This year, my 8th grader asked for a Computer Science elective. She was ready for a real world programming language after several years of Lego Robotics and other coding activities using Scratch. Thanks to her interest in Minecraft, we began looking for a way for her to begin to learn Java programming for beginners. Thanks to being a part of the Timberdoodle Blog Team, she got to take Java programming as an online self paced course.
The closer I get to launching my kids into the world as adults the more I am motivated to make sure life skills for teens is a part of our homeschool in an intentional way. With Outside the Box kids learning can happen at a different pace than their peers, but eventually they need all the same skills. We make teaching in the moment a priority and include them in discussions when we can.
We will be starting our 8th year of homeschool soon with an 8y (4th grade), 10y (6th grade), and 12y (7th-9th grade). We will continue for a second year working our way through American History. With Out of the Box kids, grade levels are hard to follow;
the middle years: they are a transition point between the foundational years of learning in elementary school and the high school years of beginning to apply your knowledge to real life. When you are homeschooling middle school years are a good time to look both backwards and forwards in time.
