Do you ever wonder what your child should do for electives in their high school years. Home schooling in Texas has some great advantages. We are a private school and as such we can pick what curriculum that we chose. Of course we must teach reading, spelling, grammar, mathematics and a study in good citizenship to be legal. Although we have also always taught English, Math, Science and History in the all our years but in high school we get to pick some different subjects, the ones for elective classes.
Each child is different in what their interest are so our electives are based on that. My oldest daughter was very interested in herbs. She loved reading and studying about them. She planted an herb garden. One year she started with plants that we purchased but the next year she wanted to see what she could grow from seeds. She did her research on what herbs grew in our area, which ones that we would probably use in cooking and home remedies then started planting the seeds in the greenhouse. She spent many hours on this project so we decided that it would be one of her electives in high school. It is listed on her transcript as Horticulture/Herbology. She used a lot of her herbs in cooking, for facial scrubs, soothing baths and also one particular concoction for the use of bringing down fever (which I let her try on me). Anyway, she loved this project and learned a great deal from it and I believe her love of growing herbs will last for years to come.
Another elective was Medical Terminology. One of my children really enjoyed their study of Apologia Advanced Biology (Anatomy & Physiology) that she decided that she would like to go another step into learning so we purchased books on Medical Terminology. She filled an entire notebook full of research, took quiz after quiz, she just really enjoyed the subject. When I seen how much time she was putting into studying I decided that it would also be an elective.
If you happen to be in 4-H, there are many subjects that you can do to satisfy electives. Two of the subjects that are listed as electives on my middle son and youngest daughter's transcripts are Forestry and Wildlife. On each of those electives, well over 300 hours were put in each on studying and preparing for contests. They both did very well and learned a wealth of information. From the proper use of woodlands, to develop an awareness and understanding of the value of properly managed woodlands, learning a variety of trees, plants and shrubs. Learning about many different wildlife animals-what they need to survive and how to stock an area with forage for their survival. How to measure the height and circumference of trees so that they would know how many board feet there were, compass and pacing. The list just goes on and on.
My son and daughter made it up to the State level for Wildlife and in Forestry, my son made it to the State level while my daughter made it to Quad-State level. They were competing with students all the way to senior age students in high school, so yes, I am listing these as electives for each of them. They truly learned a lot from these subjects and will remember what they learned for years to come.
When picking electives for my children, I wanted to pick subjects that truly interested them, things that they really get excited about, things that I feel like they will remember and when they are grown and look back at their schooling that they won't just remember that they did the normal subjects that you find in the tradition school setting. I want them look back at their schooling years at home with a smile on their faces and a glimmer in their eyes and think~we learned some really interesting and cool stuff!
Some other subjects that we've done for electives are:
Photography
Food & Nutrition
Computer Science
Keyboarding
List of some that we will probably do in the future:
Woodworking
Ceramics
Botany
Sewing
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