Homeschool Spotlight - High School Curriculum suggestion

Monday's Homeschool spotlight is hosted at Stacy's blog - as I was reading her suggestions for being prepared to homeschool through high school, I thought I should share about a curriculum we started using this year that has been working out very well.  Some of the parents I've talked with that are approaching the high school years with their students are concerned about teaching literature and writing skills at a high school level, especially those of us that didn't major in English Lit in college!  I don't know about other states or homeschool associations, but for us, our high school English course must include some literature study as well as grammar and composition.  Another required course for us is US History or Civics.  I started about a year ago to look for a curriculum that would meet the US History course credit requirement, AND hopefully be appealing to my oldest son.  I browsed all kinds of things and also started asking homeschool parents that had high schoolers or had recently graduated their high schoolers.  I finally got a recommendation from a lady in our group that just hit me as "perfect" and so now I am passing on this recommendation to other homeschool families whenever I have the chance.

 

What is particularly exciting about this curriculum is that it is THREE credits in ONE course!  when I first mentioned it to Harrison, he said he wanted to do it even before seeing anything else about it.  He is working on Exploring America which earns one full credit each in US History, American Literature, and Bible.

The books are non-consumables, so my other kids will be studying from them as well!  The lessons are laid out in daily plans so that the student can do everything on their own.  Each unit is four days of history study and one day of related Bible study.  There are novels, essays, poetry, and speeches for assigned reading, and each is from or about the time period being studied in the History portion.  I found that I already owned several of the novels assigned, and have been able to find all but one of the others at a bargain price. 

 

And my son, who claims he doesn't like to read, has not complained about this course at all! 

 

I am about to buy the World History, and the US Government courses from Notgrass as well. 

 

If you can combine courses and earn more than one credit for a course, do it!  Its definitely a more efficient way to study.