I love hearing about families involved in 4-H! As a rule of thumb, ALL 4-H activities are educational in nature, just like Eagle Scouting is almost always educational in nature. It’s fun to discuss the different ways to divide those activities into meaningful high school courses.
Hi Lee,
I’m wondering how to use my daughter’s 4-H activities as school. She’s very active is sewing and ceramics and I would like to count them toward home ec. and art, but I’m not sure how to do that. Any suggestions would be helpful. Thanks
~Rita in Montana
Think about what she has done for 4-H and what paperwork she has provided for each project, then label them in educational words like: fashion design, home economics, textile crafts, etc. Group each activity together into clumps that are similar. Put all the “art” things into one group, and all the “cooking” things into another group. Other kids may lump things into “science stuff” or “biology stuff.” Once you have a group that represents about 120-180 hours of work, Ta-Da! You have a high school credit!
Remember the Golden Rule of Homeschooling: No double dipping. If you use some hours for PE, you can’t use the SAME hours for art. But if you have 150 hours of art activities and a different 150 hours of animal husbandry then you can have a credit of art and a credit of animal husbandry.
One of the great things about 4-H is the required paperwork. It’s a huge pain to do, but once you have completed the paperwork you have some great documentation for your high school classes. You can provide these as “work samples” if they are requested, and they can be the backbone of your course descriptions.
If you need some help with translating activities into grades and credits, there is a lot of information about that in my e-book, “The Easy Truth About Homeschool Transcripts.” I have a whole chapter about delight directed learning in my book on transcripts, so if you need more help, you can find it there! It comes with a free audio course on “making a transcript” and that will also help. Plus you can always call me to ask for clarification or advice during my free consultations.
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Christianbook.com Curriculum Page
Vicki says:
Dear Lee
We even did some very UN-traditional activities under the 4-H umbrella — Shakespeare studies was one. Read plays together, discussed them, performed abridged version for the fair, made posters to display at the fair, did sewing projects (Shakespearian hats & cloaks) that were submitted to the fair. We were even written up in the local paper showcasing how vast 4-H opportunities were. It was a fabulously fun few years for my early teen children.
Vicki
September 15th, 2009 at 5:25 pm