K12 homeschooling program

[emzhengjiu]

An acquaintance asked me about this program. Apparently, it's offered either as a stand alone program or a virtual school customized to each state's requirements. Is this a good program for children who are academically accelerated? I'm curious since I don't know anyone who's using it. Thanks so much.

 

J.S.

[newbie]

HI,

We have used K12 about five yrs, before that was public charter, and before that was on my own. Mostly BJU.

 

K12 is good program. You can tweak it to be highly challenging, because there are a lot of recommendations. Or you can just do basic. You can do three days in one sometimes. I think one year, my daughter breezed through in about three months. It depends how fast and how slow you want to work.

 

One year my appendix burst, and I had no back up so the kids were out of school for four months. I called them and they said fine. Its totally at your own pace. They used to have Apex for high school but K12 weaned them out this year. Apex was a big adjustment, because you had to answer to teachers and deadlines. Tough first year. This I suggest for accelerated. K12 is weaning program out and starting own middle school and high school with teachers. My eleven yr uses just myself and K12. I think I will put her with teachers in January, she has been breezing through. The older one needs more rigid structure and pre college classes. They both enjoy the adjustability.

 

Hope helps,

Jeannette

[Scarlett]

An acquaintance asked me about this program. Apparently, it's offered either as a stand alone program or a virtual school customized to each state's requirements. Is this a good program for children who are academically accelerated? I'm curious since I don't know anyone who's using it. Thanks so much.

 

J.S.

 

We just finished up our second full year with it here. 1st and 2nd grade. We are going through the AR Virtual Academy and it is all free. Including computer and internet connection.

 

I love the K12 curriculum, but I really don't have much to compare it to. I hear through the hs grapevine that it is fairly, relatively, rigorous. K12 does a placement test, so any acceleration would probably be noted at that point. You can be placed behind or ahead of grade level in Math and LA. For instance, my ds skipped 2nd grade math complete. So this year we just finished up, he did all 2nd grade work, except 3rd grade math.

 

SWB helped write the history curriculum for the lower grade levels. I love it. Very similiar to SOTW.

 

This discussion about K12 always come down to 2 issues. 1)the K12 curriculum itself. and 2) If going through a Virtual School, how well does that state handle it....some have unbelievable hoops to jump through, but I think AR is very very reasonable and accomodating.

[genie]

K12 is a great curriculum. If you haven't already joined but are interested, there is a yahoo group called K12Gifted where I am sure you could get a lot of great advice about using the curriculum with an advanced student.

[newbie]

:iagree:Hi,

 

Thats something I forgot to mention, I do it independent. I dont like jumping hoops for public. I cant find medical records, birth certificates, blah, blah.Not that organized. So I pay for everything, not so bad if not in high school. But jumps to 350.00 a course in high school.

 

International is much, ,much more. Unfortunately I am finding it is so new, cant get feedback if its worth it.

 

Jeannette

[Scarlett]

:iagree:Hi,

 

Thats something I forgot to mention, I do it independent. I dont like jumping hoops for public. I cant find medical records, birth certificates, blah, blah.Not that organized. So I pay for everything, not so bad if not in high school. But jumps to 350.00 a course in high school.

 

International is much, ,much more. Unfortunately I am finding it is so new, cant get feedback if its worth it.

 

Jeannette

 

How is the International different from the regular K12 High School?

 

If it were up to me I would probably do independent too. I don't like having to do the music and although I love the art, I don't like having to do so many projects...which we don't always do anyway, but still....going through the VA makes dh feel better I think, plus it is free...and gather a few documents once a year is not a big deal to me.

[newbie]

Hi Scarlett,

 

I am not familiar with public. My husband sure wanted to go that route. Do you have to do art and music. With independent that is extra, my girls tried music but thought it was too babyish. They already had piano for four yrs. I think we did intermediate.

 

I have looked over k12/int website many times. We are at point where we need college help, what classes to take, when SATs, what best route to go. So instead of me racking brain. They have extra staff on hand. They also have tutors. Now, public may already have all this stuff. But I dont get it independently. Anyway, they have tutors, people to help with college, help with what classes meet Ca requirements. etc. Kind of scheduling help, because its going to be busy two yrs. They also have more classes than reg. K12. More electives. It kind of seems we are always standing at the fork in the road.

 

But, since I found this site yesterday. Its like I got a tomtom gps.

 

Thanks,

Jeannette

[Scarlett]

Hi Scarlett,

 

I am not familiar with public. My husband sure wanted to go that route. Do you have to do art and music. With independent that is extra, my girls tried music but thought it was too babyish. They already had piano for four yrs. I think we did intermediate.

 

Each state is probably different, but with AR we have to do the courses that are required. So ds had math, LA, history, science, music and art for 2nd grade. However, AR only requires work samples on the 4 core subjects.

 

No one asked me a single thing all year long about music and art. Ds takes piano and so I just hit the highlights in music. Btw, I have heard over and over again that the music is a very very good program and that if you will just use it, it will get easier. That is true. The times I've forced myself to follow it, it did become easier, and I learned some things as well. I think that was part of the problem--I am so musically illiterate.

 

As for the art, I think it is a great program and I did follow it all year long. I did fudge on some of the projects...I'm just not much of a projects kind of mom.

[Guest Lynnboivin]

I am going the K12 route this year. I live in Georgia and I homeschooled my kids from pre-k until they reached 5th and 7th grades. I then had to put them in a public school, after my illness, and that has been a terrible experience. After being in public school for 2 years I am going back to teaching at home. With the Lord willing I will be able to.

I heard about the Ga Virtual Academy which uses the K12 curriculum and after much reading and research I decided I am going to give it a try. I talked with them the other day and they told me if I did not like it then I was not bound to it and just go back to the old stand-by of homeschooling. After all what have I got to loose? It's Free!!! and if I don't like them I will just go back to winging it on my own.

Everyone that I have spoke to that is using them really likes it. They like the fact that it keeps them motivated and keeps you from slacking off and not getting things done like you should.

I think that is one of the hardest things in homeschooling is staying motivated and being disciplined enough to not slack off and cut corners and not finishing work that should be done. I know a lot of homeschoolers that do this and this VA way of doing public school at home helps with that.

I will let everyone know how we are doing when school starts back on August 13th and what the pros and cons are.

To those thinking of this route I think the deadline is June 16th in order to be guaranteed a placement. As far as the paperwork. It took me 15 minutes to get my stuff together and copied. Not much to do....considering you are getting free textbooks and supplies.:D

[Night Elf]

I talked with them the other day and they told me if I did not like it then I was not bound to it and just go back to the old stand-by of homeschooling.

 

My friend did 4 months with GA Virtual Academy and dropped it. I believe she had to send all her materials back, but I could double check that. I remember she purchased stuff from K12 when she dropped GVA because she wanted to continue with K12 on her own.

 

My son was using K12 up until a week ago. He did fine in 5th grade but wasn't doing well with 6th grade. I really liked K12. I'm hoping to switch my daughter from Calvert to K12 when she's ready for 5th grade. I prefer K12's fifth grade program over Calvert's 5th grade program.

[EKS]

I used K12 LA, science, and history for several months this year with my academically accelerated 6 yo son. His grade by age is K but he placed into the 2nd grade LA. So we ended up doing LA 2, Science 1, and History K.

 

It is a good program for an academically accelerated child if that child is globally accelerated or at least uniformly accelerated within a subject area. This was particularly noticable in LA for us; reading was way too easy, grammar was very easy, spelling was easy but forgotten after taking the test, and writing was quite challenging. Science and history were very easy. I'm guessing that if he was to fly through the science and history he would hit a wall with the writing requirements.

 

There is a lot of what might be called busywork in K12. Lots of worksheets. Lots of assessments. Lots of coloring in the younger grades. Busywork aside (I just edited it out), there were lots of things that were very valuable in the courses we used. It is a well thought out program. We will be using their science again next year and I would use their history if SOTW didn't exist. If I had to use a boxed curriculum, K12 would be the one I would use.

 

We used K12 independently, but I understand that each state varies widely with regard to acceleration.

[Cami in UT]

My boys used K12 our first year of homeschooling through our districts online school. It was nice to get me into the groove of homeschooling. I was teaching a 1st grader & 2 grader at the time. My older boy completely tested out of all 2nd grade work and even tested 4th grade in LA. So he did the 3rd grade everything but LA (4th). He found it all very doable except for the writing. There was many tears over the writing. My 2nd boy did all 1st grade work except math which he did 2nd. He had no issues. I thought that the K12 program was good but I was totally computered out by the time we were done with school ever day. If the lesson wasn't on the computer I had to be very close to it. And the computer was in my bedroom so we would be in my room for hours doing school. We are very happy doing our own thing now.

[LisaKinVA]

K12 is the best "boxed" program I've found for an accelerated student. As others have mentioned, there is plenty that can be used to "enrich" the program.

 

My son still has 2 months on his 1st year contract. In that two years, he's done 2 years of science, 2 years of history, has started his 3rd year of math, 2 years of art, 1 year of LA and 1 year of music. While we had to purchase the additional materials, there are no more "course fees" for moving through the courses faster than normal.

 

I did send in a suggestion that they break down the LA program into different levels, as my child struggled with the writing aspects, but the spelling, grammar and vocabulary were extremely easy. The reading content was also very easy -- but I bumped up the 4 novels we chose to be much higher levels. Some of the literature comprehension, analysis and writing assignments were very challenging.