Review of K 12 Homeschool Curriculum for 4th Grade

by kccarter
(TX)

Visitor Review: I tried K12 with my 4th grader this school year through the public school year in TX. We dropped out after only 4 weeks.

Reasons:

1. Too rigorous and fast pace

2. Too many subject to continuously balance throughout the entire year

Subjects:
1. Math
2. Science
3. Health (basically science)
4. Social Studies
5. Music or Foreign Language
6. Art (appreciation and painting)
7. Handwriting (4th grade intro to cursive)-Language Arts
8. GUM-Grammar, Usage, Mechanics- Language Arts
9. Writing- paragraph/paper- Language Arts
10. Literature- Language Arts
11. PE
12. State Text prep (study hall)
13. Odds and ends (mailing assignments in, writing summaries of class connects- explained later in this review)

3. Parent/Guardian deemed learning coach but is actually the teacher.

If you are looking for a live interactive virtual classroom for your child that is like Skpe (where your child and the teacher can actually see and interact with each other), this is not it.

If you are looking for a DVD or recorded (visual and audio) classroom, this is not it.

K12 provides you with a very comprehensive curriculum with daily boring and dry lesson plans. Example: lesson 1 (nouns) says explain to your child that a noun is a person, place, or thing. Another example is read pages 1- 20 and answer the questions.

There is no low cost/low prep/low execution suggests on how to actually convey the idea other than just actually saying it.

My child needs songs, hands-on activities, and whatever else is in the bag of trick to make the point come alive and be easy to understand.

Therefore, if your child needs this kind of thing on regular basis you will be on the net, at the library, in the teacher supply stores, and thumbing through teacher magazines like the Mailbox all year long and for almost every subject. The teachers are nice and helpful but it is impossible for them to give you a bag of tricks for every concept and subject covered.

You can call and email teacher as much as you need to. If K12 was more like Skpe or DVD or recorded (visual and audio) classroom we probably would have stayed.

My child has had great success with Math U See (MUS). The program comes with DVD’s of the instructor teaching an actual class. The DVD’s are meant for the teacher/parent but some teacher/parents (including myself) let it teach the child.

I simply pop it in, press play and pause it to reiterate every point. The instructor gives my child all the support, tips, and tricks needed to make each concept easy to understand. Check out my complete review on MUS on this site under Math U See.

4. Another reason why I feel parent/guardian is deemed learning coach but is actually the teacher.

The virtual class is more like a weekly webinar called class connects with “The Teacher”. The connects are live and consist of power point presentations. The student can talk or type to teacher and other students too. The teacher also provides a link to play the webinar back for up to a week. He/She does cover concept that are suppose to be learned sometime during that year but your child may not currently be studying that because of the flexibility you have in completing course work. Classes are taught by “the teacher” basically so that the state can cover their own butt and say that the child has been taught by a state certified teacher all concepts for that state’s test.

5. No time to preview internet portion of K12 before school year starts.

If you register in a timely fashion you will get all of your books and other materials before school starts so there is plenty of time to preview it.

But you will not have a chance to preview internet portion because you will not have access until the day before school starts. This puts the learning coach and student at a disadvantage because you are behind before you start. You have to get acclimated to the system. You don’t want to assume that they are to start with chapter 1 with all subjects and go in order of the book so you don’t start before the official start date.

The internet portion tells you what to do and how to do it and if you don’t click it as complete it automatically rolls that assignment over to the next day. So if your child need all of the extras (songs…) or if you (the learning coach) are unfamiliar with a subject or concept you have to spend time find things to help you which equates to getting farther and farther behind. They do provide parents with some things (if necessary) to help parent get familiar or re familiarize themselves with a subject and/or concept.

6. K12 says that it is going to take you about 6 hours to complete but it take most people longer. Some K12 veteran parents told me that they do a 6 day school week to stay on track because all thought you can go at your own pace you stay have to be done by a certain date at the end of the school year.

7. Poor use of technology what individuals and states pay of access to K12
As I mentioned above, Skpe or DVD style instructors teaching all subjects and all concept would have been great. Video and computer (Discovery Channel, History Channel, Science Channel style, PBS Kids Channel style) of concepts would be great especially when it comes to Social Studies and Science.
Although there is some computer animation for math, it would have students thoroughly comprehended text if all concepts of science and social studies was added.

7. I would recommend K12 to high schoolers because the have all the foundation that they need to do the type of program independently. And if you decided to use it with your K- 8 grade, they should not be behind academically. My 4th grader was behind. The 6 hours a day is for new material. It really does not include too much catch up.

8. Teachers are not assigned grade levels they are assigned to families.

My child has a speech delay. Half the time he does not talk in complete sentences, have a complete thought, use correct grammar naturally (stuff he should have picked up when he was learning to talk), or use correct vocabulary. His IQ is below average but he is no where near being mentally retarded. He can speak clearly and so most times his issues go undetected by most people. It's complicated. But I feel that the info I provided will help all make a decision.

I am on the fence about K12. It just depends on what you are looking for.

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