By request: How to Earn a Home Maintenance Credit.
How to Earn a Home Maintenance Credit
Some of our favorite things are our 7th Sisters’ requests for information or how-to’s. (BTW- There are 6 of us 7Sisters at 7SistersHomeschool.com. Who’s the 7th Sister? YOU are!) We recently had a request from a homeschool mom whose son has been helping his dad turn the basement into a bedroom. They have done flooring, building and drywalling walls, painting and more. How could her son record this on his transcript.
Let’s look into it! First off, remember: ALL of life is education. Practical education is education, so count it on the homeschool transcript! (One caveat here: Not all teens should undertake these kinds of credits. If your teen has impulse or attention difficulties that might cloud his/her judgement on safety, wait a year or two, or do some other kind of credit instead.)
Our 7th Sister could count all those hours in one of several ways:
- Home Maintenance (elective)
- Life Skills (elective)
- Career Exploration (elective)
- Or if he already had a general Home Maintenance credit, he could log a more specific elective such as:
- Remodeling Skills
- Renovation Skills
- Construction Skills
Here’s how to earn Home Maintenance Credit for the homeschool transcript
Home Maintenance is an elective credit
- Record it on the transcript after the core courses (Language Arts, Math, Science, Social Studies, World Languages).
Home Maintenance credit can be earned in several different ways:
- Log Carnegie unit hours to prove the credit earned on family projects.
- Have your teen will need keep a log sheet and record the number of hours spent on projects, and what they were doing for each of the hours. The log sheets prove that there was educational activity taking place.
- Homeschool high schoolers do not need to earn a full credit for Home Maintenance. You could log 1/4 credit increments:
- .25
- .5
- .75
- 1.0
- The number of hours needed to earn a credit varies from state to state. Some states require 120 hours per credit, many require 180. You can check with HSLDA if you are not sure how many hours are needed for a credit in your state.
- You can get ideas and how-to’s on YouTube or DIY Network.
- Some of our homeschool friends have logged hours with lessons on Skill Trek.
- Do an internship with a business that does home repairs or remodeling or get a part-time paid job as a helper with one of those businesses.
- Take a dual enrollment course at a local trade school or community college.
- One of my teens took a Home Maintenance course at the local community college. While it was not his favorite course from high school, it was one that has paid off several times since he graduated a few years ago.
What can be counted in Home Maintenance credits?
Planning and budgeting projects, including:
- How to read and follow a manual
- How to obtain needed permits, when applicable
- How to plan the project:
- Time
- Materials
- Help needed
- Financial costs
- Understand hazards and practice safety
- Demonstrate proper use of tools and materials
- How to dispose of waste material
- How to decide when to repair and when to replace
- Learn and properly practice the skills needed for project
- Carpentry
- Plumbing
- Painting
- HVAC
- Siding
- Decks
- Lawn and garden work
- Driveway and walkways
- Outbuildings
- Stairs
- Roofing
- Shingles
- Shutters
- Flashing
- Gutters
- Shopping-for-materials skills
- Wise digital shopping
- Wise digital brick-and-mortar shopping
- BTW- Has your teen done a Financial Literacy course? This can help with planning an budgeting
- Basics of construction and design
Communication
- How to know when it is time to ask for expert help
- How to ask for help
- How to ask for help via a phone or email
- Making a complaint call or email
- There’s guidance and practice for writing complaint emails in 7Sisters Professional Writing curriculum
- Interacting with neighbors if the project requires a lot of outdoor work
Furniture Repair and Restoration
- How to handle basic repairs
- How to strip and refinish woodwork
Car maintenance
- What should you check and how
- How often does your car need maintenance?
- Where to go for maintenance
- Checking tire pressure/adding air
- Changing a tire
Communications
- How to answer a phone
- Business communications
- Complaint calls or emails
- Contacting your politicians
Basic home repair/maintenance and safety checks
- Developing a Home Maintenance checklist
- How to check the fuse box/circuit breakers
- Checking and replacing batteries in smoke detectors
- Cleaning lint trap in dryer
- How to find a chimney sweep if you have a fire place
- Replacing air filter in furnace
- Winterizing the house
- How to wash windows and siding
- How to check sump pump
This is not an exhaustive list of ideas for earning a Home Maintenance credit, but it can get you started.
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