If you were looking for our college preparation tips, those are over HERE. If you were looking for how to calculate high school credits with our units, keep reading!
CAN THESE BE USED FOR HIGH SCHOOL CREDITS? YES! IN MORE WAYS THAN ONE, ACTUALLY!
You can complete 9-10 full units per year (12 lessons each, for ~108 – 120 lessons total) to have a complete coverage of all school subjects. You can also use our units for electives, extracurricular, and job shadowing credits, which is unique to Campfire Curriculums!
Below is a high school example for 1 unit (9-10 units/year is shown in parenthesis).
- HISTORY/SOCIAL STUDIES: 1/10 credit per unit (1 credit per year)
- SCIENCE: 1/10 credit per unit (1 credit per year)
- LANGUAGE ARTS: 1/10 credit (1 credit per year)
- ETHICS (ELECTIVE): 1/20 credit (1/2 credit per year)
- BIBLE: 1/20 credit (1/2 credit per year)
**Some parents intentionally extend the length they spend on each unit–by doing all the extras and “rabbit trails,” book list recommendations, field trips, etc–and complete only ~6 units per year for the same amount of school credit listed above. See details below**
The more elaborate details…
There are really only a couple ways to determine high school credits, as we will detail if you continue reading.
Imagine a child was job shadowing a professional chef (in real life or through one of our units) and learning math, history of cooking, and chemistry skills just as they teach in culinary school (yield percent, etc). That student has the option of counting this learning time as a combination of “math” and “chemistry” and “history” (core school subjects) or grouping it all together and counting that time as “work experience/elective.” It just depends on where they want the credit to be applied. As a homeschooling parent, you can pick one side or the other (not both).
How to record high school credits for your transcript:
- METHOD #1 used to record credits is “time spent” within each school subject (Carnegie Unit). This is used by parents who want to use unit studies or other curriculum to cover all school subjects equally.
- If this is your preferred method, you can skip to HERE.
- METHOD #2 is “textbook completion” or “mastery”. This is used by parents who want to use unit studies or other curriculum to focus on one subject area.
- These credits are determined by the creator of the textbook or alternative. If this is your preferred method, keep reading.
- METHOD #3 is another way to measure credits by “life skills,” “community service,” or “work experience”
- This is something even public school students must compute and is merely another variance of Method #2.
- If this is your preferred method, keep reading, since it’s the same as “textbook completion.”
Mastery/Textbook or Work Experience Completion (for those who wish to use this toward one subject area only):
Our 12-lesson units are written to count as 1/4 credit, if using toward one subject area only. This is if the student also completes the included Core Connections which revolve around the unit topic.
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- This can easily be adjusted from 1/4 credit to 1/2 credit if parent requires that the student to do additional research/hands-on application/read books from the optional book list, etc
High School Transcript Example, for this method only:
Elective – Intro to Military: 1/4 credit
Science – Zoologist studies: 1/2 credit
Life Skills/Work Experience – Veterinary Science: 1/2 credit
Science/health – Natural Medicine: 1/2 credit
All total “electives”: 3/4 credit
All Total “science/health”: 1 credit
Carnegie Unit method (for all Core School Subjects to be covered equally)
To count units toward multiple core subjects at once, the Carnegie Unit method looks like this:
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- A full credit can be given in any school subject when the student completes ~120-150 hours of work on a given subject (varies by state; some require ~180). Please check your own state requirements for any specifications.
- A half credit can be given when the student completes ~60-75 hours of work on a given subject.
- A quarter credit is with ~30+ hours.
- A full credit can be given in any school subject when the student completes ~120-150 hours of work on a given subject (varies by state; some require ~180). Please check your own state requirements for any specifications.
Here is how it could look if you opted to use the units this way (all regular units would be the same, but Military is merely used as an example below)….
UNIT TITLE (IE: MILITARY)
- History/Social Studies: ~60 minutes/lesson
- This much time is spent each day within the unit (if the student completes the entire lesson, including SYW pages)
- Science (physics/chemistry): ~50 minutes/lesson
- Science in this unit is found in Core Connections
- NOTE: only ~15 minutes of reading/writing, followed by our directed hands-on application
- Language Arts/English (Core Connections): ~50 minutes/lesson
- This is found in Core Connections
- NOTE: only ~15 minutes of reading/analyzing, followed by our directed hands-on application and our extension
- Ethics (Think Tank prompts with group discussion and critical thinking): ~30 minutes
- Included in every unit
- NOTE: Only ~5-10 minutes of reading, which is followed by our directed 20 minutes of discussion/debate
- Bible: ~30 minutes
- NOTE: Only ~10 minutes of reading, which is followed by 20 minutes of Bible reading on the topic and/or discussion
- Faith Talks are included in every unit
- Math: Not included
High School Transcript Example for 1 unit (9-10 units/year in parenthesis)
- HISTORY/SOCIAL STUDIES: 1/10 credit per unit (1 credit per year)
- SCIENCE: 1/10 credit per unit (1 credit per year)
- LANGUAGE ARTS: 1/10 credit (1 credit per year)
- ETHICS (ELECTIVE): 1/20 credit (1/2 credit per year)
- BIBLE: 1/20 credit (1/2 credit per year)
**Many parents opt to complete only ~5-6 units/year and spread out the units to double the time listed above. They do this by reading the books from our optional book list, going on field trips, rabbit trails, etc. When this is done, the “time spent” learning the topic is doubled, and therefore the credit count is doubled (since Carnegie Unit method calculates credits by “time spent”). This is how some parents can complete only ~5 units per year for the same number of credits that other families do in 9-10 units.**
*You will need to use a separate math curriculum.
Back to HOW IT WORKS or WHAT ARE CORE CONNECTIONS or HOW DO PEOPLE USE THIS?