K12 Review: A VERY Challenging Homeschool Curriculum

by NMmom

Visitor Review: K12 is a VERY challenging curriculum at every grade level. It is very structured and if you decide to buy the whole curriculum, you are likely to find it is almost too much, even for a very bright, motivated student.


I chose to buy Science 3, and History & Art History 3, together with English 6 for my older child. I found these courses useful & interesting for both my 5th grade and 2nd grade child at the time, with some adaptation necessary for the older child.

I chose not to do K12 math, although it is very rigorous and almost a whole grade level ahead. As the parent, I disliked having to input whether individual math problems has been answered correctly or not into the computer. What good is an online program if you have to do all the figuring long-hand on paper, grade it, and then input whether each answer is correct or not in order to pass onto the next lesson? This is tedious busywork and K12 really ought to find a better way.

While secular, K12 does a good job of covering different religions and regions of the world in its history & art history courses.

The Gr. 6 English course was excellent, covering grammar via a workbook, sentence mechanics, copious appealing reading- including classics, discussion and writing about readings.

The Science was interesting enough to do with both my kids even though they were 3 grades apart. Make certain your kids are comfortable with working on a computer, since the delivery of the material is largely computer-based even in the younger grades.

Lastly, K12 has a neat computerized lesson plan tool which tracks your child's progress through the curriculum and allows you to pick up in the middle of a lesson if needed. K12 is for those families wanting a challenge and not for the faint-hearted!

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