point things out. We huddle. We say, hey, what went right? What did not? And even though my son is very independent as a high schooler, we still we check-in with one another.

Elizabeth Overcash [00:08:52]:
And we have more in-depth discussions and conversations about his work, about his reading, his narrations. And I give him autonomy and that agency to do his own thing, but I’m still there a % available. We actually work in an open space, and Mhmm. I’m there just in case he has questions. I’m not off doing other things. I really take my job as a homeschooling mom very seriously. It is my job. So I show up, and I’m here.

Elizabeth Overcash [00:09:32]:
Because even though he’s a high schooler, he still needs that direction and that guidance, and I wanna be available for that. I also just want him to feel respected, like we partner together. Mhmm. So I see it like more of a coaching, a guiding relationship.

Dawn Garrett [00:09:53]:
Oh, I love all of that. We we talk about being at elbow for those elementary years, through the time where they can be released a little bit. And I love the idea of, autonomy and giving our students that freedom of, you know, choosing which subject they’re gonna do next and following the list and doing the things, but then being available to answer questions or to help if they need help getting back on track or, you know, not wandering far afield but being available and interruptible. And all of that, I think, is so important for high schoolers. We use the image of a mentor as well as that of a coach. They they kind of are the same, but helping to direct the thinking and the understanding when they’re a little bit off in those conversations. And those conversations at my high school, they happened, like, during the school day, but then they happened at dinner with dad. And they happened in the car on the way to organ lessons, and they happened all over the place.

Dawn Garrett [00:11:02]:
They were not just isolated during a, quote, unquote, school time. Do you find that to be the case at your house too?

Elizabeth Overcash [00:11:10]:
Yes. And I think that that is one of the things that I love about homeschooling. I’m I gravitate towards anything that is natural, and I find driving in the car and having a conversation and him narrating to me about, you know, what he read as natural. It’s just real living. It would be like me driving in the car with my husband, and he’s sharing his favorite book with me. You know, we don’t necessarily have to set up a time, but it just happens organically.

Dawn Garrett [00:11:42]:
And Yeah. That’s

Elizabeth Overcash [00:11:45]:
that’s what I really enjoy about homeschooling, that it can be anytime, anywhere. And I and I also feel that as teenagers, they feel more comfortable with that. And I I like to give him, you know, that comfort as well. So yeah.

Dawn Garrett [00:12:06]:
Being a captive audience in the car is is one of the great tools of of homeschooling high school. It is. So I do appreciate the organic nature that you can have when you’re homeschooling high school. Are there any things that you do to structure a day, though? Like, is it all just kind of organic and free for all, or do you have some boundaries and some structures that you have in place as well?

Elizabeth Overcash [00:12:31]:
Oh, no. We definitely have structure, and I feel like that is something that that really helps us as a homeschooling family. So we need to definitely have our routine and our rhythm going. And schooling would never work for me,

Dawn Garrett [00:12:48]:
as much

Elizabeth Overcash [00:12:48]:
as I like the organic, you know, setting of homeschool.

Dawn Garrett [00:12:52]:
Mhmm.

Elizabeth Overcash [00:12:53]:
And that’s only because I feel like we all really thrive with knowing what we have to do. So we basically every Sunday evening, as a family, we look at the week ahead. So we look at all the big rocks that are in our week. So we know what dad’s schedule is like. We know what my schedule is like. And so all the fixed things, we talk about, okay, for my high schooler, how are you going to work your, you know, your workload around those fixed Mhmm. Big rocks in your week? So he already knows what his workload is like. And so he has a planner, and I have a planner.

Elizabeth Overcash [00:13:40]:
So on Monday mornings, he will write all of the things that he needs to do for the week. So he’ll put in, okay, this is how much work I have for English, for Spanish, for science, for college prep genius. He also has he’s a dual enrolled athlete at our local high school, so he has gym time. He’s also a scout on Tuesday evening, so he has a, you know, leadership position there because he’s an older scout. And so he plugs all that in into his planner, and he’s usually up about eight, eight thirty. He does all his independent work while my daughter who’s an eighth grader is doing her work. And they pretty much wrap up around kind of the same time, and then we gather and we do morning time together. So all that independent work has to be done by both of them before we start morning time.

Elizabeth Overcash [00:14:47]:
He checks off his list in his planner. It matches mine. If I need to add anything, I’ll go into his planner and add it and communicate that with him. And then after morning time, we’re done. So that is the structure we have Monday through Friday. We don’t take any days off during the week because we just find that, at least for me, it’s really important to get that work done and to have the work done well. So it’s not like we have long days, but I’d rather have a shorter day with really concentrated and focused effort. And so it just makes for a really good structured week for us.

Dawn Garrett [00:15:34]:
Yeah. I think that sounds amazing. We did something similar with our calendars on Monday morning before morning time started. We always started our day with morning time. So, before it started, we all of us and once dad was working from home, even he came upstairs, and we went through the whole week, who needs to go where when, who needs to drive who where when, who needs a car, you know, all of those things and got the big things on the calendar so we knew kind of what the week was gonna look like and the trajectory of the week. And that was so key to, like, just making sure that the living part of our life kept going smoothly and that there weren’t crashes or confusions or anything. And then, yeah, they know when they have opportunity to do that independent work and how they can get that accomplished. So I think that was that’s a very similar kind of first thing of the week we’re gonna pay attention to to all the things because high schoolers get busy.

Elizabeth Overcash [00:16:37]:
They do.

Dawn Garrett [00:16:38]:
Yeah. Sports and and you did scouts. We had a lot of music lessons and sports and youth group at church and all the different things. So making sure that the time is set apart properly makes such a huge difference. It does. So we’ll go back to, like, more of the specifics about the homeschooling. What does planning for high school look like in your homeschool? What tools or strategies help you to stay on track?

Elizabeth Overcash [00:17:10]:
Well, when I was thinking about high school, I did have that moment that I think a lot of people have when you feel like, oh, it’s high school now. What has to change? And I really didn’t have any idea of how I was going to do high school. I felt like it had to be very different. And so I started looking for high school resources, and I came across Ankerico. And I believe that it was in one of the posts that Pam had. So Anne Carico has a book that’s called Cure the Fear of Homeschooling High School. It’s like a step by step handbook. And I actually put a sticker over the fear part because I wasn’t afraid to homeschool high school.

Elizabeth Overcash [00:18:02]:
I just didn’t wanna look at the fear part on the book. I wanted to feel really confident about it. So I used her book, and it was really wonderful. It just kind of set the stage for what credits are, you know, what kinds of things high schoolers are doing, how to do a transcript. And it really is a step by step handbook, and it was perfect. So I use that for my very first year of homeschooling my son for his ninth grade along with plan your year autopilot course because I cannot live without that. That is my that’s my foundation for all my planning every single year. And as a matter of fact, I looked back and I believe I started doing the plan your year with Pam in 2016.

Elizabeth Overcash [00:18:55]:
That’s how long I’ve been doing it. So that’s the foundation that is just gold. So I use that for his ninth grade year. And then for tenth grade, the navigating high school course came out, and I was so excited. I immediately bought it. I immediately listened to it. I think I listened to it three times, and I’m talking about, like, all of it. The mindset, I would go running and I had it in my earbuds.

Elizabeth Overcash [00:19:26]:
I just I wanted it in my brain. Like, okay. Now I have this other tool and it’s by Pam and it’s all the ladies. So that was very exciting. And I also used the plan your year autopilot. So those are my planning tools now. I also keep an ongoing notebook at the beginning of every year of just ideas, things that I hear, resources, a podcast, advice, or something that I may want to go back and use for planning purposes when I’m ready to start. And before the year ends, I just start reviewing.

Elizabeth Overcash [00:20:13]:
I start thinking of what may be next, and then I give my kids a questionnaire. And you all had one in the navigating high school course. I used that one this year, but I usually just make my own. And before I do any purchases, I always give that questionnaire to my kids. I want them to be really honest. I need to be really humble about what’s gone right, what’s not gone right, what they enjoyed, what they did not, what they’d like to spend more time on, what they’re interested in, what they’re passionate about this year, what they believe their big rocks will be for the year, whether it’s sports or scouts, and we always do youth group, things like that. And then I go over that questionnaire with my husband, and we talk about it. And we both really, like I said, get very humble about what hasn’t gone right.

Elizabeth Overcash [00:21:18]:
But we also celebrate the things that we feel like the kids really do enjoy about homeschooling. And once I have that questionnaire done, I start my research, and I start my autopilot course. And I usually pick about a couple of resources for the main subjects that my kids will be studying, and then I let them choose one or the other. I have found that that gives them ownership. I’m not picking for them. And now that they’re older, you know, I feel like I’m picking great resources. And I say, this one or this one? A lot of it does have to do with their personality. Do they like to be on the computer? Would they rather be reading a book and answering questions? Do they want something where there’s more conversation? And then they pick, and then guess what? They have that ownership.

Elizabeth Overcash [00:22:19]:
You chose this, so we will be working through this. And then I always use the plan your year forms. I always have a big three ring binder where I keep everything, and I have my morning basket binder. The kids have their planners, and away we go for a new year.

Dawn Garrett [00:22:44]:
So you have these checklists in ways that you have approached things historically, and and you’re making me helping your your children navigate, making those choices for your high school. Do you anticipate differences for your eighth grader as she moves up into high school? Will things change a little bit for her, or is it kind of a just a natural progression of what you’ve been doing? A slow releasing is what I’ve always talked about it as.

Elizabeth Overcash [00:23:16]:
Yeah. That’s a good word, a slow release. I’ve never thought about it that way, but I do think about how you or how we begin to prepare our middle grade kids for high school. Right? It is that, like you said, that slow release. Right? The time management, how they structure a day, maybe a little bit more work. Maybe they’re not working for twenty minutes, but maybe now it’s thirty five, you know, that I really do believe that in many ways it will be different only because of their personalities. So my son, he is very logical, and so he needs very specific things to help guide him with his work. He does fall in the giftedness area.

Elizabeth Overcash [00:24:10]:
So a lot of people think that that is actually quite easy, but it can be quite challenging only because not everything will just work for him. So I do have that challenge of finding the right things that will work. She also falls in that gifted area. And so for her, it will be a little bit more I’m trying to think it through. I will probably give her a little bit more independent work as far as some outside learning just to help navigate what may be coming up for her as well. But I I pretty much tend to stick to the same resources that I have found that have worked over time that I will not let go of. That’ll be great. Like, I really love Andrew Pudawas’ structure and style program for the first year.

Elizabeth Overcash [00:25:15]:
I don’t do all of his stuff, but that first one for ninth grade, I feel is amazing. And so I will probably use that for her. And then I’ll just kinda gravitate and see, you know, personality wise and how her year goes to see what other things I may put in. But I like the challenge because I like researching.

Dawn Garrett [00:25:40]:
So That is that can be the fun part, you have to say.

Elizabeth Overcash [00:25:43]:
That is the fun part. Right. All the all the planning, but it is work, and it’s never perfect. And what I’m saying right now may be completely different come my planning this summer and what actually happens in the fall because that’s just life.

Dawn Garrett [00:26:00]:
Yeah. One of the things I do particularly love about high school is how you can tailor it for your kids, for their strengths and their weaknesses and their interests. And you can help them in their trajectories and then and the things that they want to learn about. And I think that’s I think you’ve given some good examples about ways that you have done that. Is there anything else that you’d like to talk about that? Or

Elizabeth Overcash [00:26:27]:
Well, since you brought up strengths and weaknesses, one of the things that I learned, and I think it I think it was Shauna Winger that I learned it from years ago, was understanding how when we focus on the strengths and not always on the weaknesses

Dawn Garrett [00:26:46]:
Mhmm.

Elizabeth Overcash [00:26:46]:
That the strengths are the things that help propel weaknesses forward. Sure. So because I think what I have found is that a lot of times if we focus on those weaknesses, and I’m just saying this now from a perspective of having an adult son, is that those weaknesses sometimes are just things that over time, it’s just maturity, and they needed more time to understand or more space to just kinda flush those things out. And they kind of just take care of themselves. And I don’t know if you find that to be true, but, you know, we can look back at a lot of things that we were really hyper focused on that just kind of went away because they just needed another year or some space to just kind of mold those things over, and they just took care of themselves. Now there are things that if there are areas of weaknesses where I find that it’s keeping my child from growing or moving forward, and I don’t see that happening, and it may raise a little, you know, a little red flag, well, then, yes, I will focus on that and take my time with them and try to do the one thing that I say in my vision where I’m not gonna push and hurry them, but give them that that time to learn it at their pace. And it it could be a character thing too. But, yeah, that that’s just kinda how I feel about the strengths and weaknesses part.

Dawn Garrett [00:28:33]:
Sometimes I feel like if we overemphasize our worry and our hyperfocus on those weaknesses, we actually can damage the confidence of the child, and that hurts their strengths too. And it skews our vision of our children. So when we focus on their strength, like you said, it kinda carries along the weaknesses, and and we can shepherd and guide and and help, but it helps us to see our whole child, not just, oh my gosh. He can’t blah blah blah.

Elizabeth Overcash [00:29:04]:
Right.

Dawn Garrett [00:29:05]:
Have you struggled with keeping your high schooler your teens motivated and engaged in the work or because they’re doing so much of the choosing, that’s not been much of a struggle at your home?

Elizabeth Overcash [00:29:19]:
Well, no. I think we’ve come across that at times, and I what I have learned over time is that it really is helpful to give them choices. So and, again, because once I give them the choice of that learning, then they have that ownership of it. We also work on the I am, I can, I will, and I ought? When I think about Saint Augustine’s Ladder and I think about Charlotte Mason, I think about that that is just a training that we’ve done with our kids since they were really young. They will not like everything that I put in front of them. It may not be a resource that they find valuable, but I do as a parent. And that’s part of my responsibility and the what I get to also decide alongside my husband is these things are good for you. You may not understand them right now.

Elizabeth Overcash [00:30:31]:
And, again, with the perspective of having an adult son who now says, I am so glad you did that, mom. I understand why you did that, mom.

Dawn Garrett [00:30:40]:
Mhmm. Those

Elizabeth Overcash [00:30:40]:
are the reasons why. So we really do talk about that work ethic because they will be taking this into their adult lives. And if they don’t begin that learning from the time that they’re really young, that you will not always like and enjoy everything that you have to do and that’s placed before you, but there is such good work of just doing it anyway. So we do that kind of training. And I think that now as our teenagers, they know that. They know that motto, and they understand it. But the other thing is I also keep them motivated and engaged by I use Sarah McKenzie’s advice on making sure that they have a water source along their path to refresh themselves. So, you know, she talks about as adults, as women, like, what are our water resources along our path? How do we refresh ourselves during the week? For me, I would say it’s my morning basket.

Elizabeth Overcash [00:31:48]:
It’s my reading. It’s my exercise. It’s a time that I may, you know, get to go out and have a date night with my husband. Like, those things invigorate me. If I don’t put any of those things into my week, then my week feels off. And so what do I give my kids? For my son, it would be his scouting. He loves scouts, so I get him to scouts on Tuesday evenings. He’s a dual athlete at our local high school, so he plays football and he works out at the gym with them three times a week.

Elizabeth Overcash [00:32:26]:
So he exercises, he loves to draw, he loves movies, he loves to be with his friends. So I make sure that he has that in his week. That’s what refreshes him, and what refreshes my daughter is something completely different. I want to make sure that those things happen in their week so that there’s that balance of good hard focused work with school and their water source, their refreshment, you know, the things that make them come alive. So I I make sure that those happen.

Dawn Garrett [00:33:07]:
Wow. I appreciate how intentional you are in your planning and your thinking and ways that you’re treating your children like people. That’s such a important key, especially when you’re in homeschooling in high school, but all through the homeschool years, I think. Can we talk a little bit about the the stuff that we have to do when we’re homeschooling high school, the transcripts and the grades and the record keeping and the organizational matters that we have to to do to communicate to the outside world?

Elizabeth Overcash [00:33:39]:
Well, I am still learning and streamlining all of that Just because my son is a tenth grader and I feel like, you know, we’re gonna be wrapping up two years of high school, it is still so new to me, Dawn. I am learning and growing with the planning and the transcripts. I had to use the transcript generator for the first time when he dual enrolled as No. For football. Player. And they needed it within, like, three days. And I went, oh, no. Heather, oh, that’s right.

Elizabeth Overcash [00:34:16]:
The navigating high school course. They have it in there. Okay. I need to go in and I need to figure this out. And guess what? I figured it out because that’s what we do, right, as moms. Right. And homeschooling parents were just like, oh, here it is. I gotta do this.

Elizabeth Overcash [00:34:31]:
So very new to me. I also had to send in a report card for this last semester because I well, because he’s dual enrolled, I I had forgotten about that because I’m not doing that for anybody. And I do live in Idaho, and Idaho is one of the states that has so much freedom in how you homeschool. You can basically do whatever you want, which is one of the reasons I love living here as well. So I am, again, constantly in the navigating high school course, listening and reading and trying to understand how to keep records, you know, when do I grade, how do I grade, you know, do I just pass and fail this for this English paper. I’m still growing and learning. But I will tell you the one thing that really did help me and and is helping me now is that I have a high school planner, a three ring binder. It’s really thick, and it has all of my son’s ninth grade, all of his tenth grade.

Elizabeth Overcash [00:35:41]:
I keep all of his work. I do not have to keep in Idaho a ledger of the days that he homeschools, but I like to do that for myself. Mhmm. So I have that in there. I have my calendar. I have a weekly checklist of what needs to be done for him, and I have it in mine as well. So I think I’m doing pretty good in that. I mean, I I have my planner, and I do look at it every day.

Elizabeth Overcash [00:36:13]:
I always have it in front of me when we homeschool. And I have everything checked off by the end of the week, and I do, like, a six week review on where he’s at, where I’m at. I catch up on things that maybe I didn’t I wasn’t able to get to. I make notes on that. And so, yeah, I think I’m still growing and learning in that area, but I think I’m doing okay.

Dawn Garrett [00:36:39]:
It seems like it’s so much, but it’s definitely not as overwhelming, I think, as a lot of homeschoolers are afraid it’s going to be. And so it sounds like you have a a good system for what you want to be able to record and do for for your family. So I love hearing that. Just a few more questions. A lot of people going into high school are very scared of things like high school math and lab sciences and foreign language. Has there been any particular thing that has helped you or ways that you’re approaching those that you think would be helpful for other people with considering homeschooling high school?

Elizabeth Overcash [00:37:20]:
Sure. One of the things that I learned is that well, here. I’ll go back to this. At the beginning of ninth grade, my son was considering the the naval academy. He isn’t anymore, but he was, you know, seventh, eighth grade, ninth grade. And I used the requirements for homeschoolers from the naval academy as kind of a little template, you know, to see, well, what is needed if he does wanna go there. And I really found that it was kind of pretty basic, and it was kind of like the other colleges and universities, what they were looking for. The sciences, the English, the math, you know, leadership.

Elizabeth Overcash [00:38:06]:
And I mean, yes, it was a little bit different in some other areas. And so I decided that well, I with my husband along with my husband, we knew the things that were important to us. So we knew that the English, the literature, the writing, like, all of that would definitely be the thing that would that he would be doing throughout his high school. We knew math was important because we believe he may go into maybe go into an area where he may need that. And so we started just kind of plugging in some of those, subjects. Now the other rebel kind of part of me, the wild kind of part of me, is that I don’t wanna make his high school generic. I kind of I like what Andrew Puduwa says about do what you want, call it what you must. I I want our high school to be there’s a reason why I am homeschooling, and it’s because we’re different.

Elizabeth Overcash [00:39:11]:
I want things to look a little bit different. I don’t want it to be generic, and I don’t wanna just kind of squash him into what a standard high school may look like. And so I’m gonna be giving him different things to to learn and and grow with, you know, during his high school years. So some of the necessities, but also some of the out of box things.

Dawn Garrett [00:39:41]:
Can you give me an example of something that’s out of the box in your home school?

Elizabeth Overcash [00:39:46]:
Sure. So this year, we decide I did I put all of his English studies together for this year and one of them is and we’re really enjoying it, is a cinema study. So we’re studying film. So we watch certain movies and he does he has, like, a questionnaire that he actually really likes because the questions are very well thought out. And he answers them. We discuss them. He watches the movie twice. And we have these really in-depth, wonderful discussions about them.

Elizabeth Overcash [00:40:23]:
And our middle grade daughter joins us, so we’ve watched, like, Casablanca and 12 Angry Men and Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner. And it’s it’s just been so fun. So something like that is is out of the box. And I think also just the opportunities he has with scouting, if he has to go away and go sail in Florida for a couple of weeks like he did, that’s something that we put in there that we find is out of the box and and different. And it really just, again, refreshes him, and he he does a lot of learning just through that. It’s, again, that organic natural living, you know, that that we have. For sure.

Dawn Garrett [00:41:17]:
Okay. Just a few last questions about navigating high school in particular. Because you have already talked about how you’ve listened to it a number of times and you refer to it. Is there anything specific in the course that you felt like influenced your approach more than another?

Elizabeth Overcash [00:41:34]:
So I think what keeps me motivated and confident is hearing other women who have gone before me. So being able to hear you and Pam and the other ladies talk about their experiences has really helped me stay confident. And I also love the the interviews that were in, like, with, Jean Burke, her college prep genius, and Andrew Pudawan, mister d. I really love the interviews. The transcripts and record keeping section, again, because that’s something that I’m continuously, you know, trying to streamline and work on, that has been very helpful. And just being able to print everything out and put it in a three ring binder and also read through it, because I also I don’t just listen to it. I also need to read through things for it to fully, you know, make it into my brain the right way. So having that next to me all the time just as a reference has been just really helpful.

Elizabeth Overcash [00:42:55]:
So those are the things that have been just just really helpful for me.

Dawn Garrett [00:43:00]:
Okay. And I guess our last question, what advice would you give to parents who are considering homeschooling high school?

Elizabeth Overcash [00:43:09]:
Well, I’ll start off by saying that I highly encourage them to invest in the navigating high school course and to also get the plan your year autopilot course. Both of those will really help streamline all the thinking because we have so many ideas and thoughts, and it helps bring everything into a clear view. So all those thoughts and ideas are are in one place so that you can reduce that decision fatigue that we talk about all the time. I know it it helps me so much, and it helps give me a goal for where I want to be without feeling scattered. And investing the time in the summer or whenever it is that you plan is really worth it. Because I think a lot of times people look at those courses and they just say, well, I I just don’t have the time. But actually making the time is what gives you the time to homeschool well throughout the year so that you’re not waking up in the morning and wondering what you’re going to do next. These things are you know, it’s a reason there’s a reason why it’s called autopilot.

Elizabeth Overcash [00:44:30]:
It gives you that bird’s eye view, and it sets things in motion so that when you have a setback, well, you have the setback, and then you can start again. And the other thing I would say is that being consistent and showing up to your homeschool is one of the most valuable things that you can do, to treat it like your job, to wake up and know that there’s a family that is waiting for you. I mean, it’s what we all did when we worked outside of our home, and it will keep that momentum going. Your kids know what to expect. You know what to expect for yourself as a woman and as a mother. And I think the third thing would be that your overall tone and your attitude really sets the temperature of your home.

Dawn Garrett [00:45:29]:
Mhmm.

Elizabeth Overcash [00:45:29]:
And it keeps the momentum again of your days going. That doesn’t mean that you won’t have those off days. I do. But I restart. I set the thermometer, you know, in my attitude again, and it makes a big difference.

Dawn Garrett [00:45:49]:
Mhmm. Yeah. And, I I would kind of wanna think back to what you were talking about with Ann Carrickos book about not being afraid. And if you if your attitude is one of being worried or fearful of, you know, of what’s gonna be happening tomorrow and and is this really gonna work, I think that that spreads to your kids too. And so that confidence in having a plan and knowing that others have done it before you and that you are capable of doing it yourself, I think those are all things that we’ve touched on today in this conversation. For me, those those were the things that helped me know that I could homeschool high school going into it as well.

Elizabeth Overcash [00:46:35]:
Right.

Dawn Garrett [00:46:36]:
So well, Elizabeth, I really appreciate you spending this time with me. We went a little longer than I anticipated, but I’ve loved having this conversation with you. I think you’ve brought up so many great ideas and thoughts, and and the intentionality of how you have approached your homeschooling was an encouragement to me. So I appreciate you spending the time, and I hope you have a wonderful rest of your day.

Elizabeth Overcash [00:47:05]:
Great. Thank you, Donna. It was really nice being here, and I appreciate your time.

Pam Barnhill [00:47:09]:
Thanks. That’s our show for today. Be sure to follow, subscribe, and leave a review so you never miss out on the wonder of homeschooling better together. To stay connected and learn even more about the Homeschooling Better Together resources and to join our free community, visit hsbtpodcast.com. Until next week, keep stepping out of the overwhelm and into the wonder.