Here are tips for a fun & useful elective: combining Human Development and Early Childhood Education for homeschool high schoolers.
Fun & Useful Elective: Combining Human Development and Early Childhood Education
One of the best things about homeschooling high school is that we can create tailor-made electives for our teens. They are not limited in their choices, but can have courses that truly:
- Build a powerful transcript
- Truly prepare them for life
- Explore interests
- Begin building a career
A number of homeschooling families that I’ve advised have enjoyed combining 7Sisters’ Human Development and Early Childhood Education courses for a powerful, fun and useful elective credit.
Why is this such a great elective? Here’s why:
Human Development is the study of the ways people grow and change from womb to old age: physically, cognitively, emotionally and socially. It is important for teens to get a grasp on these concepts because:
- It helps them understand themselves
- It helps them understand their family members (and extended family members)
- It helps them understand people in the community that they need to interact with
- It helps prepare them for parenthood
- It helps prepare them for helping their parents as they eventually become senior citizens
- 7Sisters’ Human Development course is especially helpful because:
- It is presented (without preachiness) from a Christian worldview
- It is level-able to different abilities and interests
- It is a NO-busywork curriculum, so it does not waste teens’ precious time
- There are tests and a separate answer key for parents
- There is an inexpensive Lesson Plan Guide for enriching the material for meaningful individual or co-op activities
Early Childhood Education is a course that builds on the learning in Human Development. 7Sisters’ Early Childhood Education e-text:
- Prepares teens for meaningful babysitting or nursery-volunteering experiences
- Prepares teens to become intentional, interactive parents someday
- Prepares teens who want to study Early Childhood Education in college for their future studies
- Explores the ways that children learn from ages 2 years through 5 years
- Explores various pre-school teaching philosophies in a fun, hands-on, project-based manner
- 7Sisters’ ECE curriculum is helpful because
- It is presented from a (non-preachy) Christian worldview
- It is a NO-busywork curriculum
- Includes an answer key
- It’s fun!
Here is one way to combine Human Development for a fun and useful credit.
You can create a 2-semester course:
- Semester 1: Human Development
- Using 7Sisters’ Human Development from a Christian Worldview AND our affordable ($2.00) Human Development Lesson Plans, outline the first semester’s activities. The lesson plans are broken into 18 weeks based on each of the 9 chapters in the Human Development text. This is a long-ish semester, so feel free to omit any lessons that don’t fit the schedule.
- This will include videos, hands-on activities and a project
- There are additional activities in the text for students who wish to explore the topic in greater depth
- Using 7Sisters’ Human Development from a Christian Worldview AND our affordable ($2.00) Human Development Lesson Plans, outline the first semester’s activities. The lesson plans are broken into 18 weeks based on each of the 9 chapters in the Human Development text. This is a long-ish semester, so feel free to omit any lessons that don’t fit the schedule.
- Semester 2: Early Childhood Education
- Using 7Sisters Early Childhood Education text, develop a schedule with one chapter per week based on the 15 chapters in the text.
- This will include fun hands-on activities and lesson-plan development and a final project
Recording combined Human Development and Early Childhood Education on the homeschool transcript:
Choose a name for your course. Here are some suggestions:
- Human Development (leaving out the ECE title because the topic integrates nicely with Human Development)
- Human Development and Early Childhood Education (a long title but good detail)
- Explorations in Human Development
- Human Development and Practical Life Skills
You may also record the LEVEL at which the curriculum was completed.
- This is not necessary for electives, but for college-bound students it does add power to the credit
- For college-bound students: the 2 courses combined are ONE Level 3 College-Prep credit
- This credit may be leveled-up to Advanced (Level 4) or Honors (Level 5) by including the additional activities in the Human Development text
- For NON-college bound students: the 2 course combined are 1.5 credits at Level 2 (Average High School)
Assign a grade.
- Base the grade on your goals for the course. Include:
- Tests
- Projects
- Homework
- Lesson Plans in ECE
- You may also include:
- Class participation (attitude, if done in individual study)
- Timeliness of assignments (deductions for late work)
- Organization of materials (everything kept neatly and in order in a binder)
There’s not ONE right way to combine Human Development and ECE. Let us know how YOU develop your teens’ course.