Attention High Schoolers

[homeschoolmom]

I'm in the process of making HSdaughter's high school plan. We intend to homeschool her. I'm curious about what kids these days from different locations take for their required and elective classes. So, if you would like to help me compile this sort of information, you could list the classes you've taken or will take during your four years and whether you attend(ed) public or private school. If you want to pm me, that's cool too. Thanks.

[Sojourner]

I would tell you what I took but I am not in high school and haven't been for ... a long time.

[homeschoolmom]

Which is why I titled this "Attention High Schoolers"

I still remember every class I took in high school... and the teacher.

[StColette]

My cousin, a high schooler, is taking a criminal justice elective. She's attending a public school.

[homeschoolmom]

Cool. beans. I love hearing these kinds of things.

[Christie_M]

I'm taking computer tech, Greek mythology, Poetry, and forensic science. and i'm taking then all online(kinda sorta still homeschooled)

[StColette]

I took Fine Arts as an elective and I absolutely loved it because it tied in a lot of things about the Church. Again a public school.

[Sojourner]

Well, fwiw, my favorite electives in high school were my art classes. I think that's primarily because everything else I took as a pretty heavy academic class. I was in band and choir too, although choir was not for credit.

[CatherineM]

My boys had to take math, science, English, History, PhysEd, foreign language. Their first year, they had a ropes class. I thought that was strange, but it was supposed to give them confidence in moving to a new school or something. The had electives like computer science, but my oldest really liked getting to take votech classes in culinary his last two years. I think one of the advantages of homeschooling was we could do more than what the school offered. I would offer some stuff that we used to take, that has been dropped because computers have edged it all out, like art music, and even home ec stuff like a cooking class or sewing class. My oldest took an art class at school in pottery. It actually got him interested in baking fancy cakes. I guess molding clay and molding frosting are similar. You might also want to see about summer science camps. When we home schooled, I could teach the science, but didn't have a microscope or chemistry lab to do anything fancy.

[zunshynn]

I graduated in 2006 but I remember well so...

My electives were 4 years of Journalism, 1 year each of speech, photography and intro to drama, 4 years of French, 1 year of Spanish (only 1 year of fine art or foreign language was required though).

Required classes were English of course (I did AP/honors... loved it, most years) and 3 years of Math, which needed to include Algebra II. My math credits were weird because they let me go back and repeat classes for credit that I had already passed because I wasn't doing well...

Our SS classes were World History as a sophomore, U.S History as a junior, Health/Driver's Ed as a freshman, and Economics/US government as seniors (I also took these as AP... they were pretty good. I was in the first AP World class, so they were still kind of learning how to do it, but I liked it alot).

2 years of P.E. (4 were technically required but they waived the 4 years to two for almost everyone)... I took Core as a Freshman and Aerobics as a sophomore.

Science had to include one physical science and one life science, which for me were Chemistry and Biology (which I took in Summer School and really liked.) My school did offer some cool Ag science classes, including horticulture and floriculture (actually, that was an art I think)... and some others... I can't remember exactly, but if you're interested I can find out.

[pat22]

i homeschool, and a lot of my friends are doing one or two college courses online to get a few credits before they graduate, it seems very popular right now. its funny. my parents are in dallas with my aunt and uncle at the homeschool confrerence. they're "rescuing" my cousin from the public school system, but she's only 11. i do to a program on wendsdays called "holy house" at our lady of walsingham in houston its 1-12. its tons of classes all day taught by retired teachers and parents, there are over 75 students. last year i took: latin, bio, american history, and photography. the classes are seperated by elementry, middle, and highschool level kids. then i did other courses like math, with mother of divine grace, not enrolled.

[hoosieranna]

A lot of colleges have recently updated the requirements for admission (usually more math). The requirements are often available on admissions sections of college websites. Here is the link for the Indiana University-Bloomington page, for an example. [url="http://admit.indiana.edu/freshmen/as_standards.php"]http://admit.indiana.edu/freshmen/as_standards.php[/url]

[pat22]

community colleges have special courses for high schoolers

Edited July 24, 2009 by pat22

[homeschoolmom]

Yes, I know. I'm just interested in what people here took. I'm especially interested in what people took for credits in social studies, science and electives.

[hoosieranna]

4 years of English
3 years of math (integrated algebra/geometry, pre-calc, AP stats)
3 years of science (biology-lab, chemistry-lab, physics-lab)
4 years of French
2 years of history (world and US)
2 years of social sciences (world geography, integrated social sciences/English course)
1 year of Government and Economics
2 years of Health/Wellness/whatever else it can be called
2 years PE
electives: 2 years of drafting, sociology, criminology, psychology, 1 year of an internship, literature, lifeguard training

edit: UMinn [url="http://www1.umn.edu/twincities/index.php"]http://www1.umn.edu/twincities/index.php[/url]

Edited July 24, 2009 by Nadezhda

[CatherineM]

Mine took Algebra I and II (twice actually). They had one year of history until the Civil War, and one year from the Civil War until today. They also had a general civics type class for one semester followed by a semester of Florida History. The oldest boy only took what we called baby science, kind of a general science each year for kids who weren't going to college. The younger boy took biology the first year, earth science the second, chemistry the third, and physics as a senior. He took Algebra I, then Geometry, then Algebra II, and as a senior a semester of Trig followed by a semester of Analytical Geometry and a whole year of Calculus. For electives he took creative writing, journalism, driver's ed, a year of band that was a disaster, and a computer class that was basically keyboarding/typing.

[StColette]

[quote name='homeschoolmom' post='1930797' date='Jul 24 2009, 03:02 PM']Yes, I know. I'm just interested in what people here took. I'm especially interested in what people took for credits in social studies, science and electives.[/quote]

I took 6 science classes in high school. Chemistry, Biology I, Biology II, Earth Science, Physical Science, and Anatomy

I took 4 years of Social Studies including American History, World History (Honors), Geography, and Ancient History

[The Bus Station]

Here's what I took (I just graduated last month):

[b]Electives:[/b] Art, Drama, Foreign language* (super important), Psychology*, Human Geography*

[b]Science:[/b] Earth Science, Biology, Chemistry, Human Anatomy & Physiology

[b]Social Studies:[/b] World History, Civics & Economics, US History* (we only needed three credits)

*AP Classes - If she's going to be taking online classes I strongly suggest AP Psychology junior or senior year. It's fascinating and the amount of material is not nearly as intense as other AP's.

[franciscanheart]

sciences: biology, chemistry, physics. and this weird half chem half something else that i dont remember course.

social studies was world geography, world history, us government & economics. (my gov/eco courses were done through a community college dual credit program (the professor came to us at school) so those classes served for both high school and college.)

my phys ed requirements were met through community college classes (workouts at the gym there) & tai chi (through my theater magnet). one girl i know though got hers waved and she took computer classes instead.

electives: choir, theatre (magnet, lots and lots and lots of credits), peer helpers

at my school and within my circle of friends, we had people in dance, choirs (reg/advanced/ensemble), orchestra, band, drill team (team, obviously), football (team), basketball (team), art (reg & magnet), law (mag), robotics (mag), culinary arts (mag), and some other more generic classes (like computer classes and such).

my theatre classes included tai chi my last year which counted as a separate class and separate elective credit. we had intro to acting, directing, and writing/stage management/tech stuff over three years. obviously our training involved how to audition, costume design/construction, make-up design, shop work, learning to use light/sound boards, spot operation, fly control, set building (including things like how to build/construct a flat from scratch), other ridiculous manual labor hahaha.

oh! i also took spanish. that counted as an elective. everyone had to learn a second language.

[zunshynn]

[quote name='hugheyforlife' post='1930826' date='Jul 24 2009, 01:25 PM']oh! i also took spanish. that counted as an elective. everyone had to learn a second language.[/quote]

I took 5 years of foreign language... but I didn't learn one.