K12 Online School

Posted at April 6, 2009

As I mentioned in my last post, currently the curriculum we are using is K12/COVA. We just started this program last fall and so far I really have enjoyed using it.

At first I was a not sure if I wanted to use it because it was basically doing public school at home. One of my main reasons for choosing to homeschool was that I didn’t want my children learning all the evolution “stuff”, but not being taught about creation. I am not against the idea of them learning what evolution is about, they need to be aware of what other beliefs there are (which I strongly believe this is a belief or theory, not scientific fact), but I also want them to understand what we believe about creation and why we believe it.  I even have to say I was very impressed when going through one of our units in History, it was about the life of Jesus and how Christianity was started.

One of the biggest reasons I have enjoyed using COVA is that all the lesson plans are laid out for you, but it doesn’t neccessarily mean you have to follow it to a tee.  If you want to do extra lessons in one day so you can have another day of the week “off”, you can still do that. Or if you want to take one day and do an entire unit in a subject, such as Science, you can do that too. It has been nice to have that option available, especially since I work part time Tues – Sat. I usually try to do more school on Mondays as that is the only day where I can focus totally on school for the day. Also with the usual doctor’s appts, errands, etc that all families have to deal with in an average week, if we skip a day, we can always make up lessons later.

Another really exciting thing about COVA is the Barton program which is for dyslexic children. Though I do not currently use the program myself (though that may be changing due to a business opportunity that my sister and I are looking into) my sister has been using it this year because 2 of her 3 children are dyslexic (1st & 5th grade).   When talking to the teachers at school, she was constantly hitting brick walls about how to help them. Public schools in Colorado do not have any programs set up for dyslexic children (not to mention she couldn’t even get a doctor here to diagnose them as dyslexic!). At first, she was against the idea of homeschooling because she didn’t think she could handle it, but then she heard about the Barton program and decided to give it a try. As a result her 5th grader who couldn’t even read simple words when they started is now able to read complete sentences and short stories and her 1st grader is able to recognize all the letters of the alphabet and the sounds they make and read sentences. This has been very exciting to watch throughout the year and it has been so awesome to see the confidence that these children are building in themselves! At one point, my little niece was very discouraged and saying things like “I am just a dummy, I won’t ever learn to read!”, but the day that she was able to put together the sounds of the letters to read her first word, she ran through the house, yelling at the top of her lungs, “I am going to learn to read!!” It was so neat to see her realize that she is not a “dummy” after all!

All in all, I have really enjoyed this program so far. I hope this post helps someone if they have been tossing around the idea of using one of the programs such as K12.

Home School

If you enjoyed this post, please consider to leave a comment or subscribe to the feed and get future articles delivered to your feed reader.

Comments

5 Responses to “K12 Online School”

Leave Comment

(required)

(required)