Our Truth Trek Three Homeschool High School Lesson Plans are here!
A few years ago, we started to pursue a long-term vision of developing a complete course of study for Grades 1-12, one in which families can experience many of the benefits of a one-room schoolhouse atmosphere. As a first step towards that end, we offered a suggested sequence along with curriculum recommendations for studying high school subjects as they correspond with each program within our Mission: Great Commission Curriculum series. Since then, we have embarked on the long process of evaluating high school curriculum with our teenagers using our corresponding lesson plans for each curriculum choice. We’re excited to announce that after years of curriculum evaluation and lesson planning, our third set of Homeschool High School Lesson Plans is finished!
What it entails
- Parent help. Co-op help. If you’re not sure how to lay out lesson plans over the course of the year or what to do when you meet with your student to discuss what they’re learning, these lesson plans provide that support for you. Each week concludes with a co-op or parent meeting day in which students present and discuss material with their parents or with other students (in the case of a co-op setting). Prompts are included for discussion.
- Engagement with family. High school students often become disconnected from the rest of their family as they earn high school credit, so our aim was to develop lesson plans that would step them and their parents through learning the same general topics at a deeper and more challenging level – and with curriculum that qualifies as high-school level material. By having these same general topics correspond to the resources used in our Mission Great Commission series, high schoolers can remain engaged and contribute what they’re learning to family morning-time discussions because of the overlap between material.
- College prep. Because we wanted to do our best in preparing students for college, we also wanted to ensure that our high schoolers could successfully transition to college and/or successfully earn college credit via testing before offering our plans to others. In these lesson plans, we’ve taken our favorite courses, scheduled them out over the course of the year, and provided a few suggestions for how to earn college credit as your student works his/her way through high school using CLEP testing.
- Complete, four-year program…. eventually! This set of lesson plans is Truth Trek Three, intended for 11th graders but may be used for any student needing lesson plans for Bible, World History (with Medieval focus), English, Lab Science (Physics), Math (Algebra 2), Visual/Performing Arts (High School Art – Drawing & Painting), P.E. (1 semester), and/or Career Readiness (1 semester). Depending on the interest expressed by homeschooling families, our goal is to create an entire scope and sequence of lesson plans for the four years of high school. Trek One was released in May 2023, Trek Two was released in March 2024, Trek Three was released in March 2025. Projected release date of Truth Trek Four is May 2025.
The most challenging part of this vision has been simply…. decision. There are many different curriculum options, and there are many different learning styles. Education is not a one-size-fits-all endeavor. Considering this, we have provided two different options for physics, a video-based option and a more traditional textbook-based option. You can find out details about each curriculum option at the bottom of this post. Also, there is flexibility on how to fulfill elective credits such as P.E. or Visual/Performing Arts. Truth Trek Three and Truth Trek Four will provide different options for fulfilling these credits.
The Truth Trek High School Lesson Plans are meant to provide a framework to equip parents to continue to teach their children at home through the intimidating high school years. And our hope is that this will provide a catalyst for meaningful discussion and memory-making with your high schoolers!
The Curriculum Choices
If you’re interested in using our lesson plans, Trek Three will provide a full, 36-week schedule for the following subjects:
This one-year high school-level curriculum provides lesson plans for eight high school subjects: Bible, World History (Christendom/ Medieval), English, Lab Science (Physics), Math (Algebra 2), Visual/Performing Arts (Art), P.E. (1 semester), and Career Readiness (1 semester). You may choose to complete all of the subjects or complete only the subjects needed for your student to fulfill his/her high school credits. To accommodate for learning style differences, we offer two curriculum options for Physics. This guide includes lesson plans for each option. Please note that if you do not use Dave Raymond’s Christendom, these lesson plans will not provide the composition you need for English credit because the composition assignments within our Truth Trek 3 Guide are assigned from Dave Raymond’s Christendom.
- Combined Medieval World History, Bible, & English credit (full year, 3 Credits)(3 Credits):
- World History from the early church up to the 1600s (full year): Dave Raymond’s Christendom (video-based), along with the following World and British Literature. Our Truth Trek Lesson Plans include the World and British literature and composition assignments to provide a corresponding literature credit.
- An Experiment in Criticism by C.S. Lewis
- The Original Folk and Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm translated by Jack Zipes
- The Confessions by Saint Augustine translated by Maria Boulding
- Beowulf translated by Seamus Heaney
- King Arthur and His Knights: Selected Tales by Sir Thomas Malory, edited by Eugene Vinaver
- Sir Gawain and the Green Knight translated by J.R.R. Tolkien
- The Song of Roland translated by Dorothy Sayers
- Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott
- The Canterbury Tales translated by Nevill Coghill
- The Divine Comedy – Inferno translated by Dorothy Sayers
- The Divine Comedy – Purgatorio translated by Dorothy Sayers
- The Divine Comedy – Paradiso translated by Dorothy Sayers
- English Poetry (up to 1700s) (research)
- Fierce Wars and Faithful Loves: Book 1 of the Faerie Queen by Edmund Spenser edited by R. Maynard
- Hamlet (Oxford School Shakespeare)
- The Pilgrim’s Progress
- These plans also reference Barron’s English Literature (EZ-101 Study Keys).
- Note: If your student is uncomfortable with responding to essay prompts and needs more formal instruction on essay writing, we recommend using IEW Structure and Style for Students Level C (Year 1 or Year 2) or University Ready Writing.
- World History from the early church up to the 1600s (full year): Dave Raymond’s Christendom (video-based), along with the following World and British Literature. Our Truth Trek Lesson Plans include the World and British literature and composition assignments to provide a corresponding literature credit.
- Choose from two options for Physics (full year lab science)
- Discovering Design with Physics (textbook-based curriculum) or
- Discover Physics (online, video-based curriculum with automatic grading) with readings from Prentice Hall Conceptual Physics (Read our review of Discover Physics here.)
- Math – Algebra 2 (full year, 1 credit): Math U See Algebra 2
- Visual/Performing Arts (1st semester for 1/2 credit, both semesters for 1 credit): Yellow Spot Sun’s High School Art Course: Drawing & Painting
- P.E. (1st Semester, 1/2 credit with option to extend to both semesters for 1 credit): P.E. Log
- Career Readiness (1st Semester, 1/2 credit): Kickstart: Launch Your Life. Read our review here.
If your student is using a different program for any of these subjects, a blank planning page is provided so that you can insert your own lesson plans for those subjects.
The introduction to the Truth Trek Lesson Plans includes details about each program so that you can make the best decision regarding the options provided for science and electives. You can also scroll down to the bottom of this post for a short summary of each program to help with your curriculum choices.
Check it out!
If you’d like to download a sample of the first week of Homeschool High School Lesson Plans: Truth Trek Three, click here.
If you have questions, feel free to hop down to the comments or contact us via email at halfahundredacrewood @gmail.com (no spaces).
For families with children in Grades 1-8, first semester of the Mission Faith Forgers program teaches corresponding history themes at the elementary and middle school levels. This provides a unified approach to teaching and learning in the home as all students in Grades 1-12 study similar content areas. To provide students in Grades 1-8 with a corresponding science, we recommend Machines and Motion, Heat and Energy, and/or Inventions & Technology from God’s Design for the Physical World.
High School Lessons – Truth Trek Three
Streamline high school with all-in-one lesson plans for courses written from a Christian worldview! This one-year high school-level curriculum provides 36 weeks of lesson plans for eight high school subjects: Bible, World History (Christendom/ Medieval), English, Lab Science (Physics), Math (Algebra 2), Visual/Performing Arts (Art), P.E. (1 semester), and Career Readiness (1 semester). Each week consists of four days of instructions for students and wraps up with a “Co-op or Parent Meeting Day” that walks parents or co-op teachers through a discussion of the current week’s topics and confirms that the student understands the material. To download a sample, click here.
Format: PDF Download (Mac & PC Compatible), 248 pages. For individual family use only. A link to download the PDF Document will be automatically sent to the Paypal email address used at checkout.
Suggested grades: 11th grade (or high schoolers who need to take a course in any of the following: Bible, World (Medieval) History, English, Physics, Algebra 2, P.E., Visual/Performing Arts, and Career Readiness).
PDF Price: $39.95 Half price until April 30, 2025: $19.95
The Options: Discover Physics vs. Discovering Design with Physics
The introduction to the Truth Trek Lesson Plans includes details about each program so that you can make the best decision regarding the options provided for lab science. In future posts or newsletters, we hope to share why we chose this particular curriculum out of all the high school curriculum we have purchased/reviewed/used over the past five years. Until then, you can check out our quick summaries below:
- Discover Physics (online, video-based curriculum with automatic grading) with readings from Prentice Hall Conceptual Physics (Read our review of Discover Physics here.) Experience Chemistry is an online course that is geared more towards at-home study rather than a co-op setting. This course automatically grades quizzes and exams and provides video explanations on how to set up physics experiments. Read our review of Discover Physics.
- Discovering Design with Physics is a textbook-based curriculum with an option for online classes or affordable self-paced recorded classes should your student need additional assistance with this course. Our eldest son completed a physics book by the same author (an earlier edition), and it adequately prepared him for his first two courses in physics as a chemistry major in college.
If you have any questions, feel free to contact us at halfahundredacrewood @gmail.com (no spaces).