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high school electives

Best Homeschool High School Literature Suggestions For Teens

December 15, 2020 | 2 Comments
This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

Creating these homeschool high school literature suggestions for teens is more satisfying now that my teens graduated. Looking back, I know their love of reading came from being exposed to a variety of genre.

Having a variety of genre to choose from is just one element of keeping teens reading into adulthood.

Beyond reading to fill a high school credit, use your time with your homeschooled teens to shape and develop their thinking.

Contrary to what some educators think, teens are still questioning beliefs. Their thinking is not fully matured. Issues raised in literature gives you the opportunity to analyze beliefs.

Too, high school and college courses require your teens to interpret literary terms and techniques. I found this was best done by classic literature.

Best Homeschool High School Literature Suggestions For Teens

The point is whether your teen is reading American, British, or World literature he is gaining a greater understanding of the world. That is something which will stick with him well into adulthood.

This high school literature list will give you a starting point in choosing the best literature for your family.

Moreover, don’t fret if your teen is still not loving to read. Some of these books will ignite a fire and did I mention some are short?

Whether you have a teen who is a voracious reader or who is an unenthusiastic reader, I have some high school literature suggestions for all.

Homeschool High School Literature

  • To Kill a Mockingbird
  • The Great Gatsby
  • The Red Badge of Courage and Other Stories (Penguin Classics)
  • The Old Man and The Sea
  • A Tale of Two Cities (Dover Thrift Editions)
  • The Time Machine (Dover Thrift Editions)

Also, it’s important to remember that there is so much more going on when a teen engages with a book

Books for your High School Teen

For example, when a teen reads

  • and the genre is historical fiction it can make the time period come alive;
  • and the prose is challenging, it can raise his reading comprehension;
  • his vocabulary is expanded; and
  • critical thinking skills are introduced.

Knowing that so much more is involved then filling a credit at the high school level, be choosy about what your teen reads.

Also, what helped me at the high school level are the self-paced online classes, Literary Adventures for Kids.

We covered a poetry unit for one of my teens in a fun way.

Look at my post Online Homeschool High School Poetry (No Teaching Involved).

Best Homeschool High School Literature Suggestions For Teens

Teens Reading List

  • Frankenstein: or The Modern Prometheus (Oxford World’s Classics)
  • Emma (Penguin Classics)
  • The Odyssey
  • By Frank Herbert Dune (S.F. Masterworks)
  • All Quiet on the Western Front: A Novel
  • A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

See, I had to learn the hard way that a teen should have a choice in what he reads.

I remember being in English class in middle school and reading about boring topics.

I was a good reader, but not an enthusiastic reader until I read The Raven by Edgar Allen Poe. He’s not an author I thought I would be drawn to as a teen.

However, his stories and poems invoked a love for reading detective stories along with his great storytelling. I loved everything about that poem, the figurative language, the dynamics, and the theme.

Homeschool High School Reading

The point is I would have never picked up his book on my own when evaluating my choices.

So your teen needs your help. It literally takes one book your teen can’t put down for your teen to look at reading differently.

Now as a parent, it is a learned balancing act when each teen got to the high school level.

I tried to find their interests and themes they loved to weave that with other genre they weren’t interested in or thought so at the time.

Also, another way to engage your high school kids is to learn through a theme.

We love history in our house and learning history through living literature has been one of our very favorite ways to learn history.

For 9th Grade
For 10th Grade

We love Beautiful Feet History, and have used their high school literature. They suggest the following sequence which we mostly followed.

Grade 9  |  Early American and World

Grade 11  |  Medieval History Senior High

Grade 10  |  Ancient History Senior High

Grade 12  |  Modern U.S. and World History for Senior High

Grade 11

Books for High School Readers

  • The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (Dover Thrift Editions)
  • The Last of the Mohicans (The Leatherstocking Tales)
  • The Three Musketeers
  • Great Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe (Vintage Classics)
  • Sir Gawain and the Green Knight; Pearl; [and] Sir Orfeo
  • Gone With the Wind

Although my teens had choices, I also had requirements because I wanted to invoke conversations to get my teens to think about the broader picture.

Learning to think critically means to know how to support your ideas from the book. It’s not always easy to do with just books they chose to read.

  • The Call of the Wild by Jack London: Complete With Original And Classics Illustrated
  • Robinson Crusoe (Unabridged & Illustrated)
  • The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
  • Les Miserables: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)
  • The Legend of Sleepy Hollow: The Original 1820 Edition
  • Pride and Prejudice

Why Some Homeschoolers Choose to Read Banned Literature

Next, I also had to decide how I wanted to talk to my teens about sensitive subjects. A lot of homeschoolers, including myself, reject some modern reading lists.

However, the similarity stops there when choosing literature. Families and teens differ in how they want to handle sensitive topic.

When you research about banned books, the Washington Post stated, “The American Library Association launched Banned Books Week in 1982 to celebrate the freedom to read.”

However, every since then, the topic of banned books sparks controversy for any education. You too have to decide if you’ll present these banned books to your teen.

It’s been my experience that the sensitive subjects in books allows me the chance to direct my children about mistakes of the past.

  • The Adventures of Tom Sawyer AND The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Unabridged. Complete with all original illustrations)
  • Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
  • Roots: The Saga of an American Family
  • Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
  • Great Expectations (Penguin Classics)
  • Common Sense: The Origin and Design of Government

I didn’t want to cover up mistakes in history, but to expose them so we learn from them. Most important that we don’t repeat them in the future.

Children relate to everyday things and some kids lives have had painful turns they couldn’t control. Although my kids didn’t experience the sadness of divorce and death at the time, they had friends who did.

Homeschool High School Books

It helped my sons to form a compassion for their friends. Every child has a different maturing rate and I was sensitive to each teen’s emotions.

The point is that you are the only one to know whether you want your children to read banned books or not. Me? I will do the choosing for my family and determine the values; you probably feel the same way.

  • The Lord of the Rings: 50th Anniversary, One Vol. Edition
  • The War for Independence: The Story of the American Revolution
  • Lord of the Flies
  • Ivanhoe (Penguin Classics)
  • Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare
  • The Scarlet Letter

Homeschool High School Reading List

I want the opportunity to help my sons’ learn from the past, but not be promoting ideologies which conflict with our worldview.

That is not always easy to do, but being familiar with literature your teen is absorbing is essential.

  • Wuthering Heights (Penguin Classics)
  • Fahrenheit 451
  • Invisible Man (Penguin Essentials) by Ralph Ellison
  • Anna Karenina
  • The Collected Stories of Eudora Welty
  • Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years & the War Years (Library of the Presidents)

As you see from this quick list that the books reflect personal tastes of each teen. In the end, you want your child to enjoy reading.

I stressed way too much about balancing the genre when my focus should have been on the short time I had with each teen.

Besides being forced-fed never worked for any reader. So use this list to begin your list for your unique teen.

Lastly, this is by no stretch all that each kid read in high school.

As I pore over my huge amount of books, I’ll update this post for you.

The point today was to get this quick glance to you.

In the end what matters is creating a lifelong reader.

Remember what Francis Bacon said “Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested; that is, some books are to be read only in parts; others to be read, but not curiously; and some few are to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention.”

Best Homeschool High School Literature Suggestions For Teens

I know you’ll love these other posts:

  • How to Choose the Best Middle School Literature And Favorite Resources
  • How to Choose the BEST Homeschool Middle and High School Language Arts Curriculum & Options
  • Online Homeschool High School Poetry (No Teaching Involved)
  • Modern U.S. and World History High School Literature
  • 3 Beginner’s Tips: Homeschool High School Literature
  • 8 World War II Historical Fiction Books for Middle School
  • Homeschooling High School: Curriculum, Credits, and Courses
  • 20 Nature-Inspired Kids’ Novels to Nurture Interest In the Outdoors
  • A to Z List: Middle and High School Homeschool Electives

Hugs and love ya,

2 CommentsFiled Under: Graduate a Homeschooler, Homeschool Multiple Ages of Children, Homeschool Teens _ From Teen to Graduation, Reading Lists, Teach Homeschool Language Arts Tagged With: book lists, books, high school, high school electives, high school literature, homeschool highschool, homeschool subjects, homeschoolanguagearts, homeschoolhighschool, homeschoolreading, language arts, languagearts, literature, reading

A to Z List: Middle and High School Homeschool Electives

July 27, 2018 | 2 Comments
This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

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A to Z List: Middle and High School Homeschool Electives

There are so many great options for middle and high school homeschool electives for teens that it can be hard to narrow down the choices. Sometimes we need a little nudge to remember that the freedom of homeschooling opens doors for opportunities for our kids beyond the traditional elective options.

This A to Z list of middle and high school best homeschool electives should give you a headstart in helping your teen decide what he would like to pursue.

There are so many great options for middle and high school homeschool electives for teens that it can be hard to narrow down the choices. You’ll love this BIG A to Z List of Homeschool Electives. CLICK HERE!!!

I try to think out of the box when choosing electives. Too, remember each teen has a very different personality. You know that so don’t homeschool middle and high school in fear meaning take a boring and predictable path for electives.

Although they can be, these are not the core subjects. This is the time to explore a teen’s passion no matter how odd  it may seem.

There is no other time in a teen’s life that he will have freedom to explore even the mundane. I know your anxious about your teen’s next journey as he enters adulthood, but let him delve into his passions and likes here. Just like you didn’t push when they were younger, don’t do it it here either.

Also, something else I learned after my first high school teen is to start earlier. For example, by feeding one of my son’s passion for writing in the middle and high school years he has continued on with his love of writing past graduation.

High school electives can begin in middle school; it gives your child a head start in time to pursue his strengths.

Look at some of these out of the box ideas.

A

Acting
Animation
App creation/coding
Archaeology
Archery
Architecture
Aromatherapy
Art and design
Astronomy
Auto maintenance/mechanics

B

Baking
Ballet
Birding
Blogging
Book club
Budgeting
Business management

Also, don’t think you have to learn all these things on your own. Look at some these fantastic middle and high school courses to explore which are already laid out.

Look at some of these courses from learn music in our homeschool.

  • Music Appreciation of the Romantic Era for High School
  • 100 Delightful Classical Musical Pieces Mini Course

  

C

CPR
Cake decorating
Car care
Career exploration
Carpentry
Choir
Classical music
Coding
Computer building, programming
Cooking skills
Crew
Crochet
Crossfit

Also, don’t think you have to learn all these things on your own.

There are may self-paced courses that I like which can ease the stress of teaching during the teens years and make them awesome. We loved our self-pace courses for art with Atelier Art.

D

Dance
Debate
Dog training
Drama

E

Early childhood development
Electric dance music/digital music
Engineering
Entomology
Ethnic culture
Ethnobotany
Etiquette
Exploring different careers

F

Fashion design
Fencing
Fishing
Floral design
Foreign languages
Forensic science
Furniture stripping, repairing, etc.

G

Gaming development
Gardening
Geocaching
Geology
Golf
Guitar
Gymnastics

H

Herbology
Hiking
Home design/interior design
Homemaking
Homeopathic medicine
Horticulture
Human development
Hydroponics

Studying my boys love of history, I was able to sneak in literature and history while delving into the medieval time period with Beautiful Feet Books.

I

Information technology

J

Java script
Jewelry making
Journalism

K

Knitting

L

Logic

High School Elective Ideas

M

Marine biology
Mechanics
Meterology
Midwifery
Mineralogy
Music

One more place to check for free courses for a limited time especially during the summer is the Homeschool Buyers Co-op. And if you don’t see anything free, at least you’ll love the discount on the curriculum.

 

N

Nature studies
Naturopathy

O

Oceanography
Ornithology

P

Painting
Parkour
Philosophy
Photography
Physical education
Physical fitness
Piano
Plumbing
Psychology
Public speaking

Q

Quilting

R

Robotics

S

Sailing
Scrapbooking
Sewing
Social media influence
Survival skills
Swim team

For a love of geography, my boys loved the audio or download version of Bright Ideas Press Geography.

T

Technology
Theater
Trail and woodland management or design

U

US Politics

V

Venturing (scouts)
Video production
Videography
Violin

W

Weaving
Web design
Welding
Wildlife management
Wood burning
Wood working
Writing

For writing, your kids will love this self paced help they get at Fortuigence.

X

Xenology

Y

Yearbook
Yoga
Youth leadership

Z

Zoology

I hope this A to Z list of high school electives helps you brainstorm some options for your teen. Has your teen tried any of these high school electives yet? Are there any others you’d add to the list? There are so many great options for middle and high school homeschool electives for teens that it can be hard to narrow down the choices. You’ll love this BIG A to Z List of Homeschool Electives. CLICK HERE!!!

I think you’ll love these other tips for when planning middle and high school:

  • Get It Over and Done: How Do Homeschoolers Graduate Early
  • How To Homeschool Middle School – Why Eclectic Of Course!
  • Homeschooling High School: Curriculum, Credits, and Courses
  • Homeschool High School–How to Log Hours for High School?

Hugs and love ya,

2 CommentsFiled Under: Build Character in Homeschooled Kids, Homeschool Teens _ From Teen to Graduation, Homeschooling, Lesson Plan, Middle School Homeschool, Teach the Rebel Homeschooler, Teach/Which Subjects to Teach/Cover EVERYTHING Tagged With: A to Z Lists, high school, high school electives, homeschool highschool, homeschoolhighschool, homeschoolplanning, lesson, lessonplanning, middleschool, teens

Get It Over and Done: How Do Homeschoolers Graduate Early

July 22, 2018 | 2 Comments
This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

When one of my sons told me he wanted to be over and done with high school, I was setback. I felt like a failure especially because we’ve homeschooled from the beginning. I wanted him to love the academic part of high school as much as my other graduate, but he had a different mindset. I know homeschoolers graduate early all the time and it’s not a surprising fact, but my kid was not having any part of accelerated academics or it seemed like it at the moment. To me, he had the get it over and done with attitude.

Looking back now after my older sons have been graduated for a few years, I have a different view of the get it over and done with mindset.

At the time a kid cops this attitude, it seems like his whole future will be ruined. I’m here to tell you that is not always so. You need to look past your initial gut reaction if it’s negative; try to remember years later when you are having coffee together as besties this will be a memory for the right reason.

Your kid’s journey can still go from mediocre to memorable, but only if you handle this stage reasonably.

Moving Past the Four-Year Homeschool High School Plan

Look at these 3 points you need to think about. Then, I have a few tips and tricks.

When one of my sons told me he wanted to be over and done with high school, I was set back. At the time a kid cops this attitude, it seems like his whole future will be ruined. I'm here to tell you that is not always so. You’ll love these tips and tricks when your teen wants to be over and done with homeschool high school. CLICK HERE!

One/ Try to understand what your teen is thinking about regarding his future.

Don’t jump to the conclusion that get it over and done means laziness or lack of motivation. It may be right now, but your teen’s maturity level is still changing.

Too, after I had an in-depth talk with my son, I understood his reasons for wanting a simple framework so he could graduate early.

At the time, my husband had just suffered a terrible health set back and all of my kids matured significantly that year. I have mixed feelings on my kids giving up some of their carefree childhood years, but that is another thread.

All of my kids understood the fragility of life and my son was ready to navigate his future. He wasn’t content for choosing subjects each year for a four-year high school program. He wanted to plot what was absolutely essential so that he could graduate.

I needed to focus more time on letting him explore what he wanted to do for the future. Doing that partially satisfied his feeling of uneasiness.

Have you seen these two great resources, Career Exploration for Homeschool High School Students and What Color is Your Parachute for Teens?

  

That brings me to my next point which is you have to be ready when homeschooling high school to decide what is your bottom line.

Two/ Rise to the occasion and decide what is your bottom line for graduation requirements.

I’ll admit it. I was unprepared for my minimum requirements because for so long my son was filling all of my requirements. I want you prepared.

Here is a general rule of thumb;

  • A graduation certificate is generally awarded when a teen has between 18-19 credits at the minimum. I’ve also seen 16 credits as the minimum. Look here at Homeschool High School–How to Log Hours for High School.
  • Then up to to 22-24 credits and higher for college readiness.

So choose a number of credits, but base it on subjects that will benefit your teen the most.

Three/ Be creative and think outside of the 4-year plan. Mix and match community college with online courses and self-guided learning.

Although I’m on board with any of my kids wanting to get a start on their career or college path, I wasn’t prepared for an alternative route other than the CLEP route I had prepared for him.

The point I’m making is to understand clearly what your teen is wanting to do. More listening than talking was hard for me. Not easy, but I did it.

My son knew the value of preparing for a career; he was just ready to get on with it now, not later.

There are many ways to fill high school graduation requirements besides the four-year plan.

  • Decide what courses your teen will take and remember that community college can be a great advantage for teens who want to progress. For example, your teen can take two years of basic math and take two years of math at the community college. It’s called dual enrollment. Ages vary by college. He’ll receive college credit at the same time. This option made both of my older sons feel that they had choices. Your goal of high standards and your teen’s goal of moving on can be met. You just need to be sure you and your teen understand all the options.
  • Although this is the son that normally prefers hands-on and interactive learning, he enjoyed using PAC (Paradigm Accelerate Curriculum) because they are a set number of booklets or worktext to complete. Instead of unrestrained exploring, my teen had a definite finish to the course. No extra books were required for reading. Do the worktext and be finished. This went a long way to making him feel that he could see a definite finish.
  • Also, I had to determine my goals for language arts. Reminding myself that we had spent many years with quality literature, I was happy to find the Dover Literature Guides a great fit. They promoted self-learning and independence. Questions are right there in the book for literary analysis. It was up to my teen and me to decide how many to read for literature purposes. What is a good rule of thumb for how many books a teen needs to read in each grade? Some providers choose anywhere from 15 to 20 books for the year with about 6 being used for analysis. Again, you determine based on your child’s interest how many he should read and how many should be for analysis.
  • Lastly, don’t forget dvd based learning and easy online courses like HippoCampus and Khan Academy to fill whatever else you may think your teen needs in order to complete his high school.

Can Homeschoolers Graduate Early?

Look at some of these insider’s tips, tricks, and things to know if your homeschooler graduates early:

  • Your teen may be ready to move on with his career choice, life choice, or college choice. If so, balance his high school subjects as much as possible so that you don’t close the door to any future opportunities. This means decide your bare essentials for graduating. Two years is a good start — two years of language arts, two years of science, two years of math, and etc. Most states have relaxed homeschool laws which means you determine the number of credits and prepare the transcript. If your state does not require a certain number of years or credits, then design your transcript.
  • There is nothing wrong with taking a gap year. Let your teen take off a year. Although gap years normally happen at the end of a senior year, your teen may be ready now to explore his future choices. When we moved to South America, unintentionally, it turned out to be a better thing for my discontented teen than I realized at the time. I knew the whole family would benefit, but I had no idea. The shift in focus allowed him a break, it put emphasis on the family, and it gave him a shift in focus he needed at the time.
  • Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think any parent is prepared for having a teen hanging around the house with no direction and too much time on his hands. Discussion needs to be had about why you’re agreeing to shorten the time. Whether it means your teen is wanting to move ahead with his career choice or college track, there needs to be a plan. If you and your husband decide to switch gears and try the direction your child is wanting to go, you need clear expectations and consequences. I knew my son was wanting to go ahead and start taking his college courses on line. With that choice he made, my son felt like he was moving faster toward his goals, but he also understood that he wasn’t graduating early to hang around the house with idle hands.
  • If your child wants to graduate early to be done with school because of his attitude, it’s an uphill battle, but winnable. If that is the case, I recommend that you cut back his academic load, allow him some time to pursue work. Mix in some community college classes so he is with adults and gets a taste of the real world. Try to not shut down communication, but don’t make any promises you’re not willing to keep. For example, if he doesn’t learn now that he has to finish what he started, he will take the easy way out in a lot of decisions as an adult. By easing up on his academic load, you’re giving him time to mature too. He may need time to decide the direction he wants to go and hopefully you’re guiding him to what you want for him too.

Don’t let something that could potentially break the peace you have with your teen wreck your household.

Teens still very much still try to push the bounds or limits.

If you’re firm on what your absolute minimum is most teens given some time will come around to seeing things from a reasonable standpoint.

If your teen sees that you’re trying and you’ve said you want the best for him, you need to be willing to let him start making decisions for what is best for him.

And remember this, which was the hardest thing for me at the time — as long as you maintain a close relationship with your teen and show him your positive attitude toward learning, he can return to whatever path you’ve laid out for him.

Now that my son is close to finishing college at his pace, on his own terms, and I add giving a hundred percent and advancing with excellent grades, anything he told me in his teen years pales into comparison.

It wasn’t the end, it was just the beginning of him taking control.

 

When one of my sons told me he wanted to be over and done with high school, I was set back. At the time a kid cops this attitude, it seems like his whole future will be ruined. I'm here to tell you that is not always so. You’ll love these tips and tricks when your teen wants to be over and done with homeschool high school. CLICK HERE!

Also, I have many other tips to share with you. Don’t get overwhelmed, you’ve got this:

  • Homeschooling High School: Curriculum, Credits, and Courses
  • Homeschool High School Transcripts – Anything But Typical
  • How Does my High School Homeschooled Kid Get a Diploma If I Do This Myself?
  • Homeschool High School The Must Cover Subjects Part 1

Hugs and love ya,

2 CommentsFiled Under: Graduate a Homeschooler, Homeschool Teens _ From Teen to Graduation, Homeschool When Nobody Wants To Tagged With: high school, high school electives, high school literature, homeschool graduation, homeschoolgraduation, middleschool, teens

Homeschooling High School: Curriculum, Credits, and Courses

November 12, 2017 | Leave a Comment
This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.


By the time you reach the high school years, you have some general ideas of how to plan them. Today, in sharing homeschooling high school, I’m giving you a few detailed pointers for curriculum, credits, and courses to steer you in the right direction.

3 POINTERS: HIGH SCHOOL CURRICULUM AND COURSES

First, look at 3 things I wished I would’ve known before I started.

One/ In the beginning, it’s not necessary to plan all four years.

It’s just not necessary because a lot will change. Your teen will mature and may change the direction of his education or career as he approaches adulthood. Give him some wiggle room.

Have a plan so you can give your teen goals, but analyze each year. Having a framework of courses is much better.

I appreciated reading How to Homeschool 9th and 10th Grades: Simple Steps for Starting Strong to help me stay focused on the start of high school.

Home Learning Year by Year: How to Design a Homeschool Curriculum from Preschool Through High School was a book I read early on.

Homeschooling High School Curriculum, Credits, and Courses @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

After reading it, I designed a framework and understood that the three Rs are the foundation of any well-laid out high school course.

Look where I share the nitty gritty of that here in my post Homeschool High School The Must Cover Subjects Part 1 and Homeschool High School The Must Cover Subjects Part 2.

Two/ Also, I wished I would have used middle school to help my first high school teen explore more subjects he wanted to.

With my second high school son, I was prepared to let him explore more elective type courses in middle school and getting some of the basic math out of the way.

Middle school gives a budding teen time to explore subjects he is interested in. Take advantage of this time to have some fun.

Three/ Something else I didn’t learn until later was to explore more career options and not just focus on academics. After all, your kid is not attending college for life. It’s preparation for life and a career. (well hopefully).

Careers matter and high school is the time to explore careers.

Reading Career Exploration: for homeschool high school students and What Color Is Your Parachute? for Teens, Third Edition: Discover Yourself, Design Your Future, and Plan for Your Dream Job are two books that are real helpful for your teen to go through.

EXPLORING HIGH SCHOOL COURSES

Something else I didn’t appreciate with my first high school teen is the power to be flexible with courses and course descriptions.

I couldn’t think past simply putting English, Math or Science on my first transcript.

Looking back, I know when preparing transcripts that you want to follow some traditional guidelines and keep general course names on the transcript. So those general descriptions were correct.

However, I need to describe the courses specifically.

Just to illustrate, I put Performing Arts on my first two boys’ transcript.

My older two boys took ballroom dancing, but Performing Arts is the general description to put on the transcript.

I had to come up with a description of ballroom dancing.

I started by looking first at the website where my boys took lessons to give me an idea of how to word what they learned.

I put this:

This beginner course is an introduction to the fundamentals of basic dance. In each dance class, students will be expected to participate in warm-ups and learn the techniques of the Waltz and other traditional dances like the Mambo, Salsa and Swing. Along with learning choreography and dance history, this course culminates in a Spring concert performance.

It wasn’t bad for my first description, but like anything that is a first, it wasn’t exactly comprehensive or correct in a sense.

Since then, I learned that I needed to add my grading scale, what books we used, and how I was going to assign credit.

It’s harder to go back and add these things later, but not impossible.

The bottom line is to keep the course name on the transcript general and make your course descriptive detailed on a separate page to produce it if needed.

EASILY WRITING COURSE DESCRIPTIONS

Arranging wording to describe your teen course takes practice, but look at these places to help you.

  • An obvious place to is the website where you purchased the curriculum. I find the descriptions super helpful in my course descriptions.
  • I also look at high school course names and descriptions on public school websites. I look for course descriptions similar to the courses that my sons will be doing. This usually gives me some wording
  • Another place I’ve found descriptions in a nutshell is on Amazon. Amazon is great for giving book descriptions and with a few tweaks of adding how I assign credits and grades, a book description can easily turn course description.
  • Too, when I didn’t feel like I got a good overview of a course because some descriptions lacked, I would glance at the table of contents to help me word the description of the course.

HIGH SCHOOL CREDIT CONUNDRUM

It can be overwhelming for even the most organized teen and parent when understanding credits, but I like to keep things simple.

It’s been my experience that some families assign a 30 minute class the equal of a 45 minute class because of the intensity of homeschooling and give the student one credit for a rigorous course like literature or math.

You decide how to gauge your credits and the work ethic of your student.

In addition, you decide to give credit if a curriculum is 70% or 80% complete. Some homeschoolers give credit if it’s 80% complete, others less.

Look at my detailed post here for Homeschool High School–How to Log Hours for High School. It gives a detailed explanation for credits.

Also, I have free forms and show you how to expand the use of a transcript here at my detailed post Homeschool High School Transcripts – Anything But Typical.

You and I know that there is no one right to plan high school. But breaking high school down into manageable chunks keeps the process from being overwhelming.

Begin with a framework of the three Rs in high school, fold in accurate course descriptions as you can, be flexible, keep reading about how to grade and assign credit.

Before you know it, you’ll be a pro for your child – which is what really matters.

Homeschooling High School Curriculum, Credits, and Courses @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus. In sharing homeschooling high school, I'm giving you a few detailed pointers for curriculum, credits, and courses to steer you in the right direction. Click here to grab these super detailed helpful pointers!

You will also love my other tips I have for homeschooling high school below:

  • When Your High Schooler Tests Below Grade Level 
  • Homeschoolers Who Want More Than College
  •  9th Grade Homeschool High School – Avoid the Sock It to Them Attitude

Hugs and love ya. You got this!

 

Leave a CommentFiled Under: Graduate a Homeschooler, Homeschool Teens _ From Teen to Graduation, Homeschooling, Middle School Homeschool Tagged With: accreditation, high school, high school electives, homeschool highschool, homeschoolhighschool, teens

What You Must Know to Teach High School Unit Studies

August 22, 2017 | 1 Comment
This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

Until my sons reached high school, I didn’t know if my unit study approach would meld with tracking credits and courses. Also, there didn’t really seem an abundance of prepared high school unit studies. Between determining if unit studies were a good fit for high school and understanding record keeping, it was a lot to wrap my mind around.

Sorting out myths from truth, I hope these 3 tips will help you to easily homeschool high school with unit studies. Or at least give you a beginning place.

ONE/ Understand first that high school is just a continuation of the lowers grades – really!

Yes, it’s true that you’ll need to track credits and courses, but before stressing out about them, plan high school subjects like you’ve done in the lower grades.

That’s right. Begin with what you know.

What You Must Know to Teach High School Unit Studies. Click here to grab the tips!

In my article How to Choose the BEST Homeschool Lesson Planning Pages for THIS Year, I not only give you tips on how to do that, but each lesson plan form lists subjects by general categories; math, language arts, science, history and electives are the framework of well-rounded out high school courses.

It’s not hard to plan when you understand that you’re covering the same basic subjects albeit in more depth analyzing views instead of just a question answer format like your child did in younger grades.

TWO/ Next, I learned to look for two-fer resources.

A two-fer resource is another secret tip to homeschooling teens. Using a resource which teaches two subjects is vital when your child enters high school.

You don’t want your time wasted and neither do teens. More important though is the reason that unit studies rocked in the younger grades is the same reason which holds true for high school. Learning makes more sense when subjects are tied together instead of studied as separate subjects. Additionally, unit studies have always been a research-based approach. This is a skill which is needed on into adulthood.

Resist giving up your unit study approach because it may require a bit more time to put together. Sure, it’s easy to assign a text book and move on, but you and I know that high school is just hard sometimes. It’s a challenge to plan but still doable.

Begin again with something you know. Look at these things you may already know how and are doing with your kids in the younger grades.

  • Reading history living books and having your child choose writing topics based on history.
  • Reading science living books and choosing writing topics based on science.
  • Reading math living books and having your child choose writing topics based on math.

How to Put Together High School Unit Studies

Now that you understand that high school courses fall into general categories and understand to look for two-fer resources, here are some examples of how to put it together.

We love the book Undaunted Courage.

Just a side note here. When I look at a book which can serve as a springboard for high school unit studies, I note 3 things:

  • that it’s a living book,
  • that it’s high school level so that I can legally note on my high school transcript that it’s a high school level resource,
  • and I mull over how hard it will be to add external resources to enrich the study.

Not only is your teen covering part of his credit toward history when reading Undaunted Courage , but he is covering credits for literature too. Writing is part of a literature credit. So your teen is covering 2–3 subjects at once depending on what credits you’ve lined out for the year.

Because covering literature in high school means more than just reading, you’ll want to have a variety of resources for analyzing literature and for guiding your teen how to write well.

A literature-based unit study which has a history setting has been the easiest to start off with at the high school level. For example, I find it a challenge to round out a history book with literature analysis than a great book suited for literature analysis. It’s been easier to add history and science of a time period to a great read.

One super helpful resource we only discovered this year and that is the Thrift Study Editions by Dover.  Not only are the books for high school level, but each one comes with a study guide in the back. For example, while reading A Tale of Two Cities, we studied about the culture of France and England and learned about the issues of the French Revolution.

With a resource like that, doing unit studies are a cinch at the high school level. This brings me to the third point you want to know.

THREE/ Fill your teacher nook with specialized how-two books for you and your teen.

Tackling how to teach a subject with out a curriculum can be daunting, but you can go from research to reward if you choose specialized teaching books.

Here are a few of my favorite resources. You don’t need all of them, but I’ve used them at one time or another to round out our unit studies.

  • The Design-A-Study series are timeless. This series of books about science, history, and composition gives an overview of what to cover in each grade.  Instead of giving you subjects, it’s helpful because it gives you the big picture of what your child needs to know from K-12. A resource like this is especially helpful if you want to cover a skill or topic that your highschooler may have struggled with in the earlier grades.
  • Warriner’s English Complete Course. This set of books have been around for years and helps to hone writing. Christine Miller of Classical Christian said, “This excellent reference can be used throughout all three years of the dialectic to teach writing. It thoroughly covers grammar in detail, which provides a nice review for those children that need it, or for those children that missed some grammar instruction in the grammar stage. It also covers writing in detail, with a complete section on writing mechanics, usage, writing correct and clear sentences, paragraphs, and papers, the research paper, using references, and even public speaking.” Read the rest of her review here. Before we started using Rod and Staff high school levels, we used Warriner’s. Rod and Staff’s Communicating Effectively I liked one year because I felt like it was more streamlined. It helps to.understand that I used Rod and Staff in the younger grades and their grammar is very rigorous and by 8th grade formal grammar is completed. When you click the link above you can see the sample of their English and what is covered in the high school years.
  • Home Learning Year by Year: How to Design a Homeschool Curriculum from Preschool Through High School. Don’t get overwhelmed by this book. There is no need to have to read all of it. Focus only on the grade level for this year. Having a handy reference like this will guide you to subjects for each grade.

In an upcoming post, I’ll show you how I plan credits now that you can see how easy it is to satisfy two to three subjects using carefully selected resources.

Also, check out Diving into Homeschool Unit Studies: The Dos and Don’ts and 10 Days of Diving Into Unit Studies by Creating a Unit Study Together and Homeschool High School–How to Log Hours for High School.

Until my sons reached high school, I didn't know if my unit study approach would meld with tracking credits and courses. Also, there didn't really seem an abundance of prepared high school unit studies. Click here to read these 3 must know tips!

Hugs and love ya,

1 CommentFiled Under: Do Unit Studies, Homeschool Teens _ From Teen to Graduation, Teach Homeschool History, Teach Homeschool Language Arts, Teach Homeschool Math, Teach Homeschool Science, Teach Unit Studies Tagged With: curriculum, earthscience, high school, high school electives, homeschool challenges, homeschool highschool, homeschoolcurriculum, homeschoolhighschool, science, teens, unit studies

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