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k12 Am History OFFLINE only???


8elbows
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Has anyone used k12 for 5th & 6th grade American History (Joy Hakim concise History of US, TG & SG) without the online component?

 

After doing my research for a secular American History curriculum for my DD (starting 5th in Aug), I decided on k12 American History A... but NOT the online component.  If you call k12 directly, they will sell you just the hard copy materials, but they state that it will only work as a supplement and you would need the online component to make it a complete curriculum.  Well, I purchased it anyway and it arrived yesterday.  The Teacher Guides (TG) and Student Guides (SG) look good, but many lessons reference online material.

 

There have been several discussions on how great the offline k12 history is for grades 7+, and how you absolutely must have the online component for k-4 history... but what about 5th and 6th - American History?

 

While this is regarding curriculum that we won't be using until Aug 2014, I only have 30-days to return my order for a refund.

 

Thanks for your help. :)

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I think it all depends on how you want to use it.  :001_smile:  

 

Of course K12 will tell you that their program without the online component is incomplete, because they want to sell the online component to you.  :coolgleamA:

 

I buy my K12 books used very cheaply on Amazon or eBay, not from K12 directly.

 

For reference, I own the 4 volumes of K12's concise History of US and the teacher guides, but haven't used them yet. I am currently using K12's Human Odyssey 2 offline along with its teacher guide, having also used HO1 offline with its TG last year. I'm happy doing it this way and I'm glad I have the TGs. I'd say about half of the questions and activities referenced in the TG are online and about half are offline. I believe the offline mapwork is valuable and I use the offline questions for oral discussion and/or writing prompts. That is plenty right there by itself.  Then I'm also having DS write his lists of facts/outline/take notes straight from the book, sort of WTM-style, which you obviously don't need online access in order to do.  We're using it as note-taking training. FWIW, I've also seen at least one poster here on the boards say that she thinks the student/teacher guides are a waste of time so she uses the texts without the guides.

 

Just flipping through the concise History of US TGs, they seem to be set up very similarly to the TGs for HO1 and 2. I'd even say perhaps the concise History of US has slightly more offline content than HO. K12 designed it so the student becomes increasingly independent, meaning more online, each year as the student gets older. As you said, K12's concise History of US is targeted to 5th/6th grades, and HO is targeted to 7th and up in their online program.

 

Overall, I believe the texts themselves are "complete", as in "a complete curriculum", on their own. (FWIW, I don't care for Hakim's original series because the chatty style annoys me, and I vastly prefer the concise versions.) The student/teacher guides may be valuable to you as an offline user depending on how you want to use them and what kind of output you want your student to produce.  So that's where I'd start my decision process, thinking about how I'd want to use them and what output I'd want.  HTH.

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