Homeschool High School and Special Needs - Social Studies

For High School our state requires the following for Social Studies:

Three units of history and government, which shall include world history; United States history; United States government, including the Constitution of the United States; concepts of economics and geography

Here is how I plan to meet the requirement and teach my daughter who has Down syndrome.



Veritas Press is a product I have continued to use since reviewing it. In middle school Gess has completed the first two in the self-paced history courses which were Old Testament and Ancient Egypt and New Testament Greece and Rome. This year she will be completing Middle Ages, Renaissance and Reformation. That will be part of "world" history.

The self-paced series is considered an elementary level curriculum but it offers a way for me to give her one class that I don't have to teach. It allows her some independence that way. Gess loves the way it is presented and with quizzes often done via games, activities, and songs she has not only learned the information well, she retains it! She loves telling me all about the emperors of Rome, or Greek architecture, or whatever the current subject happens to be. The program even keeps her grades and hers is currently 95%!

While Gess is going into high school I will be continuing these as our main curriculum. I want her to finish the series which will also include Explorers to 1815 and 1815 to present.




Along with this we will be focusing on Geography. Every two weeks she will study a country around the world. I am pulling out some old Memoria Press geography books to start with. We will re-read the information about these countries and then supplement that with information learned from other sources. At the end of the two weeks Gess will give a report, cook a meal, or do something to highlight what she learned about the country. She will then place a marker on her map to show that she can identify where the country is. We will use the United States units in a similar way during the year that we focus on US History.




For American History and Government I plan to use Homeschool Legacy's Once A Week Unit studies. We reviewed one on the weather and some holiday ones and they were great. While these are to be used once a week, with Gess' special needs we found a day's worth took us about a week to get through anyway. I currently have the We the People from the Founder's Series. We will do that and several others for their history selection.


These are a really fun and hands on way to learn. This shorter "mirco study" looks delicious!




I think the economics aspects of it will be the toughest part. We will be working on personal money management but to understand the entire scheme of things will depend on how that goes. I am sure we will cover it at some point. Here is what I am using this coming year for our personal finances. We tried it before but she wasn't quite ready. I think she is now.




Along with all of these we will supplement with various field trips, documentaries, videos, books, and other things we find. At the end of four years Gess will have a firm foundation on both world and US history as well as geography.

Comments

Jennifer said…
I just found your blog searching for something else at Google images. Anyway, I homeschool our son with Down syndrome. He's 8. It's a challenge for sure, but well worth every minute. You're a few steps ahead of me, and I've been enjoying reading over your curriculum choices.

Popular posts from this blog

Printable Family Chore Chart

Learning the 10 Commandments

Explaining Baptism to Kids