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Career Explorations

Aug11

I love the fact that with home schooling we can customize our children’s education to fit their needs. High school can be used to investigate options for careers to help your student take the next step toward adulthood. I have a friend who taught a class at one of our local home school co-ops and she has given me permission to use an article from her blog about this topic.  I have edited it somewhat and added a few of my own examples. I have provided a link to her blog at the bottom of the page if you’d like to read it in its entirety.

Career Exploration is a Process, Not a Point
Learning the process is the goal in teaching a Career Exploration class. Express to your student that he or she may not know specifically what they want to be, but the class will teach them a process that allows them to search and plan better.

The 4 Step Career Exploration Process:

  1. Investigate-Discover your personality, abilities, skills and priorities
  2. Match possible careers to your personality
  3. Research potential careers to see if there is a fit
  4. Prepare a plan to pursue your career choice

By way of example, Ian found out when he took the interest survey that a possible career choice would be in radio. He volunteered for 6 weeks at a local radio station and decided that it would not be a career path he would likely follow.

Helpful Resources
The most helpful tools for teaching the Career Exploration process are a collection of several on-line interest surveys and personality quizzes (see Resources). Many are free or charge only a small amount. These surveys will direct your student to several career choices to research further. We used the least expensive and quickest quizzes in our class, the Jung Typology Test from Humanmetrics.com and the CareerKey.org test for $9.95. Some students took the longer tests, such as Career Direct and The Call. Each costs around $80 and is very thorough.

After picking four to six possible careers, a student should carefully research them. They should investigate the working conditions, skills needed, pay rates and future outlook for their chosen fields. For conducting research on-line, the Bureau of Labor Statistics has a valuable site (see Resources). Consider having your student interview someone in their chosen field. They will greatly benefit from doing this as it either changed their minds significantly, or confirmed their career choices.

It would be beneficial to have your scholar  pick one book from topics that included career exploration, high school planning, college preparation, or study habits. Do What You Are and What Color is Your Parachute? For Teens are two books that are helpful in making career investigations. In the book, Do what You Are, the reader takes a personality test and then researches matching career choices. What Color is Your Parachute? For Teens has students consider interests, skills, personality types, and work environments to identify potential dream jobs.

Having a Goal
The last step for students in the Career Exploration process is creating an education and experience plan to meet their goals. Students need to think about what classes and part-time jobs they can pursue today to prepare them for their futures. If a student has a goal in sight, schoolwork and part-time jobs become more meaningful. Information can be found in several home schooling books on high school planning.

Your student should also learn the graduation requirements in your state, and also what most colleges expect. All of this information is on-line, and the College Board web site is also helpful. After undertaking these steps, your student can create a high school plan that is unique to him or her. Is your student crazy about math? Be sure to look at the college majors that concentrate in that area. Do you have a child who is talented in art? What kind of opportunities can be found while in high school? Perhaps your church has a VBS that needs an art coordinator or a summer camp that needs a craft counselor. (cooky name, but we had one at our camp)

Life is an Adventure
The Career Exploration experience may trigger something dynamic for your student. A metamorphosis can occur as students begin to chart a career path with manageable steps to get there. Encourage your high school student to consider carefully how they manage their time, what kind of classes they select and what kind of part-time jobs they work. Each decision in life can open doors that will lead them on the path to their goals and dreams. I hope enjoy guiding your student to investigate his/her personality, match them with potential careers, research occupations to find a good fit, and then execute a plan to reach their goals.

Resources for Career Exploration

Books:

Web Sites:

Carol Topp (CarolToppCPA.com) has had several careers including wife, mother, Industrial Engineer and now Accountant. She is currently enjoying a season of home schooling and running a home-based accounting practice. She encourages teenagers to investigate careers though starting a micro business at MicroBusinessForTeens.com

Road Names- Really?

Aug1

Here is a new vocabulary word for all of you wordsmiths out there: onomastics.It means the naming of things.

On my journeys all  across town (I logged 7,500 miles with in-home tutoring and teaching at PEP last year) I have come across some funny street names. I even live in a strangely named neighborhood myself. My abode is in a “themed” neighborhood where many moons ago our subdivision was named Twilight Estates. Here are some of the names of the streets throughout my neighborhood: Planet, Astro, Saturn, Venus, and Jupiter. I think the irony of all of this is that somewhere along the journey of life I have been called a Space Cadet. Now, I actually am one since I live on a planet. I bet you can’t say that! 🙂

There is another part of town that has two roads that intersect- Grinn and Barrett. There are also names throughout town such as Storybook Lane ( I expect to see Snow White and the dwarfs come out of one of the houses), Zig Zag, Devil’s Backbone and Crooked Tree. I found some interesting ones on the internet: This Aint It Road, Candy Cane Lane, and Lonesome Road (I guess they don’t get many visitors there).

Have you seen any funny street names? Please share as I am sure we can all use a smile.

Lapbooks

May13

Have you ever heard of a lapbook?  I can’t think of a better way to introduce children to note taking and summarizing. Cutting, gluing, and coloring are needed, but the finished product will bring smiles of satisfaction to you and your children. 🙂

A lapbook is a creative way of writing facts and ideas about a topic and using templates to display a student’s knowledge. The templates are cut out, written on, and then attached to a file folder that has been divided into thirds. The folder can be rather large depending upon how much you have decided to include, and therefore is read on your lap.

Amazingly enough, you can assign a research project to a student and you will hear moans and groans, see eyes rolling, and even certain individuals fall out of their chairs when the words “research paper” are mentioned (it has happened at my house), but if I say lapbook there isn’t that kind of reaction. I think part of it is due to the fact that there are small bits of information or mini books (also called minit) that are written instead of a blank piece of notebook paper or a blank page on the computer screen. I think that is invaluable if you have a student who hates to write or becomes overwhelmed with information.  Lapbooks are also terrific for summarizing and picking out details from passages that are read. Here are two examples of lapbooks that I found on the internet.

So, without further ado, here are some FREE resources for you to enjoy and to help you get started:

If you would like to hear and see someone talk about them  click here. The presenter specifically uses these for the Apologia Science series. If you are interested in seeing a step-by-step video of how lapbooks are created, here is a  lapbook tutorial with ideas.

www.homeschoolshare.com  I love this website because they have a tremendous amount and variety of topics. They have lapbooks according to ages  (toddler through middle school) and also some according to interest. Here is one that uses Mr. Popper’s Penguins as its focus: http://www.homeschoolshare.com/poppers_penguins.php

Here are lapbooks for younger students called Preschool Packs. There are so many to choose from that you could spend all year working on them.

Heart of Wisdom has a lapbook on the Passover and Exodus.

Are you interested in making your own lap books? Making Books With Children has free book projects that can either stand alone or be added to your lapbooks.

Summer (School) Ideas

May11

Here are some great ideas to do this summer. Remember, our academic year in Ohio is from July 1- June 30 if you are home schooling.

Library programs are great incentives for getting your children to read. If you are not close to a library then make your own or see the reading programs in the next heading. Reading is a skill that should be practiced daily especially with new and young readers.

Summer Reading Programs and Challenges are available online for anyone who isn’t able to utilize the library or wants additional ideas.

Here is a free, public website run by Sylvan Learning Centers. Children read books and then take a 5-10 question multiple choice quiz on the book. Successfully completing the quizzes earns points and points add up to prizes!  Parents can set their own prizes too and can track the progress of the children. You also can set the grade level of books to be tested.

Park programs both local parks and state parks have great naturalist programs that you can attend with a wide variety of subjects that are science related.

Museums are a perfect way to spend a muggy summer day! You can arrange for a docent to give you a tour or you can do it on your own. We have enjoyed the children’s area of museums that most have in the building. Most museums have activities such as a scavenger hunt for families to enjoy while they are there. Just ask at the information desk and a knowledgeable employee will help you.

Play days at the park can be arranged for you to meet a friend and her family for a play date. This can count toward physical education and also time for you to deepen friendships.

Vacation This is the ultimate field trip! You can include science, history, reading, art, music, etc.,this is limited only to your imagination. My children’s complaints were that they just wished they could go on vacation without me always making it a learning experience- sorry- no can do when you have a home school mom involved!