Need some ideas? Here are 3 ways to earn fine arts credit for a homeschool transcript.
3 Ways to Earn Fine Arts Credits for a Homeschool Transcript
Fortunately for us, most of our 7Sisters’ homeschool high schoolers are fairly artsy (even though most of them were not artists). Therefore, they have loved earning their fine arts credits. So, while they were only required to show one fine arts credit on their transcript, many of our teens earned one or more EACH year!
BTW- not all teens like artsy stuff. However, if they are in a state that requires a fine arts credit for graduation, we can help! This simple download tells how to log hours for a FUN fine arts credit (for non-artsy teens).
Most homeschooled high schoolers need to show at least one fine arts credit on their transcript.
Whether your high schoolers love the arts or not, you can help them create a meaningful Fine Arts credit on their transcript.
There are lots of good ways to do that. Here are some ideas:
Remember, there’s not ONE right way to homeschool high school, so feel free to do what is right for YOUR teens.
1) Log hours to earn a Carnegie Credit
There are a number of ways to earn high school credit. One is by earning Carnegie credit by logging hours of instruction (or educational experiences) until they have met state requirements for that credit. The number of hours needed varies by state, usually 120-180 hours. Click here for how-to’s.
Your homeschooling high schooler can log hours for:
- Art lessons
- Voice lessons
- Musical instrument lessons such as piano or guitar (even ukulele, which is hip these days)
- Church praise band
- Choirs
- Cand
- Ballet (if they don’t need the hours for physical education)
- Drama productions (Try Drama Camp– it’s fun! Even novices can pull off a fun drama camp)
- Readers Theater
- Filmmaking
- Visiting museums, cultural and classical music and arts events
- and more.
Vicki’s daughter studied photography in high school and competed in regional fine arts competitions.If your homeschool high schoolers are not creatively minded, it is good to expose them to a number of different arts experiences and log those hours. As you take your teen to classical music concerts, drama productions, art museums, and local arts and crafts fairs, they may find some arts that truly inspire them. It also earns them a Fine Arts Appreciation credit.
You can also include Fine Arts in your teens’ other courses and then log those Fine Arts hours toward the Fine Arts credit.
Here are a couple of posts on how to combine credits:
- Powerful Transcripts through Combining Credits
- Combining Credits: Literature, History and Fine Arts
- Combining Credits: History, Art and Literature
- 2) Work through a curriculum
High schoolers can earn Fine Arts credit by using a curriculum. This can be a textbook from a traditional publisher or a how-to guide. (For instance, when Vicki’s daughter first expressed interest in photography, they started with a basic “Dummies Guide” to photography and built a library of photography how-to books.)
3) Take a for-credit course (with homeschool group or community college)
The 7Sisters’ high schoolers have earned fine arts credits in many different areas:
- Drama
- Our homeschool high schoolers have loved Sabrina’s drama
camps and classes. (Click here for her drama resources.) They have also participated in church and community performances.
- Our homeschool high schoolers have loved Sabrina’s drama
- Music
- Our teens have participated in local homeschool choirs and orchestras, theory classes, music lessons, music recording and performance, and worship teams.
- Our friend Gena at Music in Our Homeschool has lots of wonderful music courses for teens.
- Art
- Some of our high schoolers have taken classes or lessons in photography, drawing, and painting.
- Cinematography/Filmmaking
- Some of our teens have joined homeschool filmmaking clubs, classes, and productions.
- Appreciation
- Some of our kids earned credit in appreciation by attending performances, visiting museums, studying textbooks
- Art History, Music History, Drama History
- Some of our high schoolers enjoyed texts integrated into homeschool co-op classes.
- Media Production
- Some of our teens found apprenticeship experiences in video production, movies, audio recording, and vlogs.
Transcripts look good with fine arts, but more importantly our kids have enriched lives, increased skills, (and for some- career preparation).
What are some ways your homeschoolers have done fine arts?
Read 5 reasons to include fine arts in your homeschool.
Click here to see what HSLDA has to say about elective possibilities in high school.
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How long must an art class run, or how many art classes are given to homeschoolers per session. In other words, would you have a 6 week class once a week, or maybe a 12 week?
Thx, rebecca
Hi Rebecca,
That is a good question. We have found that co-op Fine Arts classes often need close to 2 hours to actually complete a project.
For the number of classes you need, it is according to the amount of credit you are interested in. 1 credit is usually 135-180 hours of educational activity. If you are looking for a full credit, and co-op class is 2 hours for 30 weeks, then you’ll need to also give the teens 4.5-6 hours *homework*. This can be a combination of videos, daily free sketching or nature notebooking, readings or other projects.
For 1/2 credit, simply halve the hours. For 1/4 credit, you’ll only need 1/4 of those hours.
Does that answer your question?