Can you still creatively homeschool your high schoolers? As our kids get older, for moms who love hands-on homeschooling, we might start to wonder just that.
Retiring the lapbooks and the fun unit studies can be one of the harder parts of homeschooling, but this is life, right!? The passage of time, especially for a mother, is so difficult sometimes.
I do miss the days of non-stop art projects, simple phonics lessons, and single-digit math problems!
But at the same time, watching my teens become more fully into the adults they will be someday is such a beautiful thing.
Even though my teenagers don’t get excited about lapbooks anymore, I do think there are many ways we can lay a feast for a very creative high school homeschool experience.
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Creatively Homeschool Your High Schoolers with Great Literature
Read great literature and plan a dinner and a movie night to celebrate finishing a book. Have your teens research food for the time period of the book, pick up the ingredients, and make a feast for the family.
Write out conversation cards for the dinner table about the book and discuss it over the meal. For the movie night, make popcorn with fun toppings and serve it in cardboard popcorn boxes.
Some Book + Food Ideas:
- Any Jane Austen book + Tea and Crumpets
- The Old Man and the Sea + Fish and Cuban rice
- To Kill a Mockingbird + Bourbon cake
- The Lord of the Flies + Pork chops and sides
- Little Women + Strawberry Cake with Whipped Cream
- Treasure Island + Jerk Chicken + Rice and Beans
Movement for High School Credits
If you’re concerned about lack of exercise in your teens or if they need a health credit, create your own gym class! Train for a race and come up with a training plan and go jogging with your teens each day.
Get a gym membership and do a semester or two of weight lifting. Enroll in some exercise classes. You’ll both be getting your exercise for the day, and they can be earning credit for gym.
We have been using Apologia’s Health and Nutrition course this year, and it has been so much fun! It teaches about mental health, physical health, hydration, macronutrients, exercise, and so much more.
Creatively Homeschool Your High Schoolers in History Class
Even though the fun unit studies may have retired, you can still do high school history in really creative ways.
To end a section in their history books, have them write a report and present it to the family. Challenge them by having them write the report as an autobiography of a key person they studied in the section and present it in the first person.
You can also add in lots of documentaries, literature, and foods from the time period–it’s still a unit study of sorts, just more in-depth!
Create Credits with Life Skills
There are so many life skills we need to teach our kids during these high school years, so why not make some courses out of these lessons?
Teach them all the life skills that they need to know and have fun with it. Learn to bake sourdough together, sew, grill on the barbeque, or change a tire on the car. Enjoy the moments!
Some Ideas to Consider:
Baking: learn about breads, cakes, pastries, and more! Read about the history of these delicious treats, watch videos, and of course, bake! Make baskets of your homemade treats to give to elderly neighbors.
Automotive Skills: learn to change a tire and spark plugs and other car basics.
Sewing: create basic garments, a tote bag, and more, and your child will be able to mend their clothes and have a valuable skill.
I hope these ideas get your wheels turning with creatively homeschooling your high schoolers. It can be done! Enjoy!
