Oooo, High Schooooooool is coooool

Oh boy! High school. I am going to try to post my thoughts on good ole high school soon. Have to go thru the subjects first. I am a huge advocate of keeping them home for high school. Folks feel they are no longer qualified, therefore-they send 'em off to it. Boy! What a shame!

Back to this post's topic.....

High School History.
I had a blast doing this with my high schoolers. They are at the intellectual level to really discuss issues and happenings in history. They can and should work through most of it on their own too. So what do they need?

Good advice: go through your local high school's listing of classes to see what they require. Know your state's requirements too. You can google it or go to HSLDA.org.

I did not want my kids to slack in history during high school. I remember most of my peers (and myself included) only took the bare minimum to graduate. How sad.
So, after knowing how I liked BF guides and SL, the next step was to continue with those programs. Was never disappointed either.

This is what I wanted to cover: US and World in depth up to our current date, Medieval (includes Renaissance, Reformation), and possibly Ancient if time allowed.

I am very pleased with SL 300. This is the 20th Century World History program that covers this past century in detail. It has a lot of heavy reading and is time consuming. The benefits far outweigh this though. Be sure to read SL's section on whether or not SL is right for your family, and pay attention to their notes on some of the books included in this program. They can be disturbing for very sensitive children (for example: it covers Hitler's assisinatation of the Jews in sad but true detail).
I did feel they could of put a bit more emphasis on the Vietnam war and beyond. So I piggy-backed BF's US and World history for HS with it. We just eliminated redundant material and picked up where SL left off. This took the kids 2 years to complete. By the time they were done, they knew more on the Civil War, wars past this point, including the Vietnam and up to today's current issues. I know they have read more than most college graduates and probably most adults out there.

I had the kids do BF Medieval History in the 9th grade. They were ready for the reading load, but not ready for the heaviness of SL's 300. It was a good fit for our family. The Medieval covers the Reformation and Renaissance. I liked how it covered this time frame and the books were a good mix. My daughter will use it this fall. Since she likes castles and Kings and fair maidens, we are tossing in a lot of extras. We will build a paper castle (can be found thru Rainbow Resource's store) and investigating the Middle Ages through coloring books by Dover and Bellerophon. Just for the fun of it we will build a catapult as well. I am hoping we can get to the Renaissance Festival as a real living history option, too.

If time would of allowed, I most likely would of used BF's Ancient History program. My 2 oldest attended our local community college as well, so time was limited during the last 2 years of their schooling with mamma. I may try to squeeze in SL's 200 which covers church history, for my current high schooler but am not sure if we will have time. All these wonderful choices and just not enough time!

One area which is a must to cover: Government and Economics. These should only be one semester each. You do not have to bore the dears by using a textbook approach either. I put together a program using Blue Stocking Guide Economics and Political Philosophies. I made up a list of books and various assignments to go along with it. They worked thru it on their own (with some discussions on my part). I also had them attend a program nearby. It is called Student Statesmanship Institute. This week long program gives them a good understanding of how our government works and instills in them the need for Christians to be involved with our government. The web for that is : http://www.ssi-online.org/. There are other programs nation wide that address the same thing, just with a different name. Teen Pack comes to mind. Google to see what is near you. I highly recommend having the kids attend something of this nature.

Our community college requires all students to take government, so I didn't spend a lot of time going into depth...figured they would get it there. Some say that Uncle Eric is very liberal. I didn't feel this was true, but again, since I never completely follow any program to the letter, I may of just deleted what I felt was unnecessary or skipped sections-it has been a couple years, so I can not recall exactly. I felt what they did do was complete enough. Another option for economics is to do Abeka's Consumer Math (but now I am getting into math here, so will save that for later).

Since your child is older, include them in the planning of their history courses. Choose programs that interest your child and use the same ideas you would for the younger ones, the older kids still like hands on stuff!

When planning out their courses, be sure to always double check what the colleges are looking for. It helps if you know what schools (yes schools, because you do not know if they will get into their first pick) want for high schoolers to have taken. Be diligent about this. History takes a long time to cover and squeezing it in the last couple months of your child's senior year will not work. As for grading high school history, I go with the following met requirements:

• Have read the majority of the books in the program and can successfully narrate the stories back to me.
• Have completed the program's assignments with true effort, neatness and within a reasonable amount of time
• Did the writing assignments required (no sloppy work allowed)
• Can tell me the time frame (hopefully the exact years, but getting close is good too) the events took place and the people involved
• If it required a time line: having completed it by the course's end

No tests. Yes, you read that correctly. I know BF has tests and perhaps even SL. Never did them. Narration is one of the best ways to see if the child has grasped the concept of the books. Doing the writing is another bonus to knowing the subject. If they did a decent job and gave it their best, they got an A. Some slacking, and failure to do some of the requirements equalled a B. Nothing lower was allowed. I seemed to be right on too. When my oldest took her required history classes, she pulled As. So our homeschool grade coincided with the college ones. If they didn't come close- then one of us would of been wrong...and I am afraid that would of been me. You should know instinctively what they earned. This non-testing does not work for every subject, so be sure to keep reading the posts. I will get to those eventually.

There you have it in a nutshell. BF and SL reign supreme again in our household.

Til my next post....

Sheri