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How do you use KahnAcademy in your homeschool - if at all


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Mainly, as bribery for getting school work done and a healthy form of competition between brothers.  Electronics are very regulated in our home, so access of any kind is a huge treat.

 

After work is done and corrected, they are allowed to work on Khan Academy.  They are required to do five minutes each of at least two subjects.  

 

Math: at or below grade level for fun reinforcement. If there is a lesson that they are having a hard time grasping, they will watch the video.  This is rare, however, as Math is my specialty.

 

Computer: programming and computer science. DS11 is interested. I am not, nor do I have any experience in these areas.  He watches and works along in those areas as time allows.

 

Grammar: DS11 loves the Grammar.  He listens to DS9's grammar lesson in FLL3, but watches the videos and completes the practice roughly 30 min a week.  It's sticking well.  

 

 

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I let mine do a little right after Rosetta Stone if they want or if I'm feeling like assigning some of the grammar or math questions because I feel a kid is struggling with something and could use some extra practice, or because I want to cover something that's not (yet) covered in another program with use. Broccoli did some of that for a while, but he's a little stuck in 3rd grade math now - he's done some of 4th grade math too, but he needs more math instruction to move on with Khan math at this point (we do not use the videos, and he cannot do multi-digit multiplication or long division yet, so he can't do much until he learns those). Celery's still not caught up on Khan to the point where he's at with math, so when he's in the mood he might spend up to half an hour or so, at which point I tend to want my laptop back.

 

ETA: I also use it myself - I'm not going to be a deer caught in the headlights when my kids reach high school math.

Edited by luuknam
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I use it over the summer for review.  I alternate it with Prodigy.  Before Prodigy, Khan was engaging enough to hold my oldest son's interest but since Prodigy, it's more of a chore.  

 

I pull Khan out from time to time when I want a video on a topic.  But otherwise, it's mostly summer review.  

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  • 2 weeks later...

I used it as a supplement to whatever math curriculum we were using. After a few years of homeschooling, I realized it was advantageous to use more than one curriculum as it allowed my kids to see there were multiple ways to get answers and they could find the approach that worked best for them. I also realized that more practice made them more comfortable with math - but I wanted them to have fun doing it.

 

So - I came up with a reward scheme tied to the number of points they earned and the badges they achieved. I have actually used it with inner city students I am working with too. For my own kids, the points translated into dollars and they could choose anything they wanted to buy with it. For the inner city students, I had a range of items they could trade the points for.

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I've only ever used it for an occasional video, but once we hit pre-algebra, the videos didn't compare to AoPS so it's been a while since we've used it. DD is also not at all interested in online learning games so has no interest in doing anything that is competitive, point winning, etc. She never liked Prodigy or any math apps that everyone likes. So, it was just never very useful to her learning style.

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Actually, we have used it for more than math, but we do use it for math to make a point more clear (like dividing fractions or whatever it was that she was hung up on for the "why" of why invert the other fraction and then multiply).  We've used a bit of the world history for extra information about, say, the Haitian revolution or early American colonial life, because it can be treated more as a unit study of that topic.  And we've just dabbled really in some of the science to again supplement what we're already doing.  But like deerforest's dd, mine is kind of badge-averse, doesn't get the competitive nature of it all and could care less that she's only done 14% of a topic.   

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I recently starting using it as I wanted Dd to have more math practice and I like that I can suggest things for her to watch or complete. I just have her do it for review, usually while I'm working with her sister one-on-one. She loves it as a typical Type A who is motivated by the competition, badges, etc. She's also doing the Grammar and Science stuff but I don't assign those, she just does those in her own time for fun. 

 

I think the instruction is very thorough and often the math presents the topic in a different way than was presented in our curriculum. I like exposing her to different ways of approaching the same problem so Khan is serving us really well for that. 

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We use Khan Academy for SAT practice and for computer programming.  Regarding programing, my daughter has taken Intro to JS: Drawing and Animation, Advanced JS: Games and Visualizations, Intro to HTML/CSS.

 

 

Do you count these as high school credit? 

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Do you count these as high school credit?

My daughter is only in 6th grade, and she takes these programming courses mostly as a hobby.

 

I haven't looked I to them enough to know how much credit they would be worth for high school. I believe they are very introductory courses, so you would probably need to combine multiple programming courses in order to come up with a half credit or whole credit for high school.

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My ds used Khan Academy for prealgebra--we had other materials available also, but that was his "spine" program. It seemed to work, and when he then went to public school for 8th he tested as solid in pre-algebra and ready for algebra. It is not the most "mathy" program available, but it got done, which was better than something that might be considered 'better' but that would not get done.  He mostly used the problems and liked the badges and so on. He seemed to do it in a AOPS type way where he just jumped into the problems first and worked on solving them, and rarely used the videos--if after trying he could not figure something out, usually he asked me rather than go to the videos.  Conversely, a girl we know is using a different math program as her "spine" but goes to the Khan videos whenever she gets stuck.

 

My ds has also looked at other parts such as art history and programming and science.  I think he liked the physics and perhaps geology parts.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I look at the Scope & Sequence for the curriculum we use (MEP), then look at Khan to see where there is overlap. I use Khan videos when we are about to introduce a new concept. We watch the Khan video together (mainly so I can hear how they talk about it) and then my kids watch a few more and do some practice problems. The next day when we progress with our regular curriculum. 

But, my kids don't think the videos are fun. They tolerate them because they have to. But I appreciate having another voice introducing concepts and my kids hearing things explained more than once.

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