The Lane Family: 2025/2026 High School Homeschool Curriculum Choices

Over the past 19 years our curriculum choices have greatly ebbed and flowed with each season.

From starting out with a busywork laden boxed curriculum to fully embracing literature based and Charlotte Mason family learning to realizing that, as with life, homeschooling seasons and needs change and therefore what worked last year, or last decade, may no longer be serving your family well in the current season.

My love for literature based learning has not changed. But, our family needs have. And with our last 3 children nearing the end of their home education journey I'm learning to release more of my ideals and embrace what works best for this season and each child in this current season.

While my firm belief that reading aloud and learning from good, rich books will never change we currently need more curriculum and resources that allow me to be more hands off and each child to work more independently.

This also includes providing resources and opportunities for each child to follow their own natural interests. (Interest led learning/unschooling)

One foundational element in our homeschooling that I am unwilling to let go of, though, is our Morning Time together.

This is our family style learning where we all gather together, read and discuss books I've chosen for topics I want my kids to make sure we cover before my kids launch into adulthood.

With Owen working the opening shift at Chick Fil A 3 days a week and the kids heading off to their homeschool tutorial the other two days we no longer have the ability to gather together in the morning. Instead, I'm trying to find pockets of time between the out of the house classes, work schedules and football practices to gather everyone to read aloud and discuss and it's typically happening mid afternoon. So, the Morning Time title doesn't quite fit anymore but after so many years of doing this style of gathering and learning together I don't really feel like we can call it anything different.

Our kids are also taking online classes this year. My high schoolers are taking courses through The Keystone School Over the years we haven't done a ton of online classes but I am actually loving being a little more hands off and my kids being able to hop online and get their school done with The Keystone School doing the grading as part of the program.

With all of that said....below are the classes, courses and (many of) the resources our current high schoolers are using this school year!

Audrey - 12th grade year

With this last year of actual school I thought through the things I wanted to make sure she knows, and will serve her well, as she launches into adulthood.

She will likely pursue continuing to grow her own social media personal brand and create a product to sell through those channels.

When I think through what topics, learning and understanding she'll need and help her succeed in this business pursuit I curated her curriculum and learning based on that.

Most of these are not daily lessons. Some are once a week (tutorial) and some will be a few times a week. So, while this looks like a huge workload, especially for a senior year, it's really not. What it is is purposeful learning.

• Marketing through The Keystone School - As a business owner learning the concepts of marketing will help her in any future business she grows. Elective, Business Education, Economics
• Spanish- The Keystone School - pretty self explanatory as a second language is a valuable skill in life. There is a change this will change to learning Italian (hello love for Italy) but for now she's continuing Spanish. Elective
• Psychology through a Christian World View- Homeschool Tutorial. This is an example of something she's interested in diving deeper into learning. Our local tutorial offered this class option so it was a quick "I want to take that" from her. Science, Social Studies/History, Elective
• Worldview and Apologetics - Homeschool Tutorial. This has been a natural discussion in our home throughout our kids lives but since it's offered through our local tutorial both Audrey and Owen are taking it. This gives them the chance to be in a group setting discussing current topics at hand. Religious Studies or Theology, Social Studies or Philosophy, Electives, Humanities
• Business Math - we're firm believers in our children learning and understanding math that will serve them in their future lives. This will be learning and actively using real life math in growing her business. Including budgeting, marketing, taxes, growth goals and negotiating business deals. Math, Business Education
• Understanding Female Hormones - I don't know a woman who wouldn't have appreciated learning this before heading into adult years and marriage. I've yet to find a 'curriculum' or guide for this so I'll be putting it together as we go. This will include understanding a female cycle, each hormone and how everyday products, food and practices impact our hormones as females. Science as Anatomy & Physiology or Health/Wellness, Heath, Elective
• Dinner Club- Who wouldn't have loved launching into adulthood with a firm ability to cook?! Once a month Audrey and a couple friends will plan, prepare and present a themed meal for their families. This will include picking an appetizer, main dish, sides, desserts and even drinks for a meal based on a theme (Mexican, Italian, Indian etc). They'll choose recipes, shop for ingredients, seek out ways to learn how to make each thing (if it's beyond basic understanding), prepare each dish and then host our families for the prepared meal (hello, learning hospitality!) Elective
• Daily Workouts - 4 days a week- 2 miles a day + weights. Download the plan I created below. PE
• Business Applications - Learning computer programs like Excel etc. She'll pick this up in the second semester. IT elective, Computer Applications elective
• Art Techniques and Genres- Homeschool Tutorial. She chose to take this because she enjoys art and wanted to be with friends. elective, history
• Guitar and song writing - daily guitar practice and working on original songs. She'll be releasing a new original song in September and hopefully a 3rd single and EP by the end of 2025! I count this towards her English credits required for graduating in Tennessee. This is an example of allowing your child to lean into their natural gifts and then using those interests and gifts to fit into the requirements box. Elective, English

These are 'subjects' she'll be doing individually in addition to what we do collectively during Morning Time.

Owen - 11th grade year

This year is already starting out with growing pains for Owen (and all of us) as he's working his first job which is the opening shift at Chick Fil A. He's working this 3 weekdays a week from 5:30am-2pm. He gets home at 2:30 and leaves for football practice at 3:15 and doesn't get home until 6:45. The days he's not working he's going to tutorial. Essentially leaving very small windows of time for him to get his other school work and Morning Time with us, done. We're just in week 2 of our school year so we're still working out the kinks in how to make this all work. While we very much appreciate his work ethic and drive to work we're trying to help him understand he still has high school work that has to be completed at his age. Football ends in mid October so after that he'll fall into a much less busy groove for school.

I'm sharing the reality of life with high schoolers because I want those of you coming behind us to see how we're navigating it all. He's our first high schooler to have a service industry job so this is new for all of us.

• English- The Keystone School He actually chose to take this course. So while it is a required credit it's also a course he wanted to take so it fits into the Interest Led Learning box for us. English
• Earth Science - The Keystone School - Another course he chose to take when given the choice. And, because I know many will ask....this is a secular curriculum but at 16 we feel we're far past laying a foundation for our beliefs on some of the topics covered. Science
• Worldview and Apologetics - Homeschool Tutorial. This has been a natural discussion in our home throughout our kids lives but since it's offered through our local tutorial both Audrey and Owen are taking it. This gives them the chance to be in a group setting discussing current topics at hand. Religious Studies or Theology, Social Studies or Philosophy, Electives, Humanities
• Investing & FI - He has had an interest in investing for the past 3 years so this year we'll be giving him set amounts of money to invest. He'll utilize Youtube, podcast, email newsletters and any other resources he wants to determine where to invest. He will also be using the First to a Million workbook by Dan Sheeks which teaches the plan to achieve Financial Independence at a young age. We've read over the book and workbook a few times but now that he has a consistent paycheck he'll be able to realistically work through the workbook. (This is math and, for him, will be FAR more valuable than Algebra 2 or Geometry!)Math
• Guitar or piano- 30-60 mins practicing one or the other. This won't begin until after football season. Elective
• Work out/Football- football practice M-Th with Fri games. After the season ends he'll continue daily workouts throughout the week. PE
• Business Applications - Learning computer programs like Excel etc. He'll pick this up in the second semester. IT elective, Computer Applications elective
• Art Techniques and Genres- Homeschool Tutorial. He chose to take this because he wanted to be with friends. Elective, history
• Foreign Language - The Keystone School. Likely Spanish, but he'll pick this up mid Oct. Elective

I'm sure you might be asking...but none of these fit in a pretty little credit box. :) I've listed which credits we'd fit them into in italics.

Around here we make interest led and purposeful learning fit into the boxes vs trying to make our kids fit into a generalized learning box that wasn't created for them as a unique individual with their own gifts, talents and interests.

Originally published on the Lanes Less Traveled website. For full resources, please refer to the original post here.