Home Schooling in High School: Planning A Course

This mindmap consists of rough notes taken by the author during a course session covering aspects of wellbeing (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

by Maggie Dail

You have done your overall planning for the four years and you know which classes your student needs for this year. Now what?

There are a number of alternatives for teaching the different subjects.

1. Many purchase textbooks for each class and have the student work through the texts, answering the questions and taking the tests. This can be an easy way with at least some assurance that you are covering all the bases.

For a student who works well independently, this could work. It would give that student a starting and finishing point. Skills developed using this method may include reading comprehension, some writing skills and some time management skills.

On the other hand, for a student who struggles with reading and writing, or needs more interaction with others, it may not be the best way.

Also, it may be boring for some students. While those unfamiliar with the subject matter, using a textbook can help, but remember that no textbook perfectly covers every aspect of the topic that you may consider important for your child to learn.

2. Others choose to delegate one or more of the courses to specialists in those fields. This can be in the form of a local class (homeschool co-op, community college classes, enrollment in a private school that works with homeschoolers) or online.

3. Perhaps you grew to enjoy unit studies in the earlier grades or your student gets bored with the textbook/class choice. You can integrate different subjects into a unit study or just apply the unit study approach to individual classes. At the high school level, you can actually get much more input from your children and allow them to do much more of the planning. Here are some possible steps:

- Find a scope and sequence online for the subject or a grade level textbook (borrow or find at Goodwill or library sale). Using a scope and sequence or table of contents in a book provides an outline or list of concepts usually covered for that subject. You have the option of excluding or including different parts, but this provides a guide.
- Brainstorm - make a Mind Map of all the ideas that come to mind. To make a mind map, begin by writing the large topic in the center of a blank sheet of paper. Branch out adding more to this web of ideas and groups of ideas. Write anything that comes to mind. Later you can rewrite using only the ideas that you want to use.
- Brainstorm or make additional entries for each of the ideas on your mind map.
- Enter the activities and resources on the course plan in your planner where they can be checked off as completed.

4. With a little more planning, you can combine subjects like History and English. As you brainstorm you would use the scope and sequences for both of these subjects. By doing this, you can include a number of types of assignments that develop a wide variety of skills including research, hands-on-projects as well as reading and writing. I am not suggesting you double count work done in an integrated class. This can allow for more in-depth coverage of an area.

If the unit study approach sounds interesting, but hard to implement, try it first with one class. As you become more experienced, you can expand to other courses. You may also benefit from working with a homeschool consultant in this area. As a homeschooling parent, you are in the driver's seat of your child's education, and you have many choices.

Maggie Dail operates the Center for Neuro Development in Lakewood, Washington along with her husband, Ronnie. The Center is affiliated with Academy Northwest and Family Academy. They home schooled two foster sons and have worked with home schooling families for nearly 20 years. Maggie earned her M.A. in Special Education in 1989 and has taught for nearly 40 years.

Homeschool Testing and other services - on location or by Skype / Phone / E-mail - http://www.homeschoolhelps.com

Academy Northwest is a state approved private extension program for homeschoolers and accredited by the Northwest Accreditation Commission. Local and online services available. Family Academy offers an online home school parent's course that includes more information about developing your own Unit Studies and much more: Able to Teach
http://www.familyacademy.org

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