This was our first week homeschooling using the K12 curriculum. As I mentioned before I went into this hoping for a relatively relaxed curriculum that we could navigate on our own schedule and still incorporate unschooling to some degree. I am VERY happy with our first week.
First we got a brand new HP computer from the school and that was followed by many boxes of new materials. I am so impressed by the quality and the diversity. It is obvious that these learning items were not designed by K12 but rather they took the best of the best from other sources to make one awesome curriculum.
In the Language Arts box for example we got a few workbooks but mostly it was reading books….TONS of them. We have already done 5 of the lessons and most involved reading stories and talking about them. If my son was able to answer the questions about the story with an 80% or better (and he did) he passes and moves on to the next lesson. Fun and easy!
The Science box had safety glasses, sand, beakers, mirrors, a magnifying glass, seeds, a compass, etc. It appears that most of the science lessons revolve around experiments. Our first science lesson had an online video that we watched about viewing the earth from space then we had to identify continents and tape paper animals to the area where they live on an inflatable globe. It was very enjoyable for my son.
The art box had prints of different paintings and sculpture, tempera paints, pastels, brushes, clay, and more. We did our first art lesson Thursday.
The Phonics box had workbooks, video DVDs, flashcards, letter slides, whiteboards, and other cool stuff. This section does appear to be very structured but this is the area where my son needs some extra work so we’ll see how it goes.
The history box has CDs, maps, and reading books.
The math box we have gotten yet. Many of the materials arrived late.
You have to get 920 hours for the year and finish all the lessons. Of course if your child can do the end of lesson assessment you can skip right to it and avoid the work…love that feature because it enables me to teach the lesson any way I want as long as he gets the main points that they want him to learn. We went over directions NWES, as we drove around running errands and he did the assessment without having to do the printable worksheets from K12.
On average you need 5 hours a day to meet the hourly requirements but if you finish (5) 60 minutes lessons in only 20 minutes each then cool beans….you can be done for the day or get ahead. 12 hours of supplemental time can be added each week too! That means over 2 days worth of time can be spent on field trips, watching educational movies, playing games, ect. That feature really rocks. Can’t get that at a brick and mortar school!
We had to add a new set of shelves to our homeschool area to house all the new goodies but so far it is going REALLY good and my kiddo is having fun….which is the most important thing. I also spoke with his assigned K12 teacher and she was awesome. She invited us to an ice cream party next week and told us to check the K12 calendar where there are probably 6 dozen other events planned with other K12 students and parents. So far so good!
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