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My state requires one semester of Health for high school graduation. What does everyone use for that? I thought we could get that out of the way in the summer. I tried searching the forums but I couldn't find anything helpful. 

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We used AOP's High School Health (LIFEPAC) at the beginning of this year.  *shrug*  It was Ok.  I mean, it covers everything and it's something they can do independently.  I think we finished it in about 3 months.  I thought it was kinda expensive for what it was (workbooks).  

 

I did learn never to use LIFEPACs with right-brained kinesthetic learners.  They both almost packed their bags and moved out.  It was like torture to them.  They couldn't believe that people actually do those Lifepacs for school.   :o  I don't think they finished the last Lifepac (they were organizing a mutiny).  I taught the remaining content with videos.     

Edited by Evanthe
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I've been kind of hoping that High School Health was something I could cover by adding up weekly admonitions to "eat your vegetables" and "Get in some exercise before you park yourself in front of video games"

 

I mean, I know there is more than that, but I'm hoping we can chat/read our way through something like "Our Bodies, Ourselves"?

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Yes, with our last little chickie here at home we also are using the Health Lifepac with her this year.  It was good for her as she is a very independent, left-brain child. (It was good for me, as I really didn't have to "teach" that one. Just graded her tests.) She chose to work on it about 3 days a week(MTW).  We will still finish it in a year, but a 1/2 credit class.  She chose to do it this way, as she has science labs on Thursday and Band on Friday in another city.

 

But with her older siblings we used Total Health and Abeka Health.  By far the AO Lifepacs have been the easiest to use. 

 

For older sis, who was going to be a nutritionist, we added an extra book called Nutrition 101.  

 

Hope that helps!

 

Brenda

 

 

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We used the one from Oak Meadow. It was actually really good. DS and I both liked it.

 

ETA link - https://oakmeadow.com/news/courses/integrated-health-and-fitness/

 

You can see a 24 page sample at the link above.

 

It schedules Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain (Ratey) and In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto (Pollan), which are both great reads on their own.

 

Also, we did the fitness portion separately from the nutrition portion (at a different time - summer) and it was easy to separate it like that.

Edited by TarynB
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Thanks for the ideas!

 

I don’t think this kiddo would love an online version. She much prefers books.

 

I’m going to look at Abeka and Total Health. And I didn’t know Oak Meadow had one too! I’m going to check that one out.

 

I thought this would be the perfect thing to just get done one summer. It seems really silly.

 

And I have a feeling I will probably disagree with many of the options if they follow the regular food pyramid. We eat differently and we also have food allergies so I get really tired of some of that stuff. Oh well!

 

I didn’t want to cobble something together on my own because I just don’t want to spend that kind of time on health. I’d rather put my effort into other subjects!

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Thanks for the ideas!

 

I don’t think this kiddo would love an online version. She much prefers books.

 

I’m going to look at Abeka and Total Health. And I didn’t know Oak Meadow had one too! I’m going to check that one out.

 

I thought this would be the perfect thing to just get done one summer. It seems really silly.

 

And I have a feeling I will probably disagree with many of the options if they follow the regular food pyramid. We eat differently and we also have food allergies so I get really tired of some of that stuff. Oh well!

 

I didn’t want to cobble something together on my own because I just don’t want to spend that kind of time on health. I’d rather put my effort into other subjects!

 

Same here, regarding the bolded. Oak Meadow worked well for us. It seems to be actually based on good, recent research. (Unlike the food pyramid, LOL.)

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We used Total Health too. 

 

And I have a feeling I will probably disagree with many of the options if they follow the regular food pyramid. We eat differently and we also have food allergies so I get really tired of some of that stuff. Oh well!

 

I just look at those kinds of things as opportunities for discussion--it tends to clarify whether the kids really understand what we think & why we do certain things--in some ways that's more beneficial than having everything agree. 

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You don't have to settle for USDA pryamid, there are whole, traditional food teaching materials out there:

 

Whole Foods Cooking with Sue Gregg

Schoolhouse Teachers

https://schoolhouseteachers.com/school-subjects/electives/whole-foods-cooking-sue-gregg/#howtousethiscourse

 

Sue Gregg 3-books, DVDs, and workbook:

1-Whole Foods Cooking

2-Lunches & Snacks

3-Whole Grain Baking with Blender Batter Baking and The Two Stage Process

-The Baking with Whole Grains Workbook accompanies the Whole Grain Baking textbook to provide self-guided reading, study, research, recipe preparation and special projects.

https://www.suegregg.com/cookbooks

(Scroll all the way down for the explanations and 4-set offer)

 

Food Renegade has created a Real Food textbook and ecourse. Ecourse is optional.

https://www.foodrenegade.com/real-food-nutrition-for-the-school-year/

 

Traditional Cooking School

https://traditionalcookingschool.com

 

Add in Micheal Pollan books

 

Sally Fallon's Nourishing Traditions blog

http://nourishingtraditions.com

 

The Nourishing Traditions Cookbook for Children

Edited by historymatters
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I used Switched on Schoolhouse for some, and Total Health for others.  SOS was easy to use and all done independently on the computer.  It allows you to streamline it (by removing projects or even chapters that you don't want to do), which I did.  We talk a lot about health and wellness in our family, so I wanted something as basic and simple as possible.  I took out everything except just reading and the quizzes that go with them. I think I even took out the big tests.

 

Total Health was a workbook.  We may have even skipped over some chapters, because it would have been a lot of repetition of what we talk about in daily life.

 

None of the above was anything amazing, and I didn't always agree with everything...  So then we had something more interesting to talk about!  But as someone else above me said, they're "git-er-done" options.  

 

 

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WTMA has a nutrition course. There is a textbook for the class that you can look into. It is older, but includes mental health stuff, too, I think. I meshed it with some Great Course lectures. I required food tracking, setting nutrition goals and planning and incorporated a fitness plan component for one kid.

 

One did it during the summer. Another spread it over the whole year.

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I had my kids read Changing Bodies, Changing Lives, and take a CPR/first aid course for certification.

Other than that, we unschool health - it is an intrinsic part of our parenting and family life; conversations about nutrition, fitness, and mental health occur organically as part of living.

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One of my graduates did a health/child development thing. I was super unimpressed with all the actual curricula I found. In the end I snapped a picture of the table of contents of a public school textbook at the used book store and used it as a checklist. There was very little that we hadn't already covered just by discussing our family's choices with her over the years.

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I haven't found any specific program to be extra special.

My daughters have completed the high school health course on Acellus. At $10/mo, I think most students could complete it in just 1 month if that's the only course they're taking.

They've also done CPR/AED/First Aid, and will do their EMT when they're 16.  Officially, that's more than enough, but I still think it's underplayed.  We'll probably do a more in depth nutrition unit than we did for middle school, and I'm on the fence about whether to cover more sex ed formally, or just through regular parenting.  But Acellus is probably going to be the only thing going on the academic part of their transcripts.

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