I just had a quick question. (or at least I think its quick!) I am wondering if you have any suggestions for a good geography program? I seem to remember noticing on one of your kid’s transcripts the name of a geography course, and wondering if you had any advice in that area. It was great to hear you at the Heart of the Matter conference last week. I don’t email or call a lot yet, but I use EVERYTHING in my gold care club!
Thanks,
~ Traci
Dear Traci,
Geography can simply be taught within the context of other social studies classes. In other words, world history may include some of the geography of Europe, etc. But if you want to teach a separate history class, we really loved Runkle’s book, the Wonderful World of Geography. Here is a link.
It’s worth it to get the student activity workbook with it. My children memorized all the countries of the world using that curriculum, and we LOVED it and still use the information regularly!
Geography is one area of social studies. Colleges are often specific about what they want to see for high school social studies. They often specify American History, World History, Economics, and American Government. Since Economics and Government are often just half-year classes, together take only one year. That can leave you with some options – with three years of social studies specified, that leaves one year of social studies that can be more delight-directed. Options include geography, psychology, sociology, anthropology, and other “ologies” as well. If you want to cover physical geography, this book is great! This book is for grades 6 through high school. If your child is high school age and uses this book, I would include it on the high school transcript.
I’m SO glad you are enjoying your Gold Care Club membership!
I hope that helps!
Do you like getting this sort of help for homeschooling high school? Gold Care Club members get extended answers to their most challenging high school issues.
You don’t need to behave like a brick and mortar school when you are homeschooling science and social studies.
Any articles/advice about teaching Science/Social….making sure they’re covering what they need, without falling back into the whole teacher/student mode?
If your child is planning to go into a hard science like biology, engineering, or medicine, then they will REALLY benefit from learning biology, chemistry and physics in high school. If they don’t seem interested in science, then sometimes it can help to give them biology and chemistry and physics just so you can make SURE they aren’t interested in science! But when colleges talk about what they want to see in students, they usually don’t get too specific. Most often they will say they want three years of science, and at least one of those years is a lab science. They often don’t get specific about which science they want, so you can branch out. They don’t get specific about what a “lab science” is, so you have some freedom there as well. For that reason, you may be able to encourage the love of learning if you provide a science that your child finds interesting. If they WANT to learn about astronomy, and they will be bored to tears with chemistry right now, then you have the freedom to follow their interests while still providing a college prep education.
For social studies, colleges are usually more specific. They like to see US History, World History, American Government, and Economics. Still, you can do a lot of different things within those subjects, and you can also branch out to include more than these areas. I have a list of other social studies options in this blog post, and maybe that will help you draw outside the box.
Whether it’s science or social studies, you can break out of the school mold by considering alternate methods of evaluating your students, rather than relying on tests. Here is an article I wrote about how to give grades without grading. Try to wrap your mind around the word “evaluating” instead of “testing” and that may help.
Check out my new profile on The Old Schoolhouse’s Speakers Bureau, and then ask you conference coordinator to invite me to come speak to your conference in 2010!
I failed at teaching Washington State History, and I feel just horrible about it – I really do! But I have great news. You’re off the hook! Little known fact: teaching Washington State History is *NOT* a requirement for homeschoolers.
I attended one of your seminars and think I remember you saying that Washington history is not required for entry into college, but an employee at Homeschool Potpourri book store said that it is required for high school diploma (1/2 credit, actually). Could you give me your input on this matter? Thank you.
~ Linda in Washington
The 11 required subjects are reading, writing, spelling, language, math, science, social studies, history, health, occupational education, and art and music appreciation.
These do not have to be taught separately. A unit study on frogs could include reading, writing, spelling, science, math, art and occupational education.
Although Washington State history is required of public school students, it is NOT required of homeschool students. Does that help? You still have the option of teaching state history. You can still choose to do a research paper on Washington rather than a 1/2 credit course on Washington, or you can choose to teach a whole 1 credit course every year if you want to. No matter what you CHOOSE to do, it really isn’t required.
Interested in learning what a successful book of course descriptions looks like. Check out mySample Comprehensive Recordhere.
We have noticed that some of the college websites say they require 4 years of “social studies”. Some say “history”. Is history a sub-set of social studies? I imagine economics and government would go there, maybe geography….? What is the difference between the two?
~Cindy
Hi Cindy,
“Social Studies” and “History” may be interchangeable terms for some colleges. When they say they want four years of “social studies” or four years of “history” it probably means the same thing. Social studies, or social sciences, are actually a broader term having to do with human social interaction. So it can include history, government, economics, psychology, sociology, and probably some other “ologies” that I can’t think of right now.
Your suggestion of geography can be either political geography (a social science) or physical geography (which could be a science) so I’m not going to touch that one, LOL!
Many colleges will will specify what KIND of social studies they want. Often they will want American History, American Government, Economics, and World History. You don’t have to stick with just those four, and you can branch out to study even MORE social sciences if you want to – I know we did, because my kids really loved it!
Have you ever wondered what the “Social Sciences” really are? What does it even mean? Most of the time students will take US History, World History, Economics, and American Government. But there is a whole world of other social sciences you can explore!
My brother in law is a teacher at a public high school. He taught “The History of Baseball” as a social studies class. (He also taught “Sport Communications” as an English course.) When I was in public high school, I took a social science class called “Polynesian History.” My teacher loved going to Hawaii, so he developed a course about Hawaii and Polynesia.
Some of the social sciences that I have seen include all the different kinds of history:
World History
US History
Russian History
(Any other country or people History)
All kinds of government courses:
Comparative Government
US Government
Civics
All the different kinds of Economics courses:
Economics (the regular stuff)
Microeconomics
Macroeconomics
Marketing
Business Economics
Geography:
Political Geography
Physical Geography
Human behavior courses including:
Psychology
Sociology
Women’s Studies
Comparative Cultures
Anthropology
With social sciences that are a bit “off the beaten track” you can also put them in the electives category. You don’t have to list specialized classes in their major topic, you can call them electives instead. That makes it easier if you don’t know exactly what category a course should be under.
Do you have a homeschooling high school question? Send me an email!
Audrey asks:
How do you balance what you feel they need to know and do with what they feel they want to know and do? There are not enough hours in the day!
This question is actually TWO questions!
Q1: How can you get more hours in your day?
To some extent, homeschoolers will ALWAYS feel like there aren’t enough hours in the day! It’s part of parenting, and even more a part of homeschooling. There are some things that can help. I read the book “Managers of Their Homes” and it really helped me. It is a book about scheduling your homeschool, so that you do the most important things FIRST. Determine what your priorities are, and then start with priority #1. The less important things may need to be less frequent.
A schedule will sometimes tell you what is going wrong. Sometimes parents will tell me what they are “trying” to do each day. When I add it up, they are trying to do too much! I remember one mother I met with was doing nine and a half hours a DAY doing academic subjects with her 9th grader. Maybe you are simply trying to do too much! So prioritize, and make sure you aren’t attempting too much.
It can also help to cut back on some of the things you do outside the home: co-op classes, sports teams, and music lessons, volunteering, employments, Boy Scouts, and church. Sometimes it’s all just too much! Again, try to decide what you really need and what’s important to you. Scale back your activities if you can. I encourage you to have your teen be part of the conversation, though. Their interests should carry a LOT of weight.
Q2: What do they need to know?
It’s important, as you say, to balance what they need to know, with what THEY want to do. If you can focus on just the basic, core classes, with limited fluff, then even in high school you can still get their schoolwork done in a reasonable amount of time. Math does take a long time each day, and it’s important because it builds on itself, so you can’t quickly regain math skills if you don’t keep up with it. Other things can be handled a bit more quickly, and with less stress.
Core subjects means one hour (not more) on English, social studies, science and math. Add some foreign language or PE or fine arts or electives. But focus on the core classes, and let the other things be more delight-directed, so that the child hardly even realizes they are doing school. Fine arts could be knitting and crochet. Foreign language may be successfully learned in 15-30 minutes per day. PE can be what they do for fun; dancing or sports.
Electives are the things you don’t assign – the things they just want to do! Maybe that’s animal husbandry or interior design – let them decide as much as possible. What do they need? Core classes, and the freedom to choose the supplemental classes that will encourage their love of learning.
I hope that helps!
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You want to cover current events, but you don’t have the money for yet another curriculum purchase. Have you considered talk radio?
When my kids were in Junior High, we started to listen to talk radio when we were having lunch, and discussing the events they brought up. It may depend on your local radio station, of course. When I was considering the radio host, I was much more concerned with them being POLITE rather than having them agree with me. I figured I was right there, having lunch with my children, so I could easily explain how my views were different. That way they could learn to defend their beliefs in a calm and reasonable manner. But if the radio host was rude, I was concerned that my children would pick up on that rude behavior, and think it was OK, or normal to talk that way.
Listening to the radio during lunch allowed us to talk about the big events in the world around us, and sometimes even the smaller issues of our local scene. Sometimes there were horrible things happening to children that age, and I wanted to talk about it but didn’t know where to start. Often the radio show would help me start the conversation. If you are thinking about a current events program, consider talk radio. Radio is free, too, which is my favorite price.
PS. So, who did we chose to listen to in the Seattle area? Dave Ross. You can listen to his podcasts here.
Learning about current events is just one way to prepare your homeschool student for college. Read about other ways on my Dig Deeper site. And if you enjoy what you read, please send me some love with a rating or a comment! Thanks!
At this time of the year, friends are discussing their curriculum choices for next year. I have been asked by several people what we used during the high school years. Every child is unique, of course, but here is a snapshot of our freshman year:
These are the things I made them do:
American Literature & Composition (Sonlight 100)
American History (Sonlight 100)
Biology with Lab (Apologia)
Algebra 1 (Jacob’s Algebra)
Fine Arts 1: American Art (art books and Draw Today)
Bible: Christian Manhood
These are the things they WANTED to do (by the way, I thought they were crazy to do two foreign languages, but I let them):
Latin 3 (Latin Road to English Grammar)
French 2 (Power Glide)
Music: Piano
PE 1
And these are the things I couldn’t stop my youngest son from doing. (He asked for the American Government curriculum for Christmas, and we simply couldn’t keep him away from economics, no matter how much it annoyed us):
American Government 1
Economics 1
What are you and your family thinking about for next year?
Looking for some good homeschooling resources for next year. Check out they new page on my website on homeschooling resources. Click on the selections to take you directly to Amazon to purchase!
Social studies is a term used to describe the broad study of the various fields which involve past and current human behavior and interactions. Usually colleges will specify what type of Social Studies they want high schools to cover. Most often colleges will say they want American History, American Government, World History and Economics. Sometimes they will specify other courses as well, but this is the most common list. There are many other subjects that are considered Social Studies, though. They include Psychology, Sociology, Geography, and a wide variety of other history courses. One of my sons was very interested in Russian History, so he studied that “for fun.” My other son loves Economics, so he spent one year studying microeconomics, and one year studying macroeconomics. Like other subject areas, it’s most effective when you follow the interests of your child.
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Christianbook.com Curriculum Page
