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Homeschooling High School: Curriculum, Credits, and Courses

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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. Check out my how to homeschool high school page for awesome tips.

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.

Homeschooling High School: Curriculum, Credits, 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.

HIGH SCHOOL CURRICULUM AND COURSES

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.

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/ Additionally, 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.

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 and 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 and I find the descriptions super helpful in my course descriptions.
  • In addition, 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.

Homeschooling High School: Curriculum, Credits, and Courses

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.

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

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

Hugs and love ya. You got this!

Accreditation Removing the Shroud of Mystery

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This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

Let’s get a bit technical today.  My legal brain loves to go to details like this, but more than anything because I get a lot of questions about accreditation, I wanted to share a basic overview of what is accreditation and if it’s important to you.

Homeschoolers throw this word out and then stop to take a deep breath because they are not sure if they should be shopping for something that says accredited, running from it or just standing in place freaking out.

GETTING SMART WITH ACCREDITATION

Since I love layman’s language too and simple is always better let’s break down accreditation removing the shroud of mystery that seems to loom over it.

The first step in understanding whether or not you need to investigate more about accreditation is to grasp a basic meaning of it.

Accreditation. A voluntary process by schools to an agency that certifies that the school has met certain requirements and is an official school. 

In the United States, accreditation is an entirely voluntary process.

Can you see that right away the term official becomes a problem?  Why?   Because if you are legally going to need an accredited school, the next logical question is accredited by whom.  I’ll get to that in a minute. Let’s soak in this definition a bit more.

Homeschooling and Accreditation

In layman’s language, an accredited agency establishes guidelines saying that your child attended a real or legal school.

  Now don’t get your hairs bristled yet because I am right there with you, but key to understanding this is to understand it from a legal point of view.

It is a way of one educational institutional assuring another educational institution, usually an institute of higher education, like a four year college that the diploma meets certain qualifications or standards.

It is about establishing guidelines or standards.

Too, when accredited becomes a topic for discussion, it is normally during the high school years, but not always. More on that in a minute too.

If you live in a state or country that requires an accredited program, then understanding the big players recognized by the government is key to being selectively picky about a school that voluntarily goes through the accrediting process.

Goodness sakes, there is no need to memorize them, we have enough on our plates. Just be familiar with the agencies.

As you can see, if you need an accredited school, it’s just as important to be sure it’s accredited by one of these six regional bodies that are recognized by the U.S. Department of Education:

Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools
New England Association of Schools and Colleges
Northwest Association of Schools, Colleges and Universities
Southern Association of Colleges and Schools
Western Association of Schools and Colleges

There are good accrediting agencies and bad ones, recognized ones and unrecognized ones, legitimate ones and phony ones. 

I don’t want to completely make your eyes pop out, because there are other accrediting agencies that I have seen through the years that are excellent, but the key is to understanding whether or not a majority of high learning institutes will recognize them.

Let’s separate the legal information now from what works for giving a child a superior education.

  A fine detail, but huge point homeschoolers over look when they get anxious about accreditation is understanding that accreditation has nothing to with the value of an education or the curriculum.

WHAT NO ONE TELLS YOU ABOUT ACCREDITATION

The two terms accreditation and superior education are not synonymous.

Schools throw out  that term as if attending one of those schools gives your child an edge in learning. It does not.

Helping new homeschoolers, I have seen some of the worst private schools accredited and I have seen some very small private school not accredited that offer an excellent educational program.

Accreditation may become important for these 3 reasons:

  • 1. It may be important in the elementary years, if you don’t plan to school longer than a year.  After putting your child back into school,  your local school may require proof that your child used an accredited school before they advance them to the next grade.
  • 2. Normally accredited is used more when your teen approaches high school and is deciding what path to take for their post high school years.  Helping homeschoolers whose children went on to the military is where an accredited diploma is important. This though could be a whole article on its own, but to keep it simple, please be sure you look into this if your child is planning a route that way.
  • 3. The next area where you need to know if your child has to have an accredited diploma is either if you live in a state that requires it or if your child is wanting to pursue a career that specifically asks for a diploma from an accredited school.

As you can see, thousands and thousands of homeschoolers have gone on to elite colleges with a mommy degree and without the need for an accredited school.

Homeschoolers may still be the minority in colleges, but it’s not the minority that understand how driven our homeschooled kids are and the superior value of their high school education without an accreditation agency can’t be denied.

Understanding that accreditation is not a mystery, but fulfills legal requirements and is used mostly when your child approaches the teen years helps you to understand whether or not an accredited school is something you need for your family.

What’s your answer when somebody asks you if your children attend an accredited school?

Hugs and love ya

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