Hello, I am Sherri from north central Ohio, have three sons... 19, 11, and 6, and we are starting our second year of homeschooling. Thank you , it is great to be here. Last year we took the leap with our 5th grader and pulled him from public school, and this year our youngest will be starting kindergarten. We used an online school last year but I am really looking into moving into the traditional method. We liked many things about the online academy, our teacher was incredible, and they also had some great outings for the kids. I appreciated that I did not have to come up with a cirriculum (I worry that I feel totally out of my element and not knowing which way to turn-if coming up with it myself). With that being said, it was not a perfect fit for the 5th grader. Many things made both of us want to bang our heads on the wall and I definitely did not feel the freedom- both overall, and also to experiment and try new things or things we just wanted to do, that I had greatly hoped we would feel in doing this. So, the long story on why we are considering moving into the traditional method (I hope that is the correct terminology). We are doing this for all the reasons I have been reading listed here in different threads. I am so glad I am not alone in my concerns about our public school system! I need all the help I can get in making the decision (leap LOL) to pull out of the online virtual academy and also in cirriculum for 6th grade and kindergarten. Thanks! Sher
Welcome Shar. I'm new here, too. It was interesting for me to read about your experience with the online/virtual schooling. That's what we're doing this year with our soon-to-be 1st grader. We are really looking forward to it for the same reasons you mentioned -- not having to come up with curriculum, knowing he's staying up to grade level, having the support of certified teachers, etc. I am anxious to see how it works for our family! I am really not much help with the curriculum question, but our son did Abeka for two years of pre-K and we were absolutely impressed with the outcome. Our daughter completed her first year of pre-K with Abeka this spring, with the same result. They are schooled at a Christian preschool, though, so I am not sure what the differences could be with doing it at home. Good luck!
Hi Jodi, thank you so much for your post. It is so great to talk to someone else in the same shoes. We did love many things about the online school, and are still debating which way to go for next year. Our online school provided all the books and even a new computer. Once we learned the system for the online school it was easy to navigate through the virtual school itself. On one hand, I liked that we had to log our hours for each day, but on the other hand I did feel like big brother watching over us. Our teacher was always there for us by email or phone, and she was completely supportive- and held us up during times we felt frustrated and found it difficult to continue on. (My middle son struggles with almost all school work). I liked the way some of the subjects were planned out, but some things I did not like-for example- for our music cirriculum the majority of it was learning earlier history composers. I felt a few would be fine, maybe even 5-10 of them, but this just bombarded the child with so many of them, (VERY boring for a child, even an adult lol) and crazy questions, such as... where these composers learned, what towns they lived in, where they trained (composers I had never heard of). I felt it would have been fine to read about these things, but that shouldn't have been the focus of the lesson- it should have been more about the music style and relavance to the time period, something of that sort. It just seemed to focus on too many tiny details to me. We felt the history section was the same. The pace was very fast (at least for my son) and so felt like we never had much time to just go out and explore or learn in other ways, which is what I really wanted when I started this. We did have to take several assessment tests throughout the year, and did have to drive about an hour (several days) to our state's achievement testing. They did have some great outings for the kids and we met some wonderful other families at these. Thank you for the information on Abeka, I want to be relaxed and slow paced with my K son but would love for him to start to read and learn beginning math this coming year. Thank you! Sher
Did you use Connections Academy, by chance? It sounds kind of similar to what we're doing; we'll also be getting supplies and a computer from them, as well as an internet subsidy. I'm hoping that our experience is not identical to public school, only at home, because I do want to have a little more flexibility. I'd like to tweak things here and there if it seems necessary (like with that music class; what kid would be interested enough in composers to retain all of that information?!) and I hope that we'll have that ability. I definitely am concerned that there will not be as much freedom as we're hoping for, with attendance requirements and requirements for contact with the teacher, etc. We want to make this our own, basically, but still have the support of the teacher, the curriculum sent to us, and not have significant out-of-pocket costs. Maybe I'm hoping for the best of both worlds a little much? Regardless, I think this will be a good stepping stone for us. Thank you for all of the info and opinion, I really appreciate it. And, again, good luck with finding that perfect curriculum for your family!
Hi Jodi, no it was not Connections, it was the K-12 program (might be the same?). I do think it is possible to tweak the program a bit and add in things you want, if we stay with it, that is what we will do this coming year. You still would have their assessments for each section and the units- so would have to do the work they assign but I do think it can be adjusted a bit. I am trying to figure out how I can deal with things- such as the ton of composers that I felt was not necessary. Sher
