High School Electives for Homeschool

High School Electives are what puts the fun in homeschooling High School. Electives are limited only by you interests, time and money! We base our High School Elective Credit on the Carnegie Unit; 120 hours is equivalent to 1 High School Credit. If you need to count hours, True North Homeschool Academy offers free log sheets!
We choose electives based on:

Interests
Traditional school requirements
Our values
What’s available in the area.

These activities have included but not been limited to:

TeenPact and alumni events – learn state and national government,how to make a difference in the world despite ones age and get ahold of what it means to be a Christian citizen in today’s world; campaigning– local, state and the national level
Ballroom dancing- protocol at its finest. A local dance company hosts homeschooling ballroom dance lessons and open dancing every other week.
Volley ball – in the summer- lessons and scrimmage
Drama Camp– 1 week every spring with a huge musical every other year
One Act Plays – every January at the local university theater
Shakespeare Camp – every summer the kids memorize and perform a full Shakespeare play
Yearly formalhigh-school Dinner-Dance– planned and served by area Homeschooling Parents
Teen-Nights -good, clean fun – bonfires, food, friends!
Broom-ball – brooms, a ball and an outdoor ice-rink .
Choir – co-op
art classes- through co-op, and professional artist friends
Creative writing
Speech/ debate – through co-op, TeenPact and CC
and more!

Our acreage and house-rebuild project have provided ample opportunity to learn life skills. Our kids know, in great detail, how to drywall, tape, mud, sand and finish, paint, simple carpentry skills, grout, re-finish floors, build brick paths and much more. We have also re-claimed much of our land by clearing, hauling, fence removal, and have gardened, landscaped and hardscaped extensively. The kids have helped me build simple furniture. We have experimented with animals and edible landscaping (our yearly grape crop is juiced and canned, mulberries and rhubarb become pie and scones and elderberries make great cough syrup) and they have enough familiarity with animals to have personal lists of pros and cons. All of the kids know how to comparison shop, cook and meal plan. They all know how to glean and acquire goods and clothing for next to nothing and still look well dressed and respectable.

How did we teach all of this? By living and working alongside of each other. Most of the above was not curriculum but necessity driven. When Dr. Dh and I have not known how to do something (i.e. tile the bathrooms) we have found mentors and books and studied and learned. With that, our kids have also learned how to learn and acquire skills they did not previously have.

Life skills for our teens also include knowing how to introduce people to each other, carry on a civil and interesting conversation, ignore social media for the sake of real time interaction, make others feel welcome and at home and engage in moral, honest relationships. We have technology but use it as a tool rather than being enslaved to it. Shaking hands and making eye contact with new acquaintances is a lost art and one we hope our kids embrace, even as they leave our home.

Driver’s Ed and keyboarding go without saying. I would love for someone to learn small engine repair and fix everything around here, but so far that hasn’t happened.

My current and most recently graduated high-schooler share the passions of history, geography and writing. They have both spent zillions of hours reading and studying history and geography- maps are handy at our house- and writing on their own as well as discussing and studying story, character development and genres. They read Susan Wise Bauer’s History of series for fun, listen to Old Western Culture Greeks and Romans on car trips and spend many hours discussing the fine points and nuances of history.
Poetry is de-rigeur- both memorizing it, reading it and writing it. We use and love Grammar of Poetry. and Poetry Outloud has been a great recitation competition that is easy to bring to your local homeschooling community.

What Electives do your High School Students participate in?

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Homeschooling Is for High School » True North Homeschool Academy - […] Electives can also be pursued at your local college or trade school. […]
Typical Course of Study: High School » True North Homeschool Academy - […] should focus on the Core 4 subjects for high school and then add in electives and extra-curriculars. Some of…