Homeschooling The Teen Years - Having Some Fun With a High School Diploma

This coming weekend A(age 18) will walk, Lord willing, with her fellow homeschool seniors in our local associations homeschool graduation ceremony (her final graduation of the season).  I decided this time to have some fun, and finally present her with a diploma that better reflects her homeschooling years than the stuffy, formal, but official type she already has from dealing with her junior college.

First of all, I made it a "homeschool" diploma rather than a "high school" diploma.  She is after all graduating from all of her homeschooling years.  We kept track of the children's school years, and the subjects might have changed somewhat as the children reached their teen years, but really we haven't had a distinct dividing line between elementary, middle and high school - so why should our diploma?

Secondly, I made it colorful, kind of like a preschool diploma.  Why not? While we have taken our academics seriously over the years, we've always tried to have fun with the learning process - kind of like preschool (but in a good a way).

Finally, I added a bunch of characters around the edges from some of A's favorite (and even some of her not so favorite - because I'm like that) educational shows, apps, and games.  I "borrowed" them from Google images, I'm sure they're all copyrighted, but since it's just for us I think that's still okay.  Most of these were from her younger years, but helped to form a big part of her educational foundation:

• The gang from Cyberchase - math.
• Muzzy - German, Spanish and French.
• Professor Layton - logic and math.
• Garfield Typing - keyboarding :)
• The Magic School Bus - science.
• Mouse Soup - the first "chapter book" each of the children read.
• Peanuts - history and tradition (Thanksgiving).
• Stanley - science, vocabulary and German (we have several episodes with German audio)
• Liberty's Kids - American history
• BrainPOP - science, social studies and English (for us).
• Jumpstart - science, grammar and math.
• Animal Crossing - science (identifying fish and insects)
• Little Einsteins - music appreciation.
• Fritz and Chesster - chess.
• Max and Ruby, Kim Possible, Phineas and Ferb - how to be cool :) and a surprising number of other things.

Looking at this list, I'm realizing I might have to slip back into the file and add a couple more -  something from Phil Vischer for Bible, and I seem to have lost the little lizard from Salsa somewhere along the way.

It's great to be a homeschooler.