One of the great freedoms that come with homeschooling is the ability to hand-select curriculum for your child. However, with this privilege comes a responsibility to ensure the courses you select will best prepare your child for their future endeavors. If your student is planning on college after high school graduation, here are our tips on course selection for the college-bound homeschooler!
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This post is part of a 10-day “Tips for Homeschool Moms” series we are doing in combination with several other blogs. For more information about this series and to see the other bloggers and topics, visit this post. That being said, let’s begin our discussion about course selection for the college-bound homeschooler!
Selecting Various Types of Classes
There are several types of classes your homeschooled student can take. Online courses, traditional textbook curriculum at home, and in-person classes at a local homeschool cooperative are all popular options with their own unique benefits. Varying the types of classes your student takes helps them experience different classroom atmospheres and become familiar with various teaching methods. Additionally, it can help reduce boredom with schoolwork. Students will be able to switch between different tasks and not just stare at a screen or book the whole day.
For online classes, there is also the choice between asynchronous and synchronous options. Asynchronous courses do not have scheduled meeting times for students and teachers to interact. Synchronous classes, on the other hand, have set times each week that students are expected to join a call or video chat. There are also courses, such as ours here, that are entirely self-paced (these usually are graded by the parent). While most of our asynchronous classes still follow due dates and have students submit work to be graded by teachers, these are done entirely on the student’s own schedule. Again, enrolling your student in a mixture of these types of classes is ideal. This will help them be comfortable learning in a variety of ways. For more information on synchronous versus asynchronous online classes, you can listen to this podcast episode from the Homeschooling with Technology podcast.
For traditional “book” curriculum at home, there is also a plethora of options. 7 Sisters offers a selection of no-busywork PDF curriculum for high school. Sonlight and Bookshark are two other popular options that use books (not textbooks!) as the main way the teaching occurs. When selecting book curriculums for your student, try to find ones that include projects or interactive assignments. This helps to keep your student engaged and aids them in retaining information.
Choosing Courses with Rigor
It is important for your student to take courses that challenge them and push them to become the best student they can be. These courses will build the type of academic and personal skills your child needs to succeed in college-level coursework. In addition to these personal benefits, rigorous courses are a great way to make your student’s application stand out. If your child is looking at competitive universities, honors programs, or scholarships, these courses are essential. Showing these types of courses on a transcript proves to universities that you are prepared for college classes.
So, how do you get these types of academically challenging courses? Honors, Advanced Placement (AP), and dual enrollment classes are some of the most common methods. For more information about AP and dual enrollment courses, stay tuned for a blog post coming later in this series! For honors courses, here at FundaFunda, we offer an Honors U.S. History class, as well as Biology, Chemistry, and Spanish classes with an optional honors track. You can also look at curriculums you purchase to see if they have an honors option and have your child complete that if possible.
Picking Electives Wisely
Electives serve many important roles in your student’s high school experience. They are a way to bring in fun, of course, but also to explore career interests and make their transcripts stand out. Ideally, you should allow your high schooler to pick their own electives with a bit of guidance from you. This also gives students a chance to practice some independence and decision-making in their schooling.
Students should try to pick electives that they are interested in as well as some that will introduce them to new topics and allow them to explore. For a long time, I thought I wanted to major in nursing. However, I took an elective psychology class in my junior year, and I am now majoring in Child Psychology. I likely would not have figured this out until much later had I not taken the elective class.
With so many options, finding where to start can feel overwhelming. We have a blog post here on choosing electives for your homeschooler. 7 Sister’s Homeschool has a blog post with many elective options for high schoolers with various interests. Additionally, the Homeschooling with Technology podcast has an episode on Creating Electives with Online Resources. This episode guides you through designing your own elective for your student. Electives can be a fantastic addition to your student’s high school curriculum when planned and researched thoroughly. So, don’t skip over this part of your course planning!
Blog Series
We hope this post has given you some guidance on course selection for the college-bound homeschooler! This post is part of a 10-day “Tips for Homeschool Moms” series we are doing in conjunction with other homeschool blogs. Our theme is “Preparing Your Homeschooled Teen for College”. You can find all of our posts, as well as the other blogs and series topics linked in this post. Our partners have some excellent experiences and insight to share in their series, so please do check out their blogs!
As always, if you have suggestions, comments, or questions, feel free to leave them in the comments below! Have fun selecting your courses!
