Learning Activities for High School: 9 Ideas Your Teen Will Love

Are you frustrated trying to add fun learning activities for high school students? Elementary kids have so many fun activities you can do from going to the store for math, a nature hike for science, or reading a historical fiction book for history.

High school uses a lot of dull textbooks, but with a bit of thought, you can enliven your high school student’s studies with some fascinating learning activities appropriate for teenagers.

Learning Activities for High School

These learning activities will give your high school students depth and relevance to their studies.

What Would I Protest?

Ask your high school teenager, if they could put together a protest, what would they protest, and why.

The protest doesn’t need to be earth-shattering nor does it need to be about current events. Perhaps you are studying ancient Rome. What is something about the ancient Roman culture that your child does not like? Would they protest crucifixion or slavery?

You can do the same about other topics you’re studying. As you and your child are planning the protest, real or fictional, ask your child what they’d like to protest and why. Who is going to be involved? Also, ask when and where the protest would be held.

How Can I Help?

By the same token, ask your teenager how they’d like to help. You can discuss ways to head out into your community and help or you can use a topic that’s come up in your history courses.

Perhaps they’d like to plan how to help lost puppies find their owner. Another idea is to plan how teenagers could help the Americans during the American Revolution.

Sit down and have your teen make a plan. How would they get other people involved? Why is this an important topic to them? What would be the results of helping in such a manner?

Having your child plan a way to aid others will help to bring the high school subjects to life.

Research Projects Are Perfect Learning Activities for High School

Along the same line, have your child take a topic they learned about in one of their courses and complete a research project.

Learn more about cells, mitochondria, or photosynthesis. Study the new developments in the area. Read books and websites about the topic. Watch videos as well.

When the research is done, you can have your child write up a research paper if you’d like. Your kid may prefer to create a video or PowerPoint about the topic instead.

If your child would like, you can invite a group of friends over for a presentation about the topic or ask the library if your child can give a short presentation. It’s a great way to summarize the research project.

Rewrite a Textbook Chapter

When I was in college, a professor needed to leave for a week. So he put us in small groups and told us to rewrite the chapter of the textbook that we would have covered that week.

We needed to read the textbook and figure out what it was talking about. Example problems needed to be created and the chapter rewritten in our own words. It was a fun change from the normal sequence of lectures, problems, and tests.

You can do the same for your high school student. Encourage them to take a chapter out of the textbook and rewrite it. Add more information. Include questions at the end for students to answer. See if they can make the chapter more interesting.

Then have your child hand you the chapter to read and answer the questions.

Create Your Own Book About the Topic

Another fun idea is for your child to write their own short book about the topic they’re learning about. They could create a chemistry notebook full of their notes, commentary, and questions.

This is similar to the idea of notebooking where your teenager writes about what they learned each day. The pages are collected by topic.

Instead of keeping the notebooking pages in a three-ring binder, type the pages into the computer and sort them into a series of folders. At the end of the school year, print the pages before having them bound to make a book.

Creating their own book is a great learning activity for high school teenagers.

Perform a Play

Encourage your child to write and perform a play about a historical or scientific concept. They can use siblings or friends to help perform the play.

Some ideas might be to recreate the Battle of Thermopylae, describe how the water cycle works, or demonstrate how Michaelangelo created David.

Let your teenager’s imagination go wild as they come up with ideas on what type of play they could create.

Create a Powerpoint or Video

Another way to add a fascinating learning activity for high school into your teenager’s studies is to have them create a PowerPoint or video. This is a great substitution for taking a test or writing a research paper.

Give your child the chance to show how much they learned on the topic. Encourage your teen to spice up the Powerpoint or video with music and artwork. It’s a chance to be creative.

Also, see if you can find a way for the Powerpoint or video to be displayed for family and friends to enjoy.

Learning Activity for High School: Science Projects

Often high school science curricula use a series of small experiments throughout the year for the science lab. Some of the experiments can be interesting while others can be rather dull.

Another option is to give your child the opportunity to pick one large science project to complete over the school year instead. This gives your child the opportunity to dive into a science topic and truly learn the ins and outs of the concept.

They might be able to enter a science fair or simply record their findings as a Powerpoint, display, or video.

The biggest point is that the science project will give your child a chance to dig their teeth into a topic they’re interested in learning more about.

End of the Year Show

At the end of the year, put on an end-of-the-year party for family and friends. This works very well if you gather several families together.

Give your high school students the chance to highlight what they’ve learned, perform a play, and show the videos they’ve made. Put out displays and lay any books created on tables for people to read.

The end-of-the-year show will be a great way to highlight everything your high school teenager has learned throughout the year.

In the end, learning activities for high school students require being creative about ways to add depth to your teenager’s schoolwork. This will give your child the opportunity to dive deeper into topics they enjoy and breathe life into their studies.

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Sara Dennis

Sara Dennis is a veteran homeschool mom of six. She's still homeschooling her younger two kids after the older four kids have graduated, entered college, and moved on to adult life. In her free time, she blogs at Classically Homeschooling.