High School Core Subjects and Electives

How do you determine which core subjects are essential for high school? What are the best electives for your high schooler to take, and how do you choose them? What exactly qualifies as a high school credit? These are important questions for any homeschooling parent, and in this week’s episode, talking about these topics and providing valuable insights to help you make informed decisions. Tune in!

TWO WAYS TO LISTEN TO THIS EPISODE:
1. Click PLAY Button Above ^^ to listen here.
2. OR Listen on your favorite podcast platform:

Scroll Down for this week’s FREEBIE:
Course Planning Sheets (pdf)

Are you just starting your homeschooling journey? We’re here to help! Begin with our Get Started in Homeschooling page and Homeschooling FAQ to make the transition smoother. If you’re guiding a young child, explore our How to Homeschool Kindergarten. to make those first steps special. For middle schoolers, don’t miss our Middle School page packed with tips and advice. And if you’re heading into the high school years, our Essential Steps to Homeschool High School will guide you every step of the way!

Show Notes

We know that the idea of homeschooling high schoolers can seem daunting, but we are here to assure you that with a good plan in place, homeschooling high schoolers can be a cinch! In our first high school series episode, we covered how to make a four-year plan and everything you need to know before starting your plan – graduation requirements, state law requirements, and more. It’s a great jumping off point for those of you that are just starting out. I always say that I really thought it was easier to home school high school than homeschooling was in younger grades.  You really become more of an administrator than a teacher, especially if you are outsourcing some or even all of your subjects.

If you’re new to homeschooling high school, be sure to check out the Essential Steps to Homeschool High School. This episode is part of our High School series, offering expert advice, comprehensive documentation, and resources like Free Transcript Templates to help you stay organized.

So what subjects does my high schooler NEED to take? (6:44)

There are several ways you can look at setting up your high school class plan. Most importantly, look at your state homeschooling requirements to see if you are bound to certain requirements and restrictions. We are here in Texas, where we are considered our own private school, and we get to set our own graduation requirements. 

 There are two things that you may want to consider.  One, what are your state’s *public* high school graduation requirements? The average is between 21 and 26 credits.  That is often a great guideline of the minimum classes/credits you may want to strive for and may want to be your goal for a student who may not be college bound.  

Learn more about creating your high schoolers documentation and download your FREE Transcript Templates (doc and xls)

Remember, you do NOT have to meet these requirements! They are separate from your state’s *homeschool* requirements and you don’t always need to adhere to those. However, being aware of them may be helpful, especially when applying to State universities. Many homeschoolers exceed well beyond the state requirements. 

If you’re not in Texas, you can view your:  State Homeschool Laws and Requirements

Also, if college bound, work backwards and look to see what some of the potential colleges your student may be interested in requiring for incoming applicants.  You can find this information on college admissions websites pretty easily.  We suggested making a list of both of these class recommendations to start and then planning from there.

College Requirements:

When researching admissions requirements for colleges, like required high school courses, your best resource is going to be the college’s admissions website (or the college admissions advisors). We mentioned it in our High School Trailer Episode.

Other sources for college admissions information includes:

Cappex

PrepScholar

A good basic list of core classes may include:

This is just a suggestion.  Again, one of the huge benefits to homeschooling is that you are able to completely cater the education experience to your child.  There are endless opportunities to how you may want to set this up for your student.

Choosing core curriculum 

Years ago, there were few options for homeschool curriculum-especially high school. That’s not the case anymore. Now we have SO many options, and that can be overwhelming to select the best fit for your student and family.

Some things you may want to ask are:

Are they college or career bound? What are their personalities like? What are their interests and abilities? 7 S

When you are ready to research core curriculum, you need to keep a few things in mind. 

• Keeping the big picture in mind
• Parent time investment
• Student time investment
• Financial investment 
• Student learning style

Remember, there’s not ONE right way to homeschool high school, so there’s not ONE right kind of curriculum. And beware of the folks who say: You MUST use this curriculum because it’s the right way! (Sometimes, they are selling expensive curriculum!)

We want to circle back to the basics of worldview and homeschool philosophies, and what kind of materials you are looking for (online, book based, etc.) before choosing curricula.  This narrows down your search immensely and things may have changed since you first started on your journey, or maybe you are brand new to homeschooling altogether.  If so, you may find our episode 004 on Homeschool Styles and Philosophies handy:

What electives should I choose? (16:28)

When it comes to electives, your imagination is really all that limits you. Typically, there will be one to three elective courses in each year of high school. Too many electives can overshadow the core academic courses.  Your student’s electives should reflect who your student is and what they are all about. When we think of electives, some things come to mind:

• This is one of those places where you can incorporate your student’s talents, interests, and achieve that stand out status.

• Electives can allow your student to explore career options.

• Elective call  for authentic experiences- your student can oversee their own education and incorporate many different ways of learning.

• Electives leave room for unconventional experiences like internships and more.

• They don’t have to require lots of book work.

Elective courses require less work from your student than core academic courses. While some electives fit within the core academic subjects of Math, Language Arts, History, Science, Foreign Language, others are not core subjects at all – for example, PE, Auto Maintenance, Theater, Cooking. You will be able to find existing curricula for many of the elective courses your student might want to take. However, you can also easily design these courses yourself.

There are so many options for electives, really this can be an endless list.  There are certain options that may be pretty standard- PE, health, drivers ed, music art, etc. But you can also look to electives as a way of fine tuning a student’s specific interests or maximizing on a talent or specialty. When it comes to electives, your imagination is all that limits you! Typically, there will be one to three elective courses in each year of high school. See our FULL List of Electives

Some colleges may want 2 fine art credits specifically, some don’t specify at all, so again, looking at what potential schools require or recommend can help you fine tune your list.  Electives are also a great spot to start when exploring dual credit programs.  These can be easier classes to start with and knock out college credit at the same time.

What constitutes a credit? (22:59)

Credits are a way of measuring a student’s completion of the educational requirements you have set or that are required by your state homeschool laws. Most high school courses are going to be worth either 1.0 credit (for a one-year course) or 0.5 credit (for a semester course). The credit assigned to a course generally takes into account course content, instruction time, and the time the student spends completing course work.

 A textbook designed to be completed in one school year is typically given 1.0 credit, while a textbook meant to be completed in one semester is often given 0.5 credit. Many publishers and curriculum providers are going to provide this information online or in the actual text. It’s important to note that even many school systems don’t finish the entire book or class.  We usually recommend that your student completes at least 75–80% of the assignments in a textbook to earn the credit.

 For courses that don’t follow a set curriculum, you can determine credit by keeping track of the reasonable time your student spends on the course work. For a core course (English, science, history, math, or foreign language), you will want your student  to log at least 150 hours for 1.0 credit (roughly five hours a week for 30 weeks). Logging more than 150 hours does not earn a student more credit; it simply indicates that the threshold of 150 hours has been passed.

For honors courses and Advanced Placement (AP) courses, students may log far more than the 150 hours. Generally, honors courses require 8–10 hours per week for 30+ weeks, and AP courses require 10–15 hours per week for 30+ weeks. Even though honors and AP courses demand more hours than a standard high school course, they do not earn more credit when students spend more than 150 hours completing them. Instead, there may be GPA rewards to taking these more challenging courses.  For instance, we award an extra .5 point for honors courses and an extra 1 point for AP/Dual credit courses on our transcript.

For a lab science course, you want to log a minimum of 180 hours; the additional 30+ hours are for required lab work.  One college we applied to required an addendum for homeschool, private, and charter school students to determine that their high school lab science classes were legitimate.

For an elective course (such as physical education, art, music, or another course that is not a core academic course), log 120+ hours for 1.0 credit and 60+ hours for 0.5 credit.  

If you have a student who is a musician for example, consider all their lessons, practice time, performances as credit.  Open mic nights totally count!  So does writing a theme song for your mom’s podcast! Kids that are competitive athletes may receive PE credit because they definitely put in the training/competition time. 

If your teen completes a 3- to 5-credit college course in one college session (either an eight-week term, 11-week quarter, or 15-week semester), we recommend converting this course to a 1.0 credit high school course on your teen’s high school transcript. Even with abbreviated classes, the amount of coursework is often the same as if this was a semester or year long class.  

Also, consider that not everything needs to be a class.  I see that a lot on message boards- “my kid spends x amount of time a week doing this, how do I make it a class….”  You *want* to have some great extracurriculars included in your records- it makes your student appear more well-rounded and interesting.

You also don’t want to just add classes for the sake of filling up your transcript.  It can delegitimize the rest of your transcript.  We already work hard to give our kids varied classes and learning opportunities with other teachers to avoid the appearance of just “mom grades”, so we don’t want to add a bunch of nonsense filler just for the sake of filling space and saving time. We are all about multi-tasking but be smart about it. 

This Week’s Freebies:

Excel credit planner Free only week of release

But What About High School?

Feeling confused and lost as you start homeschooling high schoolers? Don’t worry – you can do this! Overcome the overwhelm and the fear of failure with us. Wondering if your homeschooler can get a diploma, if you need to teach calculus, or if they can go to college? Tune in this week as we dive into these questions and more! Join us for an enlightening and empowering discussion on navigating the high school homeschooling journey.

Episode 010:

TWO WAYS TO LISTEN TO THIS EPISODE:
1. Click PLAY Button Above ^^ to listen here.
2. OR Listen on your favorite podcast platform:

Scroll Down for TWO Freebies this week:
High School Planning Sheet (pdf)
Extracurricular Planning Sheet (pdf)

Are you just starting your homeschooling journey? We’re here to help! Begin with our Get Started in Homeschooling page and Homeschooling FAQ to make the transition smoother. If you’re guiding a young child, explore our How to Homeschool Kindergarten. to make those first steps special. For middle schoolers, don’t miss our Middle School page packed with tips and advice. And if you’re heading into the high school years, our Essential Steps to Homeschool High School will guide you every step of the way!

Show Notes

The High School Series is a great resource to help you get through those high school years! It covers these topics plus many Free Resources to help you on your journey. You will be learning how to homeschool high school right along with your teens and the homeschooling parent we are now is not the homeschooling parent we will be at the end of this process. Be patient with yourself. The longer you homeschool high schoolers, the more you will notice your imperfections! But, remember: Perfection is NOT required! Remember, homeschooling is about teaching your child how to LEARN and to foster that love of learning. 

We, as parents, are not going to be the best at everything.  Rather, we want them to learn that as adults, they can look for resources to keep learning things they need to know.

Take time to enjoy your teens

While your teens are in high school, academics will be high priority. However, try not to get so focused on those academics that you do not have time to enjoy your child. Your teen does not need to work on academics intensely all day, every day. Use the flexibility of homeschooling to your best advantage.

SNL Skit – Back Home Ballers
(Funny skit when the kids come home for the holidays)

If you’re new to homeschooling high school, be sure to check out the Essential Steps to Homeschool High School. This episode is part of our High School series, offering expert advice, comprehensive documentation, and resources like Free Transcript Templates to help you stay organized.

Prepare Teens for Life and Career

To truly be prepared for life and career, homeschool high schoolers need to believe in themselves. We need to help teens find their self-knowledge and self-confidence. We can do this by:

• Many teens are figuring out who they are by experimenting with various ideas and behaviors.
• Teens will have struggles with friends or personal situations that will affect them deeply and stress them out.   Sometimes this causes them to butt heads with safe people while they are figuring things out. And that safe person is probably you. Try to give them some grace and not take it personally.
• Do what works for your family.
• It’s important to keep yourself in check and avoid feeling pressure of comparing yourself to others that may have a more high-achieving teen. Some homeschool high schoolers want to own everything about their education and assignments and others want daily engagement with you. And, sometimes what they want is not what they need. Maybe they think they want to do everything on their own, but then get bogged down. They’re still trying to figure it out.  This is where you can step in to help and guide them. You may choose to handle this by finding common goals with honest, regular check-ins, maybe daily or weekly. 
• If you are struggling and butting heads-especially in a certain subject, it might be a good time to outsource a class. You want to try to avoid bringing on additional stress to your relationship. 
• There will also be bad days when no schooling gets done. Some days are rotten, and schoolwork needs to be set aside. Tomorrow is a new day. You can model resilience for your teens- it is a GREAT life skill.

Can my homeschooler get a diploma?

Many people think homeschoolers cannot get a high school diploma or have to go through the state or get a GED to graduate.  Homeschooling is legal in all 50 states.  In many, like here in Texas, a homeschool diploma carries the same weight as a public or private school diploma.  There are some states where this differs- NY and there are some places that don’t take a homeschool diploma- beauty school, overseas colleges. But at the end of the day, a diploma is also just a piece of paper.  Very rarely are you ever asked to produce this document.  You can make one yourself or order a professional quality one from sources. What is really important, especially if your student is college bound, is a transcript.

A transcript is a record of classes, grades, and GPA.  A transcript should contain grades and class names for all levels of high school and any college coursework completed before high school. There are numerous transcript templates available online and you can choose to make a transcript by year or by subject. A subject transcript is a great option if you are including classes from 8th grade, or doing a Super Senior year, or perhaps, taking a lot of classes in a semester- like shortened semester classes (a lot of dual credit courses are offered this way, but it can look weird to have so many credit hours in one semester).  You also may want to include a resume or second sheet that lists all your child’s accomplishments, awards, any volunteer work, clubs and other activities.  This is typically called a resume, and is also detailed out in a college application or Common App.

We will include a high school planning template in our future high school series show notes.  

Many homeschool groups host graduation ceremonies or you can host your own.  It is also completely fine not to do one at all. You can order your own graduation gear and supplies without going through a pricey graduation company. We ordered our beautiful high school diplomas from here:

HIGH SCHOOL DIPLOMA – You can also make your own!

Do I need to teach calculus?

You do not need to know upper level math and science to teach it.  There are several options for teaching these subjects.  You can outsource- we use an upper level math and science school that we are lucky to have locally.  It’s a brick and mortar homeschool school, run and taught by a man with his PhD in Chemistry.  The kids love the class, it allows for labs not to be done in your kitchen, and they get to hang out with friends, study together, etc.  If you are in the Dallas area, here’s a plug for Thinking Reeds Math and Science in Plano.  We love Dr. Reid! Thinking Reeds

You also can opt to do dual credit classes through colleges.  Dual credit courses are nice because they satisfy high school credits while knocking out college credits at the same time.  We both did this through a local community college but there are tons of options for dual credit online, as well, if you don’t have a local option.  Arizona State has a Universal Learner program that is awesome- you can take a course for free and then only pay if you want to keep the grade.  

There are also several online single class curricula for different courses or al carte classes available from sources like Outschool, or Well Trained Mind Academy, and several others. You can even choose courses at Arizona State Universal Learner:  https://ea.asu.edu

Learn more about:
OUTSCHOOL CLASSES

Most homeschool curricula is scripted and/or you can learn right alongside your student. 

A lot of homeschool curricula is organized so that parents present the information as written, students then do the work, and then parents’ grade or assess from there.  You absolutely do not need to be an expert in any of these subjects.

Can my homeschooler go to college?

There are so many different pathways that homeschoolers can choose to take after completing high school.  While many are college bound, several also choose military, trade, certification programs, or community college.  

Determining what path your child will want to go can help you to craft your homeschool high school experience.  I do see a lot of people struggle with trying to figure this out early and I want to stress that it is totally normal for a 14-year-old not to know what they want to do for the rest of their life.  A lot of kids might think they want to do one thing and then change their mind later, again, that is ok.  It is our job to give them the ultimate schooling experience that will prepare them for *any* of the pathways they may choose along the way.  For many, that means a full high school academic plan with college in mind, along with a variety of extracurricular activities and community service.  These can be volunteer work, scouting, clubs and other activities, theater, musical instruments, etc.

If you are looking to do a college prep type approach to your homeschool high school education, I’d recommend looking at a variety of colleges and looking to see what they require for admissions from students.  Many have a section for homeschooled students specifically, but many review homeschool/private/public applications in the same way.  Either way, this is a good source for seeing what colleges want in terms of classes (a lot are looking for traditional 4 years of Math, English, Social Sciences, 4 years of science with 3 lab, 2-3 years foreign language, etc).  They will also talk about what they require as far as test scores go and so you may then want to incorporate test prep into your coursework as well and figure out the schedules for taking those.

A big concern for many homeschoolers is testing.  For those of us in states that do not require any kind of testing or have kids that have never been in a school environment, testing can be an overwhelming idea because it is possible the ACT/SAT or TSI/Accuplacer may be the very first test your students take.  It can also seem confusing taking in information regarding PSAT and all the other different testing option. CLT is another test some people opt for, as well (it is more of a classical style test, so often recommended for homeschoolers who have come up through a traditional classics trivium style of learning).  Get test booklets, take practice tests online, see where any weaknesses are that may need improvement.  Invest in a test prep course of some sort if you want.  

Some schools are now labeled as “test optional”.  Test optional sometimes does not apply to homeschoolers, however.  Also, sometimes scholarships are tied to test scores, so it is usually recommended to at least attempt tests.  You may surprise yourself, and testing, whether we like it or not, is going to be part of their college experience regardless.  

Another route to college to avoid testing and/or to save money, is to go to community college first and then transfer.  This can be done as dual credit or after high school graduation.  Do keep in mind that most colleges do not consider classes earned while still in high school as transfer credits.  Even when students graduate with associates degrees in high school, they are typically still encouraged to apply to all colleges as freshman students and remain freshman level until those credit eventually hit (sometime after first semester).  Some schools may still require a 4-year program, but they may reap the benefit of priority registration and 1st choice in housing, due to upper-classman status.  Most community colleges require some sort of placement test.  These are more informational for the college than they are a test of what students know. Many people want to avoid these, but they really are not a stressful type of test at all.

Must Reads for Dual Credit

Jennifer Cook-DeRosa also has several facebook pages- one main and then several state-based.  This is her main page:
https://www.facebook.com/HomeschoolingforCollegeCredit/

Not everyone is socially prepared for college, regardless of whether they were homeschooled, public schooled, or private schooled.  College involves a lot of big changes for kids.  Living on your own for the first time, experiencing all kinds of different freedoms and ideas, and learning to manage your own time is a big change. Not all students adjust. Many homeschooled students feel like they were better prepared than a lot of their counterparts- they had been exposed to a lot of different people and social settings in their lives, as well as taken a lot of different style classes, and were used to managing their time.  So again, you may be surprised at how your student adjusts, but it really will not be because of the way they were schooled.  It will be a lot more about personality and perseverance.

It’s also totally fine for kids to choose military, trade school, or a certification program, too, or other things like go into family business, or become an entrepreneur, which we will talk more about in another episode. The options are endless for these kids, and because they have been given freedom to learn in a more flexible and creative environment, don’t be surprised when they want to choose that for their future too.  

You determine the credit hours required, but if you have a child planning to attend college be sure to check their admission guidelines so you meet the minimum requirement for admission.

Most states require 19 or more credit hours for graduation with 24 or more needed for college prep.

General High School Graduation Guidlines

• English – 4 credits
• Math – 4 credits
• Science – 3-4 credits (at least 2 with labs for college prep)
• History – 3-4 credits
• PE – 1 credit
• Health – .5 credit
• Foreign language – 2 credits (of the same language)
• Electives

Be sure to check out our High School Series for details guiding you through the high school years.

This Week’s Freebies: