High School Credits with the CM Method

I honestly just called it “fine arts” and gave a half credit for that, then detailed what we had done in the course descriptions.  (Does the co-op provide course descriptions?  VERY VERY helpful if you do!)  Then I added in whatever else they had done–one son spent tons of time on piano and organ, although mostly self-taught, and served as our church assistant organist.  The next one doesn’t get to play much in church–he plays electric guitar and composes (is just finishing an online song composition course from Berklee).  But I take into account how much time they spent and I gave two credits of music study and performance for oldest’s piano, and plan on giving at least one credit for guitar-playing son.  So I just counted this as a fine arts credit–many colleges ask directly for a credit in this.  I’d keep a detailed list of what was done, using the co-op course description or your own.  

For nature study—to be honest, I just counted what work was done in the science courses we did.  Yours may be different, being co-op based, but to be honest, by high school time my older kids’ nature study became more focused on what they were already studying, and on Scouting.   They became very goal-oriented young men, lol, and didn’t meander and draw in journals much.  🙂  Although they HAVE taught nature related topics at Scout camps and for badges.  Yes, I suppose you could detail what was done and give a half-credit in sciences for nature study/observation, in addition to your other courses.

Yes.  What we do is always going to be astronimically more, deeper, better.  It just is.  That’s OK.  We still have to communicate with colleges in their “language” of credits, etc.  That enables them to do a basic, very very rudimentary comparison of our kids to others.  They aren’t going to get the entire picture yet, lol, but just an idea. We often send kids with lots more credits than others anyway.  (I got lots of questions on my oldest son’s transcript showing five foreign language credits and six social studies credits, lol.)  But I could show based on hours, texts, and other work, that he’d put in time and effort at least somewhat like other kids.  It’s been a process of him going to classes in college and finding out that he already knows a lot of the material there that has shown his professors, I think, his greater depth of learning, his greater engagement with the material.  That’s OK.  Your kids are going to shine and stand out, and that’s OK too.  

Just keep good records for the course descriptions!