AP world history at home?

Lucy the Valiant · February 21, 2018

Is this possible?

I have 2 will-be-15-year-olds, who love history (and reading in general), and are not intimidated by a challenge; both students are comfortable with online learning and honors-level high school classes (reasonably bright kids, not gifted geniuses).

I have a VERY LOW budget (or would enroll them in PA Homeschoolers in a heartbeat), and need to spend available $$ on other subjects.

I have taught high school English professionally, but do not have history experience.

I am willing to work hard. I have the summer to buy books / put together a curriculum plan / figure this out.

I have 2 other home schooling students, and would love to outsource history for the 2 15-year-olds, but want to do the right thing for them. Choices right now are

1. BJU World history with DVD's (or ???? another way to "outsource" at home? They have done VP self-paced Omnibus, which worked well for one year but did not work this year as it was almost completely theology and very little actual history - frustrating. We'd love an Self-Paced Omnibus style AP World History!)

2. Find an AP syllabus & book and put together my own class (if this is possible for an English teacher to do?) If I teach them history, I will probably outsource their English (just so I would have time for the other kids).

3. Enroll them in the (free) online virtual charter (which does offer AP's, but we've had mixed experiences with their quality of instruction in other areas, and I'd hate to go this route and have to change quickly mid-stream).

Self-paced works well to accommodate the (many) other interests they have, but is not completely necessary.

Hmmmmmm . . . thoughts from someone who has BTDT? Thank you in advance! We're wide open to options at this point.

kokotg · February 21, 2018

I'm planning to do AP World History at home next year with my 9th grader. This will be my first go round with World History, but I've successfully done AP Human Geography, US History, and Art History with my oldest. Your option 2 is closest to what we did. With AP HUG I actually taught a small class of 4 kids; we met once a week for 2 hours and they did the rest at home. The others he did a lot on his own and then we spent a couple of hours a week together for each class, mostly while my youngest was at preschool. I've got a masters in English and some experience teaching college level writing (albeit a LONG time ago now), but no particular expertise in any of the subjects we did. So I think it definitely can be done with a motivated student.