Projects and Assignments Life Prep for Homeschooled Teenagers includes step-by-step projects that guide teenagers to an understanding of practical financial matters. It also includes reading and writing assignments that require them to think seriously about their goals for their personal lives, and how they will integrate their values and their work.

Parents’ Role Parents’ Preparation Parents will find they don’t need much preparation time to use Life Prep for Homeschooled Teenagers. Once they’ve obtained the required resources and provided access to research tools, all that remains is to customize Life Prep to their specific teenager.

Customizing the Curriculum Customizing Life Prep for Homeschooled Teenagers is easy. The book explains how to customize this curriculum based on whether your teenager is work-bound or college-bound. Your teenager’s specific interests and goals are also considered.

Parent-Friendly Life Prep for Homeschooled Teenagers is a parent-friendly book written by a veteran homeschool parent. She originally designed it for use with her work-bound teenage daughter. The following year, she revised it to use with her college-bound teenage son. That’s why Life Prep for Homeschooled Teenagers contains what you need no matter what your teenager’s post-homeschool plans may be. Work-bound Try finding a book about homeschooling work-bound teenagers. It’s not easy! Most homeschooling books are geared toward preparing homeschoolers for college. But not all homeschooled teenagers want to go to college.

There are many bright homeschoolers who would prefer to work after they’ve finished homeschooling than to spend four years studying. Often, their parents agree with their decision. Increasing numbers of homeschooling parents are starting to question the wisdom of sending their offspring away for an expensive college education, in light of the lowered educational and behavioral standards at some colleges and universities.

Life Prep for Homeschooled Teenager provides ample preparation for work-bound teenagers. They have more immediate needs than college-bound teenagers. They may need a car right away so they can drive to work. Once they start working, they’ll need to know about health insurance and tax withholding. And after they’ve had a chance to save up some money, they’ll want to move out on their own. They’ll need to know how to find an affordable place to live. All of these needs are addressed in Life Prep for Homeschooled Teenagers.

College-bound College-bound teenagers study college-preparatory subjects such as Advanced Math and foreign languages, but they also need to prepare themselves to handle challenges to their worldview by college professors and fellow students, and to get along with people of different backgrounds. Life Prep for Homeschooled Teenagers provides reading assignments that will encourage them to do just that.

In addition, homeschoolers headed for college need to know how to write a college application essay. Once at college, they’ll need to be able to handle the temptation of credit cards (many of today’s college students graduate with massive credit card debt in addition to their college loan debt).

After graduation, they’ll be faced with all the hurdles that come with adulthood, including obtaining health insurance, renting or buying a place to live, and handling their finances responsibly. The step-by-step projects in Life Prep for Homeschooled Teenagers provide instruction on those topics and many others.

Life Prep for Homeschooled Teenagers, Third Edition

Author: Barbara Frank ● Cardamom Publishers: 2018

Print Replica eBook ● 162 pages ● $9.99

About the Author

Barbara Frank homeschooled her four children from birth through high school. She is a freelance writer, editor and former newspaper reporter whose recent work has appeared in Focus on the Family Magazine, The Old Schoolhouse Magazine and Wisdom Family Magazine (Alberta, Canada). She is also the author of Women of the Old Testament, 14 In-Depth Bible Studies for Teens, Thriving in the 21st Century: Preparing Our Children for the New Economic Reality and The Imperfect Homeschooler’s Guide to Homeschooling: Tips from a 20-Year Homeschool Veteran. She has a B.S. in Journalism from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Mrs. Frank also quilts and, along with her husband, enjoys their grandchildren.

Reviews for Life Prep for Homeschooled Teenagers:

Life Prep…. Both because of the content and the design, I think homeschoolers are likely to find this one of the most practical and important resources for high school.

Cathy Duffy, author of 100 Top Picks for Homeschool Curriculum www.cathyduffyreviews.com

My parents didn’t teach me about such practical issues as budgeting, wise use of credit … purchasing a car, or tackling such problems as health insurance and taxes. …..Yes, I was the proverbial babe in the woods, and so from my own experience I can tell you that by using this book as it is intended you will save your children much future grief. …Barbara Frank has put together a clear, helpful guide that covers more than I had thought of myself, in putting together a list of what our teen needs to know before she sprouts feathers and flies the nest.

Eclectic Homeschool Online www.eho.org

The two components of Life Prep for Homeschooled Teenagers are a reading list and a set of projects, designed to expose teens to principles, skills, and information needed by most adults… High school students will likely find these projects meaningful and relevant, as they teach something students this age are eager to learn: what you need to know to live on your own. P.S. – Many young (and not-so-young) adults may find this resource useful, too!

Marcy Schaller, Reviewer Cindy Prechtel’s Homeschooling from the Heart www.homeschoolingfromtheheart.com

Life Prep for Homeschooled Teenagers…. is certainly very user-friendly and creates a simple yet effective approach for teaching life skills. The only negative thing I have on this book is the title. I think this course would be effective for ALL teens, and if put in the hands of our public schooled friends and relatives as well as the homeschooled ones, we may be able to protect many of these kids from the financial mistakes many of us made.

I highly recommend this book for anyone with older children. While I am doing this with my daughter now at age 16, it would certainly be a beneficial study for 14 and 15 year olds as well. Actually, I’m hoping I might learn something.

Terri Miller, Staff Writer The Old Schoolhouse Magazine, Spring 2004

Life Prep for Homeschooled Teenagers is an amazing resource designed for those preparing to leave home.

— The Virginia Home Educator, Spring 2004

Life Prep for Homeschooled Teenagers is an excellent curriculum that teaches teenagers valuable skills that they will need as they enter the adult world. It’s a great book to use with ALL teens, not just homeschoolers. I am using Life Prep with all my teens – ranging from 15 years old to 19 years old. What an eye opener for them! I highly recommend going through this book with your teens before they leave home.

Patti Chadwick

Creator of www.homeschoolingteens.com and www.parentsandteens.com

Life Prep for Homeschooling Teenagers is a fabulous starting place for any panicking parent of a teen. I know. I am one of those panicking parents.

As talk around the house turns to driving and plans for the future, as a homeschooling mom I wonder if we have focused too much on the reading and math. As I look at my growing kids, I’m wondering if diagramming sentences is a good lesson for life or should we focus on balancing a checkbook?

Thankfully, Barbara Frank has blazed that trail and written a book to to share her advice. Life Prep for Homeschooling Teenagers is laid out in an easy to read fashion, with information for the work-bound teenager as well as the college-bound teenager.

Personally, I was impressed with the reading list included in this book. The list is just the sort of “out of the box” reading list that I was looking for to fill in some educational gaps. It’s easy to focus on books that colleges consider to be “the classics” but Ms. Frank’s reading list covers books ranging from Having Our Say: The Delaney Sisters’ First 100 Years to the PBS video series Affluenza (which I have seen and enjoyed).

For me, the best part of Life Prep was the projects. Written in a workbook type format, this section allows teens to dream big, then springs a little reality on them. Got a teen looking at a fancy car? Have them explore price comparison, car purchasing and securing insurance using the study prompts found in the book. Got a teen dreaming of a job? Have them look at taxes to see just how big that paycheck might end up being.

If you have a teen you want to prepare them for all aspects of grown-up life. That can be a stressful thought. For me, I’m hoping to relax a little, enjoy my years with my teen and rely on Barbara Frank’s Life Prep for Homeschooled Teenagers.

Pamela I Read. Do You?