Phys Ed / Health requirement

[kristin0713]

How does everyone handle this?  We are just starting out on our official homeschool high school journey.  Half a year of health, half a year of phys ed?  How many hours?  How many years?  My DD is not in any sports this year, although we will likely do ski club in the winter.  That will be at least 30 hours of skiing, maybe more.  I'm sure I can come up with a plan for a semester of health and/or nutrition.  If I'm going to put a plan together for her to log exercise hours, I just need to know how many.   Thanks 🙂 

[Clemsondana]

A credit is usually 120-180 hours if you're logging hours, so a half credit would be 65-90 hrs.  I'd count 30 hrs of skiing and then another 40ish hours of whatever kind of exercise you want.  

For health, you can get a health book or you can just log an appropriate amount of health work.  Lots of people include first aid and CPR training as part of it.  Diet, nutrition, effects of drugs or medicines, mental health material, basic roles of body systems - see what you think might actually be useful for your family.  

[kristin0713]

So 60 hours of actual physical activity?  Just checking, as this child will want to do the minimum requirement for graduation.  Is it all four years generally or does that vary a lot by state?

[RootAnn]

I required 0.5 credit of health & nutrition,  but my first two will have more than that. Eldest had a college that required 1 credit. Dd#2's does require any amount of PE. I don't require any PE. 

[8filltheheart]

I have my kids take CPR and First Aid through the Red Cross bc I want them to have those skills. Nutrition is important (can be learning to cook healthy meals).  I want them to be active, but we don't treat it like school.  They can jump on the trampoline, go hiking, swimming, etc (IOW, what they would be doing normally).

[MamaSprout]

Is it required in your state? We did it, but only because dd was seriously considering an early college/ high school boarding school that required it. She's opted against it, but health was mostly stuff we would have covered in other ways, anyhow.

Edited June 10, 2020 by MamaSprout

[Clemsondana]

Do you need a 1/2 credit every year or just 1/2 credit total?  If you do ski club every year, then after 2-3 years you have the hours for a credit.  Orshe could do a daily 30 minute walk and get 2.5 hrs/week for 6-8 weeks to get 30 more hrs.  Or do a walk walk twice a week, so 1 hr/week, for the school year plus 30 hrs of skiing.  My older (and probably my younger, when they get to that point) do some sports activities and we've chosen to count the sports as exracurricular but add up the hours that they spend doing conditioning as PE, since it's easy to track that.  But, yes, usually somewhere around 60 hours is a light credit, so for PE I'd just add up the hours.  

[mlktwins]

Mine are finishing 9th and we counted swim practice hours (and there were lots of them) as a good chunk of our PE.  They also started more dry land workouts and one of my boys has spent a lot of time researching various muscle groups, how they work (especially related to swimming), and developed workouts to work those areas.  We all listened to a Great Courses CD set on Nutrition and working out (would have to look up the title) while we were in the car and driving to and from class and swim practice.  

Our local homeschool enrichment program had just opened registration for a 5 week course that would get them 4 American Heart Association certifications, including CPR.  Then Covid-19 happened.  It is open for registration again this fall, but I'm just not comfortable with it so I'm not sure what we will do.  They wanted to get certified as Life Guards to be able to use when starting to give private swim lessons at our community pool (which is not even open and they wouldn't be going even if it were 😞 ).

Anyway, we have some things to figure out regarding that part.  I'm adding in topic on mental health and making good choices.  I have Sean Covey's A Guide for Teens:  The 6 Most Important Decisions You'll Ever Make to work through also.  

I don't feel like it needs to be super formal.  Mine are interested in the topic so that makes it easy.  They are looking more at ingredients and thinking more about good food choices, etc.  Beng active.  It's all good.

Our state requires 2 credits of health and Physical Education, which includes driver's ed.  

[AEC]

we skipped it on the transcript totally.  Both DC swim, so I didn't need to motivate the physical activity, and there are neither state nor college application requirements I was able to find that said it needed to be a class on a transcript. IMO, if you want 'em to learn to cook or eat well or be active, just have the DC do that. It doesn't have to be a class unless there's something that requires you to do so.

[kristin0713]

Thank you!  I guess I should have looked it up before posting.  My state (NJ) requires three years spread out over four years 🙄 It's the 5 credit system and they say 3.75 credits a year--   

15 credits over four years including:  3 3⁄4 credits in health, safety, and physical education during each year of enrollment, distributed as 150 minutes per week each year

But we are also unregulated here in NJ.  And there is nothing to specify how to distribute the hours among health, safety, and physical education.  If this does not matter for college, I will count ski club as the phys ed part and add in some nutrition and health each year. I forgot about Driver's Ed--that definitely counts here.  

 

[cbollin]

sounds like a good plan you have. sharing what I did.  My cover school wanted semester of health. two semesters worth of PE (150 hours of activity) which can be spread out over high school. We did heath textbook style (two of them did Total Health, one did Monarch Health) for "graded course" and added in personal goals/needs for just life.  PE: oldest did archery class, middle did aerobic dance videos, and youngest  got PE with special olympics, and group homeschool PE class each year of high school. Like the public high school we are zoned to attend, I treated it like it was an elective focus for her and gave different titles each year.  others will disagree.

Wanted to put this out there if it would help someone. My middle gal took PE (Walking for Fitness) in college for 2 college credits. They had a textbook to read (Fitness Walking for Everyone), multiple choice quiz at end of most chapters, and log 60 miles of walking over 10 weeks summer session (log included distance, time, beginning and ending heart rate to make sure you're in the zone) .fewer than 60 miles meant less than an A.   To make it a full semester for high school, one could just make it a few more miles, or get and walk most days.

[Lori D.]

 

22 hours ago, kristin0713 said:

How does everyone handle this?  We are just starting out on our official homeschool high school journey.  Half a year of health, half a year of phys ed?  How many hours?  How many years?  My DD is not in any sports this year, although we will likely do ski club in the winter.  That will be at least 30 hours of skiing, maybe more.  I'm sure I can come up with a plan for a semester of health and/or nutrition.  If I'm going to put a plan together for her to log exercise hours, I just need to know how many.   Thanks 🙂 

re: PE
As far as credits/hours -- many states require 2 years of PE, and many schools do that as 0.5 credit for each year of high school.

For our homeschooling -- I felt it was important to model a healthy, balanced lifestyle, I required regular physical activity as part of that -- swimming laps, hiking, tennis, etc. We even counted aerobic activity like Dance-Dance-Revolution, when done for 45 minutes at a time, to get heart rate up. We easily worked in at least 2 hours/week during the school year that way. Doing it all together as a family helps. And it is easy to accrue hours when you also log hours from activities done on weekends and over the summer. 
 

21 hours ago, kristin0713 said:

So 60 hours of actual physical activity?  Just checking, as this child will want to do the minimum requirement for graduation.  Is it all four years generally or does that vary a lot by state?

JMO: No, 60 hours would not be enough for 0.5 credit. Why I say that: the 120 hours as a minimum for 1 credit (or 60 hours for 0.5 credit) is pretty weak, as that is the Carnegie credit, and refers to minimum amount of *teacher contact* hours -- it is ALSO assumed the student will do additional work outside of the teacher time. 

150 hours = 1 credit is average (with 120 hours = minimum / 180 hours = maximum), so 75 hours = 0.5 credit is not at all unreasonable or burdensome. That's only 2.5 hours/week for a 36-week school year -- and only 1.5 hours/week over 50 weeks of a year, to earn 0.5 credit of PE and develop a healthy lifestyle routine. 😉 
 

1 hour ago, kristin0713 said:

... My state (NJ) requires three years spread out over four years 🙄 It's the 5 credit system and they say 3.75 credits a year--   

15 credits over four years including:  3 3⁄4 credits in health, safety, and physical education during each year of enrollment, distributed as 150 minutes per week each year

But we are also unregulated here in NJ.  And there is nothing to specify how to distribute the hours among health, safety, and physical education.  If this does not matter for college, I will count ski club as the phys ed part and add in some nutrition and health each year. I forgot about Driver's Ed--that definitely counts here.  

That would be a very easy plan to follow -- 150 minutes is just 2.5 hours/week. You could easily split that out to 2 hours/week (for a total of 72 hours/school year) of physical activity, and then accrue that remaining 30 min/week (for a total of 18 hours for the year) and use it on things like Health, Nutrition, Driver's Ed., CPR & First Aid, etc.

Edited June 10, 2020 by Lori D.

[Momto6inIN]

I have them do 15 min of personal fitness (running, stretching, weights) every morning for 4 years and give them a quarter credit of PE each year (on top of 6 academic credits each year). At some point we do an easy box checking half credit Health course, although primarily they learn about health by living and being parented 😉

IN public schools require 1 credit of PE and a half credit of health, so I want my kids' transcripts to be easily comparable for admissions offices.

[freesia]

9 hours ago, Momto6inIN said:

I have them do 15 min of personal fitness (running, stretching, weights) every morning for 4 years and give them a quarter credit of PE each year (on top of 6 academic credits each year). At some point we do an easy box checking half credit Health course, although primarily they learn about health by living and being parented 😉

IN public schools require 1 credit of PE and a half credit of health, so I want my kids' transcripts to be easily comparable for admissions offices.

This is pretty much what we do except they also do two hours of TKD a week and I give half a credit. I also count any hiking, paddle boarding, etc that happens over the year.

I think developing the daily exercise habit as normal is very important and is my main goal of PE.

[....]

P.E. can be fun....?  maybe?  lol

We do PE together, but I have 5 kids.  That does make it easier.  We go to a park usually on Friday afternoons during the school year - sometimes we swing by and pick up homeschooling friends and bring them with us.  I have a ton of sports equipment now (purposely bought for PE).  We work on sports skills.  We play baseball, play catch, practice batting....we played an actual game recently at a baseball diamond.  We play basketball, kickball, pickle ball, disc golf, soccer....  We've gone hiking and biking.

I've been giving my high schoolers half a credit every year.  I don't count hours anymore.  The counting hours thing stresses me out and after our first year of high school (4 years ago), I stopped doing that.  I just arbitrarily assign credits.

Health - we used a health program -LIFEPAC.  It's like four workbooks.  You read and answer questions.  My older kids hated it, but oh well (they're not used to learning with workbooks).  I gave them 0.5 credit Health.  

[katilac]

Neither of my kids had health or PE on their transcripts and no colleges cared. 

[8filltheheart]

22 hours ago, katilac said:

Neither of my kids had health or PE on their transcripts and no colleges cared. 

This will depend on the state. TN requires it and personal finance for a diploma. Since you have to use a cover school, it is a requirement most will require.

Edited June 14, 2020 by 8FillTheHeart

[2_girls_mommy]

I gave both of mine a 1/2 credit of PE a year because of their sport (dancing.) They do it year round, so the rest of the hours I counted as extra curriculars,and I made the distinction on the course descriptions. If they weren't already dancers, I would have only required a half credit of PE. 

For a half credit each of health and home ec- yes, I gave my DD a home ec credit! It was everyday stuff we already did that I counted like learning reclpes and techniques and printing out for the fair (we enter yearly in live cooking contests, decorating, baked goods,cake decorating, etc, so learned lots of skills for cooking, plus sewing and needlepoint, and other and crafts,) learning nutrition, learning to sew from a pattern and entering in the fair, stating certified in red cross CPR and First Aid and babysitter courses, scout safety projects and field trips and cooking badges and gardening badges,etc. I have my kids responsible for parts of different meals and shopping, budgeting, etc. I purposefully had them get those skills and gave them credit because we put in the hours and I kept track of every project and contest that we did, plus co-op classes that were just enrichment based health classes, no bookwork, but lots of projects and activities on various health and home ec- activities. I just gave them a half credit o the school year that we did the bulk of the projects, but in reality I carried hours over the course of the whole four years. And yes, I noted that on the course descriptions that I wrote for schools that asked for them. 

Edited June 14, 2020 by 2_girls_mommy

[2_girls_mommy]

On 6/13/2020 at 7:59 AM, Evanthe said:

P.E. can be fun....?  maybe?  lol

We do PE together, but I have 5 kids.  That does make it easier.  We go to a park usually on Friday afternoons during the school year - sometimes we swing by and pick up homeschooling friends and bring them with us.  I have a ton of sports equipment now (purposely bought for PE).  We work on sports skills.  We play baseball, play catch, practice batting....we played an actual game recently at a baseball diamond.  We play basketball, kickball, pickle ball, disc golf, soccer....  We've gone hiking and biking.

I've been giving my high schoolers half a credit every year.  I don't count hours anymore.  The counting hours thing stresses me out and after our first year of high school (4 years ago), I stopped doing that.  I just arbitrarily assign credits.

Health - we used a health program -LIFEPAC.  It's like four workbooks.  You read and answer questions.  My older kids hated it, but oh well (they're not used to learning with workbooks).  I gave them 0.5 credit Health.  

I am the same with hours. I don't count them besides in general thinking they roughly dance 5-7 hours a week minus roughly this many holiday weeks, adding full time camp weeks and rehearsals, here's a rough estimate. 

For health and home ec-, I have a half credit once for work done over four years, knowing they'd done way more than necessary for them.

[regentrude]

I gave each kid 0.5 credit of PE for each school year for rock climbing and hiking with us. We saved their organized sports (horseback riding and martial arts, respectively) as extracurricular.

For health, we did one 0.5 cr based on book reading about human physiology/health/reproduction, and getting certified in CPR.

For each, I assigned a grade of P. I only gave letter grades for core academic subjects.

Edited June 14, 2020 by regentrude