Homeschooling High School: Curriculum That Works

This post may contain affiliate links.  See my disclosure for more information.

 

This series is getting down to the real nitty-gritty of how we homeschool high school.  I promised that for this third post, I’d tell you about curriculum we’ve used specifically in some of our courses to prepare for credit by exam.

I’m going to cover these courses:  World Religions, Psychology, Environmental Science, Economics, Government, Human Development,  Analyzing Literature, and U.S. History I & II.

If you haven’t read the first two posts in the series, I encourage you to go back and do that.

The first post tells about how we are homeschooling high school by working towards college credits for free or cheap, and gives some detail about the huge financial savings of this method.

The next post laid out step by step how we prepare for CLEP/DSST tests.  There are loads of links there, be sure to Pin it or bookmark it for future reference.  If you’re looking for links to practice tests or how to register for the exams, it’s all there…and a lot more!

One of the resources I cover in detail is the Instantcert website.  With every subject, we use the flashcards at Instantcert heavily, as well as the discussion boards (to see what topics others have noticed on their tests).  If you register through my link, you can save 25% off your first month by using the discount code 100109.

 

Curriculum We’ve Used

*Note to Parents*

As with any curriculum that is secular in nature, we encountered information presented at times that was contrary to our worldview.  Be sure to use those opportunities to have some discussion with your student.  It’s always a good reminder to us that we’re glad our kids are learning these topics with us instead of on a college campus.

World Religions (DSST)

Study Guide:  World Religions Course Guide With DSST Exam Prep by Cheri Frame

Textbook: The Kingfisher Book of Religions

 

 

Psychology (CLEP)

Study Guide:  Introduction to Psychology Course Guide with CLEP Exam Prep by Cheri Frame

Note:  The guide suggests some online videos to watch to review each chapter.  We used different videos that our study group found a bit more engaging.  You can find them here.

Textbook:  Understanding Psychology, McGraw-Hill, 2nd Edition

Movie:  A Beautiful Mind

REA Study Guide w/Practice Tests:
CLEP® Introductory Psychology Book + Online (CLEP Test Preparation)

 

 

Environmental Science (DSST – Environment & Humanity)

Textbook:  Holt Environmental Science, by Karen Arms, 2000 Edition

Labs/Activities:

One Small Square

Biome Bottles

Biome Map

We did some activities from this website.

Field Trip:  Local Water Treatment Plant

Movie:  This was by far the most memorable piece of our course.  Our study group watched Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth”.  We discussed how convincing the material is.  We then went through this article titled, “35 Inconvenient Truths – The Errors in Al Gore’s Movie.” (You can find the pdf here).

It was a great lesson for the students on critical thinking and questioning the sources of information.

 

And because we’re Disney Fans…

 

 

Economics (CLEP – Macroeconomics)

You can read here in detail about our Economics Study Group.  It details a number of activities we are doing.

Textbook:  Notgrass Exploring Economics

Videos:  We used several video series.  Prager University ,  CrashCourse , and Hillsdale College

REA Study Guide with Practice Tests:
CLEP® Principles of Macroeconomics Book + Online (CLEP Test Preparation)

 

 

Government (CLEP)

Textbook:  HSLDA Constitutional Literacy DVD Course

Note:  We have friends that used Notgrass Exploring Government for this course, as another option.

We loved this course as a study of the Constitution, but did have to find other resources to make sure everything on the test was covered.  Specifically, studying the workings of Congress and Government Bureaucracy.

To help cover those areas, we used some of these videos:

CrashCourse Videos

REA Study Guide and Practice Tests:
CLEP® American Government Book + Online (CLEP Test Preparation)

 

College Mathematics (CLEP), College Algebra (CLEP or DSST)

We used a lot of different math curriculum over the years.  My favorite for higher level math hands down is Mr. D Math.  I just can’t say enough positive things about it.  Click here to read a full review of Mr. D Math.

REA Study Guide and Practice Tests:

CLEP College Mathematics Test Preparation

CLEP College Algebra Test Preparation

 

Human Development (CLEP or DSST)

As part of this course, my son and I taught a Pre-School class at our church one morning a week.   You can read about it here.

Textbook:  Human Development From a Christian Worldview

Videos:  Various Netflix videos on child development

REA Study Guide and Practice Test:
CLEP Human Growth & Development (REA)-The Best Test Prep for the CLEP Exam (CLEP Test Preparation)

 

Analyzing Literature (CLEP)

Our English curriculum centers around reading novels, analyzing them, and writing essays.  (I really like these literature guides.)  I find resources that we’ll use for a semester or two at a time.  This is one of my favorites!

Website:  Easy Peasy All In One free online curriculum.

This gem features daily lessons in a variety of subjects.  Because I’m me, I tend to go through and pick and choose what we’ll use and assign only those “days”.

There are several English courses on this website.  Each one has poetry lessons, various short stories and novels, and literary terms throughout.  We haven’t done her novel studies, as they haven’t matched up with what we’re reading at the time.   But I can say that I love her lessons for short stories and poetry.

Good stuff!

Videos:

I have found a number of short videos on Youtube that focus on analyzing poetry.  I put together a playlist you can access here:

Analyzing Poetry Playlist

 

Memorizing poetry teaches many skills, and is a different way to go about studying it.

Having your kids read from the King James Version of the Bible can also be a way to get them used to more flowery language.

REA Study Guide with Practice Tests:
CLEP® Analyzing & Interpreting Literature Book + Online (CLEP Test Preparation)

 

US History I & II (CLEP)

We have used a number of different things for these courses.

In middle school, the boys did Notgrass America the Beautiful.  And our family visits a lot of museums and watches documentaries frequently.  So entering these courses, the boys already had a general understanding of American History.

Websites:

The Easy Peasy All In One site I mentioned above was a great resource for these courses.  We used  both her Early American History and Modern American History quite heavily.

I also created packets with various lists (Notable Supreme Court Cases, Individuals related to the Civil Rights Movement, Presidents, etc.) for the boys to complete.

Sometimes that involved just looking things up and filling it out.  Other times, the boys would use the information to create a Power Point or other project.  We made a lot of timelines, too.

Movies:

The Patriot

Midnight in Paris (we researched the literary figures/artists before watching)

Saving Private Ryan (recorded from TV/edited)

Netflix documentaries (we especially liked this one on The Presidents)

 

REA Study Guides with Practice Tests:
CLEP® History of the U.S. I Book + Online (CLEP Test Preparation)
CLEP History of the United States II w/CD (REA) – The Best Test Prep for the CLE (Test Preps)

 

Be sure to Pin or bookmark this page so you can easily find all of these resources!