Homeschooling teens is challenging, but it can be especially rewarding when you learn how to expose homeschooled teens to a variety of fine arts and manage to get much needed high school credits too.
Whether you have homeschooled from the beginning or just pulled your teen out of school, fine arts normally rate high on the priority list of subjects to cover by both mom and teen.
We don’t add them to our homeschool high school transcript just because a fine arts credit or two is normally required in most states for graduation, but we add them to our teen’s day because they enrich their lives.
Making the Most of the Teen Years
To understand the vast amount of opportunities that can not only enrich a teen’s life, but that can be added to his transcript, check out this easy definition found on the TEA (Texas Education Agency.)
Fine arts at the high school level include art, dance, music, and theatre.
High school students must complete one credit of fine arts to graduate from high school under the any high school graduation program.
As you can see there can be a wide variety of classes that fall under each category.
So normally homeschool teens can easily get more than one credit. Look at my tips for How to Log Hours For High School.
Mr. Senior 2013 used Sister Wendy’s Story of Paintingfor art history. That course easily fell under arts.
Mr. Senior 2013 and Mr. Awesome 2015 both took ballroom dancing for a year.
A side note on this, but believe me when I tell you that NEITHER son had an interest in taking what they thought was a sissy sport and boring one too.
They told me and hubby that they were not taking dance classes under no circumstances.
We took into consideration their likes, but also wanted them rounded out when it came to fine arts.
So their father put his foot down (ha ha corny, pun intended) and told the boys they were going to try out ballroom dancing and it ended up being their favorite fine arts course of high school.
Their experience was far from boring as they had hip young instructors who added in a lot of modern dance moves along with group dancing.
Dancing Your Way To Graduation
The Arthur Murray studio, which my boys took ballroom dancing lessons at also offered contests and performances, which easily fell under dance too.
Within a short driving distance from our house was a university that hosted regular free performances and dances on Sunday. This counts as high school credit too.
With a little bit of out of the box thinking, it can be quite fun, not to mention affordable to add fine arts to your curriculum.
If your child loves theatre or drama, check with your local homeschool group because they may offer classes.
If they don’t, why not start up one of your own? With a few teens and a hardworking mom or two, you can easily add drama to your day and add memories to your journey.
In one of the smaller cities I lived in, one theatre group allowed the homeschoolers to use the stage during the day since it wasn’t being used.
Most homeschoolers play a musical instrument or at least dabble in music lessons like violin, a piano or guitar. This counts too as fine arts credit.
If you live not too far from a major city, most larger cities have a fine arts museum.
Teens love a field trip or two visiting a museum as part of their art course. Grab some other highschoolers and enjoy the field trip along with your teen.
Look at some of these other options:
What has your high school teen accomplished for their fine arts credit?
Look at these other tips:
- 14 Fun and (maybe Frugal) Homeschool High School Electives
- Homeschooling High School: Curriculum, Credits, and Courses
- 3 Ways to Homeschool the BIGS (a.k.a. Older Kids)
Also, check out The Must Cover Subjects for High School Part 1 and Part 2.
Follow Tinas Dynamic Homeschool ‘s board Homeschool Middle & High School on Pinterest.
Pinning this on my future board. Great ideas for when my kids are older. I never thought of fine arts courses. Thank you for sharing with me. Faith Filled Parenting LinkUp.
Thanks for sharing this post with us on the Hip Homeschool Hop! My daughter has taken ballet for years, and I hadn’t thought about including it in her high school transcript. She also volunteers/helps teach ballet to a couple of younger children’s classes, so I’ll use that as volunteer credit hours too. 🙂
You are so welcome Wendy.
And THANK YOU for hosting each week. I love your party.
Oh ballet would be wonderful to either watch or learn and what a creative way for a teen to earn credit. Volunteer credits too. I did that with my oldest two sons too – add volunteer work. Thanks for scooting by.