Anyhow, we have been enrolled in an online public school. By Nov. I was convinced that I did not like online school. My kids like computers so several hours of online assignments and then more time to just play online games - was so too much time glued to the computer. I also did not enjoy the curriculum, I won't go into details. I also believe in hands on learning. I believe kids learn more by doing and also taking into consideration their personal learning style. I can show stats if anyone is interested. In the beginning I tried to supplement hands on learning with their online assignments. That didn't work since they had a deadline in which to finish their course. If we deviated then they'd get behind, etc. So instead I began researching options. I wanted to find something that would target my kids needs. Something affordable. I researched different methods of homeschooling. I settled upon, unit studies (multi-level teaching). With this method, there is a topic at hand for the unit - you teach your children together and you draw the different subjects from that topic - then there are separate assignments or projects based on grade level. I began researching options. I knew that coming up with my own stuff was not a feasible option. Too much time to plan out lessons, activities, assignments. I finally narrowed down my choices. I chose KONOS. It is a faith based unit curriculum grades K-8. Its units go by character traits of God. You study a character trait, read real books together, hands on projects, writing, science, etc. It covers all major subjects - except Math and grammer. I have chosen some workbooks to work out of for those subjects for the remainder of this year. Maybe for next year I'll choose to buy actual curriculum for Math, we'll see. From what I've read the "scope" (stuff studied) is the same as most schools, but the "sequence" (order) is different. I'm looking at getting another volume so I can mix and match and put the order as I want. Also volume II has the Presidents and electoral process which would be good since we are in an election year. I am excited for something different. I am excited to be done researching . . . for now anyways. I bought mine off ebay today, so I saved some money. I bought the workbooks of amazon for cheap.
There's still more to do. I do not have any college credits, so state law requires that either I have a certified teacher monitor my students or I take a homeschool qualifying course. My mom is a certified teacher so I could ask her to monitor their progress, but I am choosing to take a qualifying course. As long as I intend to take the next available course I am good for the year. There are different ways to take a course. Great Expectations has a course in May. I will be registering for that course. Once that is done we are set for life I think. WA state also requires annual testing. Since Jorge is not 8 years old yet, he doesn't need to be tested. I will be registering Cathy for testing. Right now I am looking at two different companies that will be having testing in May in Tri-cities. With the online school I didn't have to think much about this stuff since they took care of it all.
So that is what is going on. My kids are excited about the upcoming change. I am excited. We read in our first unit we study senses and we get to dissect a cow's eye to see the different parts of the eye! Through my research I found a homeschool mom's blog
who uses the curriculum, she has lots of links and even made posts helping other to organize the curriculum for daily use. I read her testimony. Its interesting to connect with someone you don't even know. Well, we journey on waiting on mail. We will keep with the online school until I get and familiarize myself with the curriculum. Hopefully this will be our last month with online stuff.
No comments:
Post a Comment