How to Use Bear Good Fruits™ For High School Students

One of the questions I have been getting more and more as Bear Good Fruits™ grows in popularity is, “Can I use Bear Good Fruits for high school students?”

The answer is yes. Absolutely!

Bear Good Fruits™ was created as a family style Catholic homeschool curriculum, which means your children can gather around the same Scripture, saints, sacred art, nature study, living books, prayers, poetry, and liturgical themes while working at different levels, regardless of age. Your first grader and your tenth grader do not need completely separate worlds in order to receive an age appropriate education.

In fact, one of the greatest benefits of family style homeschooling is that everyone can start with the same foundation while older students are given more depth, more independence, and more responsibility. (Don’t worry, this is a good thing!)

Your middle school or high school student does not necessarily need an entirely separate curriculum for every subject. (Although, please feel free to do as you wish while also following your state’s homeschool requirements.) What older students usually need is deeper reading, richer discussion, more independent research, increasingly complex written work, and meaningful opportunities to demonstrate what they have learned. I don’t usually like recommending “proof of learning” but doing this with older students allows you to give them a bigger workload that will expand their skills in other areas beyond what is immediately available in the curriculum.

Start With the Same Bear Good Fruits™ Lesson

You do not need to create an entirely separate lesson plan for your teenager before family learning even begins. Start with the Bear Good Fruits™ lesson just as you would with the rest of the family.

They can listen to or read the Scripture passages or read them aloud to the family. They can also participate in the discussion, study the sacred art, learn about the saints, read the poetry and prayers, and participate in nature study alongside their younger siblings.

Then, rather than moving on when the family lesson is finished, your older student can take one or more pieces of that lesson deeper.

That part is important. Family style homeschooling does not mean every child completes the same assignment. It means your family learns together while each child is challenged according to their age, ability, maturity, and interest.

Your teenager can still admire the same sacred art as your six year old. They simply have the ability to analyze it differently and more deeply. They can hear the same Gospel passage but examine its historical context, theological meaning, or connection to another part of Scripture. They can study the same saint while reading a full biography or hopping on a laptop to research the period of Church history in which that saint lived.

The family stays together without holding the older student back.

Assign Additional Reading

One of the easiest ways to expand Bear Good Fruits™ for older students is through additional reading.

Each volume includes book recommendations that can be used to expand the weekly lessons. Ask your older child to choose an additional living book, saint biography, historical novel, nonfiction title, primary source, or other book related to the week’s subject.

The Teacher’s Manual already includes book recommendations for younger children, middle school students, and books for parents. Depending on your teenager’s reading ability and maturity, some of the books listed for Mom may also be excellent choices for an older high school student.

An older teen could read one of these independently and then write about it. They might complete a written narration, write a traditional essay, prepare a book review, or even write their own foreword to the book explaining its subject, significance, and why another reader should pick it up.

This gives you an incredibly simple way to increase the academic level without adding another stack of workbooks to your homeschool.

*For bonus points, after they write one of the above suggested options, have them type it up on the computer in a Word Doc or make a presentation in Canva.

Go Deeper Through Discussion

The discussion questions within Bear Good Fruits™ can also become the beginning of much richer conversations with older children.

Younger students may respond to a question fairly simply. An older student can be asked to explain their reasoning, support an answer with evidence, connect the lesson to Scripture or Church teaching, compare two ideas, or consider how what they are learning applies to their own life.

Instead of simply asking what happened, you might ask why it happened. What virtues were present? What might the person have done differently? What does the Church teach about the issue? How does this connect to another saint, another passage of Scripture, or another period of history you have studied?

Teenagers are capable of wrestling with meaningful questions about truth, virtue, vocation, sacrifice, morality, free will, responsibility, and discipleship. Those conversations are not something we need to outsource to a classroom. They are one of the great privileges of homeschooling our older children!

This is also where family learning can become especially valuable. Younger siblings may hear their older brother or sister articulate an idea they had never considered, while the older student gains practice expressing thoughts clearly and respectfully. It’s a win win for the entire family!

Encourage Independent Research

When something in a Bear Good Fruits™ lesson captures your older child’s attention, let them follow that interest further.

They might research the historical setting of a Gospel passage, investigate an event in Church history, study the science behind a nature topic, learn about the culture and geography surrounding a particular saint, examine the symbolism within a work of sacred art, or explore a theological question introduced in the lesson.

Bear Good Fruits™ provides the framework, but your student’s curiosity can help determine how deeply they explore any individual subject.

This type of interest led learning becomes especially valuable during the middle school and high school years because teenagers are beginning to discover what they care about, what they are good at, and what kinds of work God may eventually be calling them toward.

A child who becomes fascinated by sacred architecture may begin studying art history and design. A student who loves the Saint Spotlights may discover an interest in Church history. Nature study could lead into botany, biology, ecology, photography, or scientific illustration. A discussion about one Gospel passage might inspire a deeper study of theology or apologetics.

We do not always know where an interest will lead, and that is part of the beauty of allowing our children room to explore.

Ask for Proof of Learning

As children move into middle school and high school, I like to give them more opportunities to create something that demonstrates what they have learned.

That does not mean every lesson needs a worksheet, quiz, or detailed essay. In fact, there are dozens of ways a student can demonstrate understanding while developing useful skills at the same time.

The point is not to create busywork. The point is to ask an older student to take information in, process it, and then communicate something back.

When they do that, they are practicing much more than one isolated subject!

A presentation includes research, writing, organization, design, and public speaking. A research paper develops reading comprehension, typing, grammar, composition, citation skills, and critical thinking. Teaching a younger sibling requires understanding the information well enough to explain it clearly.

It is very easy to accumulate a wide range of skills using Bear Good Fruits™ as your framework. From public speaking and narration to handwriting, research, typing, art, and writing, there is truly a buffet of opportunities for older students!

Let Older Students Teach

One of my favorite ways to include older children is to let them take on more responsibility within the family lesson itself.

They can read the Scripture passages aloud. They can read the weekly lesson, poem, or prayer to younger siblings. They might prepare a short presentation about one of the saints from the Saint Spotlights. They could lead an art activity, organize supplies for a craft, guide younger children during nature study, or teach something they researched independently.

This gives older students practice with public speaking, leadership, organization, patience, and communication while allowing younger children to learn from their siblings.

It also reinforces something I think can be easily lost when education becomes too segregated by age. Older children have something valuable to contribute to the education of the family.

Connect One Lesson Across Several Subjects

A single Bear Good Fruits™ lesson can easily become the center of several middle school or high school subjects.

Imagine, for example, that the weekly lesson focuses on St. Peter and Christ establishing His Church.

Your older student could read the assigned Scripture passages for theology, research St. Peter’s life for Church history, locate important places connected to his ministry for geography, study a painting of St. Peter for art appreciation, write an essay about leadership or repentance for language arts, and create a timeline of the early Church for history.

They could then prepare a short presentation for the family, giving them an opportunity to practice public speaking. To conclude the week, you might ask them to type a paper explaining what they learned, giving them additional practice with typing, composition, spelling, grammar, and organization.

One family lesson has suddenly covered theology, Church history, geography, language arts, art appreciation, public speaking, research, typing, and composition.

This is one of the reasons I love integrated learning so much and why we created bear Good Fruits the way we did! Real education does not always fit neatly into separate half hour time blocks.

Increase the Level of Writing

Writing is another simple way to adapt the curriculum as children get older.

A younger child may answer a discussion question orally. A middle school student might write a paragraph. An older high school student could turn the same question into a complete essay.

You can also gradually increase expectations over time. A sixth grader might write a short narration after reading a saint biography. An eighth grader may write several paragraphs analyzing the saint’s virtues and choices. A high school student might write a formal essay connecting that saint’s life with a theological or historical question.

You can do the same thing with sacred art, Scripture, history, and literature.

The topic does not have to change just because the student is older. The depth of the response changes.

BONUS POINTS: Make them type it out on the computer in a Word Doc or create a presentation in Canva.

Give Older Students Increasing Responsibility

Middle school and high school students should gradually begin managing more of their own education.

At the beginning of the week, sit down together and look through your Bear Good Fruits™ lesson. Decide which family portions everyone will complete together. Then help your older child choose any extra reading, independent research, writing assignments, or projects they will complete.

You can also allow them to pick out a final project based on their interests.

Once you have decided what needs to be finished, let them decide when and how they will complete those assignments.

Maybe they prefer to complete the reading early in the week and spend Friday writing. Maybe they want to research one topic over several days. Perhaps they want to work on a presentation in short increments throughout the week.

The goal is to gradually move from Mom managing every assignment to the student learning how to manage their own responsibilities. This is key!

That gives them structure without recreating public school at home.

What Does a Bear Good Fruits for High School Look Like?

There is no single correct way to do this, but here is one example.

A younger child may spend fifteen or twenty minutes working through the core material, while your older student takes those same ideas and spends substantially more time exploring them.

Everyone begins together. Everyone does not have to end in the same place.

What About High School Credits?

This is often where homeschool parents begin to panic.

Once a child reaches high school, suddenly there are transcripts, credits, graduation requirements, and possibly college applications to think about. It can feel as though everything you loved about relaxed family style homeschooling has to disappear.

It does not.

You should always understand your own state’s homeschool requirements and determine what your individual student needs for graduation or future plans. However, many of the things your student is already doing can become part of legitimate high school coursework when the work is appropriately challenging and carefully documented.

Bear Good Fruits™ can provide material that contributes to courses involving theology, Church history, literature, composition, art appreciation, geography, nature study, history, public speaking, and independent study. You can then supplement with the books, assignments, labs, math, sciences, foreign language, or other material your particular student requires.

The important thing is that you document what your child is actually learning!

Your Teenager Can Still Learn With the Family

One of the things I most want parents to understand is that having teenagers does not mean family learning has to end or you have to ship them off to highschool.

Your older child can still sit with the family for Scripture. They can still admire sacred art. They can still learn about saints. They can still go on nature walks, listen to read alouds, celebrate feast days, memorize beautiful prayers, and participate in conversations around the table.

They are not too old for beautiful things.

They are simply old enough to encounter those things at a deeper level.

Your teenager can read the Scriptures, poems, prayers, or lessons aloud to younger siblings to practice public speaking. They can present what they learned about one of the saints in the Saint Spotlights. They can lead an art lesson or nature study. They can read one of the more advanced book recommendations and write an essay about it.

They can remain part of the family culture while steadily growing in independence.

That is one of the beautiful things about Bear Good Fruits™. It allows your family to remain united with each other and around the liturgical life of the Church while giving your older students room to grow in wisdom, responsibility, confidence, and maturity.

We Are Educating People, Not Checking Boxes

It is easy to become anxious about whether our children have completed enough pages, accumulated enough credits, or checked every academic box.

Those things have their place. Our children need an education that prepares them to function competently in the world.

But as Catholic parents, we are also asking a much bigger question.

Who are these children becoming?

We are helping them recognize truth, develop discipline, communicate clearly, discover their God given gifts, appreciate goodness and beauty, and learn how to use those gifts faithfully.

Eventually, our children will leave our homes. They will encounter ideas we cannot filter for them. They will make decisions about work, vocation, relationships, family, and faith.

I do not simply want my children to know how to pass a test.

I want them to know how to think.

I want them to know how to learn.

I want them to recognize what is true.

I want them to understand their Catholic faith and know why they believe it.

And most of all, I want their education to point them toward the purpose for which God created them.

That is why Bear Good Fruits™ is not about recreating school at home. It is about giving our families a shared educational framework rooted in Scripture, the saints, beauty, nature, the liturgical year, and the life of the Church, then allowing each child to grow from that foundation according to their age and ability.

Our goal is not simply getting them through high school.

Our goal is helping them become the people God created them to be.

That is Homeschooling for Heaven™.