How to Count Holiday Activities for High School Credits

Don’t waste anything: How to count holiday activities for high school credits.

How to Count Holiday Activities for High School Credits

Christmas has always been one of our favorite times during the homeschool year. We love all the special holiday activities at church, in our homeschool co-op and umbrella school, in the community, and with the family. SO much going on!!

So, how do our teens keep academics going and not miss out on the wonderful holiday activities?

Here’s how it has worked at our house

Homeschooling high schoolers are usually getting better at independent learning than when they were younger. For much of December, my teens could follow their syllabi and stay on track until we were ready for Christmas break.

However, there were years when we wanted to begin Christmas break early in order to do some travel or extra activities. In those years, we simply modified the dates on the syllabi, dropping some December days and pushing back the dates on the rest of the year. Or, sometimes, my teens wanted to double up on some lessons. I made sure we decided together on how to handle these adjustments.

We were not wasting homeschool time, though

As 7Sister Marilyn always says,

“All of life is education!”

So we would log hours and keep booklists for special activities we were doing over the holidays.

Logging hours for special activities

As you know, there’s not ONE right way to homeschool. One way to earn credits is logging hours for educational activities. Although the number of hours needed for a Carnegie credit varies by state or supervising organization, most teens need between 120-180 hours of educational instruction/learning experiences.

Instead of using these logged hours towards a credit, they could use the hours for leveling up a credit from average to college prep, or from college prep to honors for their transcripts.

Here are some ways to log hours:

These are just a few of the ways we have worked on credits during the holidays

• Field trips

  • Out of state trips to visit family for the holidays
    • Teens can do read up on the history of the area you will be visiting to count towards American History credit
    • Work on US geography by filling in maps of the nation, region, and state
    • Teens can get inspired about a trip if they keep notes and use for a research paper on the area

• Creative writing project: Holiday Family Short Story

  • Holiday Family Narrative helps your teen capture this story as one of their annual required papers for English/Language Arts credit.

• • • Have them think about fun or poignant stories
      • Such as: What was Christmas like when Grandma was growing up?
      • What funny stories can the family tell about long-ago Christmases?
      • or their first part in the church Christmas pageant?

• More Creative Writing: Creative Chronicling

  • For your more artsy teen, Creative Chronicling Writing Guide gives homeschool high schoolers a chance to blend creativity and writing into a beautiful writing project. This is a marvelous holiday project for teens who are confident in their writing or have an adult at hand to guide them if they need encouragement.

• • This is a larger project than the Holiday Family Narrative mentioned above. It includes guidance how to plan a project and then walks teens through a multi-step process:
    • decide on a purpose for the chronicle
    • select the number of stories to include
    • choose whether or not to work collaboratively with other writers
    • develop a timeline to ensure that deadlines are met
    • delegate duties if working with a group
    • plan a visual look for the finished book
    • edit photos, graphics and text for a professional appearance
    • and designate a printing and binding style for powerful presentation

• Christmas crafts

  • Log crafting as “Fine Arts Appreciation” or “Handicrafts” for Fine Arts or Electives on the transcript

• Christmas concerts

  • Teens may be part of a choir that is performing or attending performances
  • Log hours towards “Music Appreciation” or “Choir” for Fine Arts or Fine Arts Electives

• Christmas plays and presentations

  • Teens may be in a Christmas play at church or attending a play.
  • One of our homeschool co-op families used to invite all the teens over for a readers’ theatre party each year.
    • These events are out of the box, but so much fun! It’s like a party with a purpose.
    • Here is a post that tells how to have a readers’ theatre party.
      • Here is a popular script by 7Sister Sabrina: The Christmas Carol WarsOr another popular script with favorite scenes from Little Women
  • Log hours towards “Drama” for Fine Arts of Drama Electives

• Working on special holiday projects as an individual or with a group from co-op

  • This could be Science or History related projects that are inspired by a holiday theme

• Watching instructional videos and documentaries related to the holidays

  • Log hours in whichever subject that the presentation fits

• Develop Financial Literacy skills

  • Help your teen develop a budget for the holidays
    • Discuss impulse buying and financial goal setting

• Log Life Skills elective hours

•  Help teens build their holiday social and emotional skills for the holidays while earning some credit for their transcripts.

• • • Holiday Social Skills for Teens on Homeschool Highschool Podcast
    • Handling Difficult People during the Holidays on Homeschool Highschool Podcast
    • Teens and Complicated Christmas on Homeschool Highschool Podcast
    • 5 Ideas for Handling Family during the Holidays
    • Holiday Writing Projects for Homeschool High Schoolers
    • More ideas for out-of-the-box courses for your teens with learning differences.

NOTE:

Keep logs with hours completed and what work was time each hour! If you didn’t write it down, it didn’t happen.

Reading books

Whether it is a family read-aloud or individual reading, Christmas-themed books are a great way to build this year’s booklist for English/Language Arts. Here are some of our teens’ favorite Christmas books.

For record keeping teens should:

• Add these books to their a booklist
• Plus: Where agreed on (this is not necessary for every single book on the booklist)
  • Complete a:
    • study guide
    • book summary
    • essay on one of the topics

Do some engaging unit studies as a family

Here are some of our favorite unit studies:

• How to Make It’s a Wonderful Life into a Quick Unit Study (freebie posts!)
• 5 Ways to Turn Muppets Christmas Carol into a Unit Study (freebie posts!)
• 6 Ways to Turn White Christmas into a Unit Study (freebie posts!)
• This is a free unit study on Christmas around the world from our Cousin Sarah May at Freedom Homeschooling
  • Here are lots of other freebie ideas from Sarah May

Cover Writing, Science, History, Art and More: Twas the Week Before Christmas Bundle

7Sisters pulled together a week’s worth of delightful and inspiring activities that we have loved (not just for teens but the all the siblings) in the Twas the Week Before Christmas Bundle.

• This bundle of downloadable curriculum, links and activities includes:

  • Writing a Holiday Family Narrative Short Story Writing Guide (5 fun lessons for a week of creative writing) for middle and high school students (mentioned above)
  • Cinema Studies for Literature Learning Study Guide for A Christmas Carol (1984) starring George C. Scott as Ebenezer Scrooge for high school students
  • Literature Activity Guide for Just in Time for Christmas by Louise Borden for elementary students
  • Holiday Science Experiences for all ages
  • Holiday Fine Arts and Crafts for all ages

• PLUS…

  • Literature Study Guide Hymns and Creeds (including study of lyrics to traditional Christmas carols) for high school students
  • The Christmas Carol War script for a fun taste of Readers Theater for your family or co-op
  • Christmas Carols in languages from around the world

• AND…Encouragement for MOM as the calendar year draws to a close!

• • Christmas with 7Sisters: Real Christmas for Real People (including personal stories from your “big sisters” and tips for handling the holidays when things are harder than usual…after the death of a loved one, when finances are especially tight, when your family is broken or blended, etc.)
  • Making Great Use of Holiday Family Gatherings in Your Homeschool (a 3-page article to help you blend learning and celebration)
  • A collection of favorite Christmas recipes from each of us at 7Sisters
  • A Prayer Journal to encourage you to spend the time you NEED with God as a new year is about to begin

If you are unsure of high school credits, listen to How Many Credits Do You Need? 

So, get creative, relax and have a little fun homeschooling during the holidays!