Feeding Giants

I admit that when my kids were in school, and even when I taught school, I really didn’t pay a lick of attention to what curriculum they/we used. I honestly didn’t care because I knew I would make do with what I was given and add to it if necessary. However, according to blogs, Facebook message boards and the YouTubes, curriculum is an exciting, even controversial topic among homeschoolers. Who knew?  When there aren’t any powers-that-be handing you your books or sending you to teacher trainings, you can choose whatever you want — Free? Paid for? Common Core? Traditional? Freestyle? Religious? Secular? Direct instruction? Independent learning? Student directed? Teacher directed? Online? Book only? No textbooks? No curriculum at all?  There are a LOT of choices…a lot of products…and even more opinions.

So…what are WE doing? Well, let me tell you!

5 of our 6 kids are enrolled in a (free) public charter school that uses the Connections Academy online curriculum.  For the most part, the content is similar to what the kids would do in regular public school, but online…and without a classroom full of peers (just annoying little brothers). Lessons are somewhat like Power Point presentations. They are imbedded with video and text links, interactive reviews, and assessments. The kids meet weekly (per class) with other students and a live teacher in an online chat room-type website, but most of their learning is independent.  As the “learning coach”, I work with the younger kids through most of their lessons, but just act as consultant/adviser for the older ones.

5 THINGS WE LIKE ABOUT CONNECTIONS ACADEMY

 

1.) Scheduling flexibility. There are a few major deadlines the kids are held to, but class scheduling and school hours are largely up to us. If we want to just do Science all day every Tuesday, we totally can. If we want to go on a trip, we can just take school with us. The kids also have the option to work through classes as fast as they want and move on to the next one. We can customize our school experience to our individual kids’ strengths, needs, and interests.

2.) Free Materials. Every state/school is different, but in our charter school, we are given or loaned just about everything we need: textbooks, art and science kits,

online lessons, etc.; even a laptop. We only supply a few random materials every once in a while (like dirt for a science experiment), and general consumables – paper, pencils, printer, etc.

3.) It’s legally easy. In WY, traditional homeschoolers have to follow certain registration laws and guidelines, including getting curriculum approved by the local school district. Since our kids still technically attend a public school, we can bypass all that headache. Classes are accredited, recorded on an official transcript, and earn a real high school diploma (yes, eligible for Hathaway Scholarships). We can also still participate in sports/activities at the local school, which we are taking advantage of this year.

4.) Mom can see all, but doesn’t have to do all. I can easily access each of my kids’ schedules, lessons, grades, etc. at any  time…BUT, I don’t have to prepare the lessons, grade anything, or even be responsible for teaching EVERYthing  (since I, you know, don’t speak Latin or French). A real-life teacher oversees every class. They are available for those weekly online live lessons, personal help via phone/computer, test reviews, etc. (they have all been AWESOME!).

5.) Everyone is taken care of in one program. Whether elementary, junior high or high school, I call the same customer support for all 5 kids, I look at the same main webpage to look at everybody’s grades and lessons, and all our materials come from the same place. This simplifies my life considerably!

…AND 5 THINGS WE DON’T…

 

1.) It’s a LOT of screen time. A whole lot. Even with textbooks and written assignments, the junior and high school kids are on a computer most of the day, the elementary kids about half. If we skip the provided online lessons, we can avoid some screen time, but the trade-off is I do the direct instruction myself. Which would be fine…except that…

2.) Every kid is always doing something different. 6 kids doing 6  different things = Mom is always multi-tasking and jumping between subjects = occasional chaos. It would be so much more efficient for me and fun for them if we could coordinate lessons to learn together sometimes. So far, nobody has had the same topic at the same time.

3.) It ain’t perfect. Although the general website interface is pretty cohesive and well-maintained, we have come across quite a few errors in both textbooks and online material (including tests). For example, according to the 7th grade Social Studies class, the US is still actively searching for a couple of well-known and now-definitely-dead terrorists. Pretty sure it’s been a few years, guys…time to update your website…

4.) Boring Elementary Curriculum. There is a lot of busywork in the elementary classes and much of it just feels…kind of…shallow. The online lessons are probably about as good as they could be for a large-scale, at-home public school experience, but we are feeling the itch to really dig deeper and get the kids into more interesting literature and more hands-on science and history. Which leads me to…

5.) Very little hands-on learning. This one is obviously a preference thing. I mean, Connections is very clearly an ONLINE school…but most lessons are pretty predictable: read some text, do an online activity, do a written assignment, take the test. I add in more interactive activities when I can, but frankly, it’s a planning nightmare. For some reason, I just never seem to have a frog dissection kit or stash of magnetic rocks handy the day I need them, you know?

So…is Connections Academy a YES or a NO?

 

I would definitely recommend Connections Academy as a good middle-ground between public school and full-fledged homeschooling. We have been pretty happy with it as a transitional situation…but…the longer we do this, the more I want something, well, more. I want more control over the content, I want more classic and interesting literature, I want more comprehensive and immersive science and history lessons, and I want more options for math curriculum for kids who learn differently from each other. Most of all, however, I want everything we do to be on purpose…not just because somebody else’s checklist said we have to do it, valuable or not.  It’s like I told my kids today, “I AM THE BOSS OF HOMESCHOOLING, YOU GUYS”*…and I’m ready to run with this thing!

So, while we are staying with Connections for now,  I have been oohing and aahing over curriculum websites and sample lessons like a (weird) kid poring through the Sears Christmas catalog for weeks. I am pretty sure I have decided what we are going to do (a post for another time), and we are super excited about it.  We will likely bid farewell to Connections Academy and move on. It will be a fond farewell, but a definite one!

 

*Because sometimes my darling students act like rabid monkeys in a barrel and don’t want to do their work…