• Sep. 15, 2008
IOWA testing

Any of you who do K12 through a publicly funded virtual academy have probably had to do these tests.  I think that most states require this test for anyone in public school.  I could be wrong so don't quote me.

My son had that best time at this test.  He felt like he conquered.  YEAH!  I don't hold these tests in such high esteem.  I see them as a necessary evil and I play the game to get what I want.  How selfish is that? I know what these kids have learned and whether or not they can regurgitate the information on a bubble sheet cannot possibly prove anything.

While I'm at it I should talk about end of level testing that is run by the state.  The killer here is that we don't even get the results until we are almost halfway into the new school year.  Wouldn't it be great if we had them in time to order curriculum.  If they are such a yard stick as to how a child is doing then why don't we use them that way?

I don't have many gripes as a homeschooler but this testing business kills me.  I don't mind sending my kids or having them take the tests.  What I mind is how much society seems to base on these scores. 

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• Sep. 13, 2008
Technology class!

We have the best teacher assigned to our family through the school district and K12.  She is just a wealth of information and ideas.  She is also a "doer".  Last year she started a technology class that is held at our local 4H building.  I am pretty sure that she teaches it herself.

Last week she sent out e-mails letting us all know of the dates that the classes will be held and I decided that my kids will be doing that!  We are so excited.  They are learning to type quite quickly and they find it challenging and they love that!  I can hardly get them off of the computer when they are doing the speed drills.  It's so fun.

Anyway, it's just another reason why I love this curriculum and the support that is offered.  We are so lucky.

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• Sep. 11, 2008
Activity ideas for homeschool groups.

Rather than write this all over again, I will send you to my other blog called Homeschool Playground.  Please visit this site and see today's post for some of the things that our local K12 group does.  Maybe you will get some ideas of what your homeschool group can do.

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• Sep. 10, 2008
Read aloud time, individual reading and other coursework.

Last year I learned a great trick.  We were overwhelmed with our first few weeks of school and the time that it took us to get through one day's work.  So I started getting creative. 

The best thing that I did is what I want to share.  The K12 curriculum daily schedule says that a child should have read aloud time as well as individual reading time.  We have never had a problem with individual reading time but read aloud time was hard with several children and so few hours in a day.  So, we turned History into our read aloud time.  We would take turns and do the whole lesson orally.  This was fun as it started a lot of discussions but it got more than one thing done at a time which I love!

Hope this helps someone!

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• Sep. 9, 2008
K12 is amazing but not perfect!

There is not ever going to be one program that fits every need for every child and family.  k12 comes close to doing all this for my family and we love working with them.  As for the math program, I have mentioned before that we do a different program found on www.aleks.com. 

Recently I have been grateful to the teachers associated with K12.  K12 has had a hard week with so many people across the nation all of a sudden were logging on and things have been a bit messy.  K12 has grown so fast that it has had some growing pains.  I have faith that this will get better in short order.  My state alone almost doubled it's K12 Virtual Academy enrollment.  That doesn't count the families that probably use it without going through the school district.

For all who are frustrated or new to the game.  Just hang tight.  K12 is generally on top of things and makes things right within a short period of time.

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• Sep. 8, 2008
OLS down time.

This year I think that the OLS has been unavailable more in the past two weeks than in all the other years we have used K12 combined.

I'm not sure what the problem is but there seems to be one all of the time lately.  For those of you who may be new to K12 you may want to print off your lesson plan for the week in advance so that if the OLS is not available you can know what you are doing.  This is hard for some of the higher grades because a lot of the lessons are enhanced with online helps and links.  I know that my boys have been stuck on one history lesson for a few days because the rest of the lesson is online.  I don't want them to move on until they finish the lesson.  It's also hard to enter assessments and attendence while this is happening.

If anyone has helpful hints on what you do when the OLS is out of service please share!

 

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• Sep. 5, 2008
Talent, manners, sweetness and homeschool.

We saw a girl perform tonight that is absolutely phenomenal.  She is 12 years old and 13 months ago she decided to dive into playing the guitar.  She now plays Chet Atkins style music with ease and style.  She has a gig with a band.  My kids and I saw her tonight and she was sweet, polite and willing to talk about what she did to get into it all.  What an amazing girl.  Please see her Bluegrass Forte.  Show your children.  She is an inspiration to us all and she makes me proud to say that we homeschool!

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• Sep. 3, 2008
OLS down!

I have it on good authority that the OLS for K12 is having problems across the nation.  It is a pain and not worth the bother because if you are lucky enough to get on the site, it seems to be slower than a snail.

We are lucky to have plenty of supplemental material to help us out.  The kids do math through another program so that never lacks.  I also have videos for science and history. 

At Costco one year I bought some of the CD-Rom things for education that cover 3-8 grades.  It's fun for the kids to go into those and explore.  They inevitably learn something so it is not time wasted.

As much as this has been fun to just wing school, I can't wait for the OLS to be back to normal.

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• Aug. 28, 2008
Incomplete lessons

Yesterday we didn't get our lessons done.  This had me stressed until I wrote about it on another blog and took a deep breath.  I know that we will be fine.  The good thing about K12 is that it is okay to take more than one day on a lesson.  It just rolls over to the next day repeatedly until you get it completed.

 

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• Aug. 27, 2008
Power Glide glitches.

Evidently there are a whole lot of problems for a lot of families regarding the foreign language program that K12 has implemented.  I wonder if this is just a problem for the families of the virtual academies or if it is K12 as a whole.

Anyway, my boys did the first lesson today which was really an orientation.  It worked fine but I found out that we need a microphone which I don't have.  This is the only thing that I wish K12 would tell us about all of the things that we are going to need to front money for so that we could be better prepared.

For anyone reading this, let this be your fair warning that if you sign up for foreign language you will need a microphone for your computer.

Just fyi.

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• Aug. 25, 2008
What a weekend!

Just for today my blog post is at http://kadiddle.blogspot.com.  Please visit me there just for today or any time you like.  I will be back to blogging on this site tomorrow!

Thanks so much for reading!

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• Aug. 22, 2008
K12 and all their resources!

Bravo to K12 once again.  I knew that they had great curriculum overall and I have always loved the various resources available to us.

This week the kids did a lesson on impeachment.  Today the particular lesson was called "Your Choice" and listed several options for what could be done.  One of the options took the kids to www.yahooligans.com and they were told to look up the topic of impeachment.  The kids love being on the computer and feel really mature if they are allowed on the Internet.  So, this was a major thing for them.  While they were at this site they learned jokes, saw trailers to shows they love and hit some other things but mainly they really did find a heap of information about impeachment!

I appreciate K12 for giving us all of these educational avenues and don't just make us rely on worksheets alone as some other "box" curriculums do.

Off to the library!  Blog again soon!

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• Aug. 20, 2008
Power Glide

K12 curriculum now offers Power Glide language.  I have my boys signed up to do Spanish as I think that this language best fits our family.  I am hoping that my two younger children will listen into the lessons and learn.

If you doubt whether foreign language exposure is good for a child nor not please read this article.

It is exciting to belong to a school that recognizes all the elements that make a child's educational experience whole.  I love that K12 has art contests, lemonade stands for research, and more.  I love that they are introducing things like foreign language and I hope that in the future it is made available for children much younger than 3rd graders.

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• Aug. 19, 2008
Writing struggles

I belong to a Yahoo message board and one sweet homeschool mother sent out a plea for help regarding her daughter and the tears that had been shed over writing at their house.  I guess that the daughter falls to tears when asked to write just a few sentences.

I have to say that I don't think K12 has the best handwriting program.  I do love Sing, Spell, Read and Write and also the Writing Road to Reading.  I have had such agreat luck with these programs. 

Just wanted to post what was shared on the message board.  I have an aunt who is an elementary school teacher and I had a problem with writing a few years ago with my sons.  She suggested giving the children a topic to draw a picture about (which was fun as their art lesson as well) and then under the picture attach a piece of lined paper (age appropriate) under the picture and tell them to write about their picture.

When we started this we didn't worry about spelling, handwriting or grammar.  We just wanted to get them writing.  Then when the writing wasn't such a struggle we went on to worry about the other skills.  It worked wonders for my two boys and now my daughter enjoys it.

Hope this idea helps someone!

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• Aug. 18, 2008
Confession

I don't like Kindergarten.  Not just K12 Kindergarten but any Kindergarten.  We are on our third child doing Kindergarten and I really can say that I hate Kindergarten. 

There must be some parents who would wonder what is wrong with me.  Why can't I enjoy this period of discovery?  Frankly, it is hard for me because my children by the age of five are probably like yours.  They know their colors, they know their ABC's and they don't need the dumbed down version of school.  They are ready for more and we under estimate them.  The problem with most curriculum is that if you skip right over kindergarten curriculum you miss certain fundamentals that on your own you may have not introduced your child to. 

For example, today we were doing math with our 5 year old and she was shown a picture of a nickel and asked how much it was worth.  She had no idea.  I was surprised at this because she has always been paid an allowance, counted her money with us and spent her own money.  Yet, I had never made a huge issue out of it.  I just assumed that when I showed her that picture she would know what it meant because I know that she has been exposed to money all along.  I was so wrong.

So, despite my hate of kindergarten (and no, I don't let my kids say that they "hate" things, only I can say it here because they aren't reading this!) I am glad for the chance to cover certain stepping stones with my DD so that she will not be stumped at a future date.  I guess for now we will keep doing shape and color books and sorting things and making patterns which bore all of us to tears!  It will be fun though to see her face as she adds up her first pile of change to see how much money she has all by herself!

Thank heavens for Kindergarten!

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• Aug. 17, 2008
Weekend school

Last year my children took every course K12 offered.  So my boys had music lessons as well as the music curriculum.  They spend their free time being artistic and yet had art curriculum.  Most days it was all I could do to get through, math, language arts, literature, science and history and it seemed that these subjects took a big bag seat.

My wise teacher suggested that on Sunday afternoon when we had nothing else going on to do two or three lessons in one of the subjects.  She is so wise.  Some things should be obvious but when you are the parent in the middle of the pressure and mess and all that comes with daily life it is so nice to have that teacher and her tidbits of wisdom flying your way!  What a lifesaver.

So for those of you who didn't get those extra things in this week.  No stress, you can make it work.

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• Aug. 16, 2008
Schedule and unplanned school opportunities.

This will be something that most K12 parents know about but I have heard discussion of it among some parents so I thought I would address it.

On the OLS you have the ability to set up your child's school plan and mark which days will be school days and which won't.  On the days that you intend not to be school days, no lessons will show up on your daily plan.  However if you find yourself doing some school on one of these days all you have to do is go into your "attendence" tab and mark "Yes" on "Did you do school today".  Then the subject lines wil appear and you can mark what you did.  Make sure you hit "submit" after you enter your information or it will not save it.  Then because your daily plan will not display lessons, if you did a particular lesson, say reading unit 2, lesson 3, you would go to the tab for "lesson list" and use the drop down menu to find your subject and unit.  You could then mark the lesson completed or enter assessment results.

Anyway, what I wanted to make clear was that just because you set up a schedule doesn't mean that you can't override it.  That is the wonderful thing with K12, none of it is set in stone.

Hope this helps somemone!

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• Aug. 15, 2008
The things that are really important.

I will try with all my might to keep religious things out of this post but it will be hard.  I was reading Marsha's blog again today (holy insight, Batman!).  She was talking about which things are important in life and that it has little to do with how much school gets done, or how many activities you are involved with, or the car you drive.  We all know these things intellectually but few of us can resist the pull to be what the world considers "perfect".

The one thing that I do not always feel with K12 is that it is okay to do any "unschooling".  While I want my children to be prepared for college or whatever may come, I also want them to know that they are worth spending a whole day with (even if it is a Wednesday) on just playing with them and talking.  I love nothing more than to hear what they are excited about, to play games with them or to just sit and read or watch a good movie together.  It's hard to get away from the world's standards when we have to mark what we got done each day on the OLS. 

I just wanted to send out a reminder that it is okay to take a little time to enjoy this journey in whatever way that is for us as individuals.

Now I will get off my soap box and go on with my day!  Thanks to Marsha for her thought provoking posts!

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• Aug. 15, 2008
K12 OLS Discussion Forums and K12 History

While reading the K12 OSL forums under the History subject the other day I found a post by a parent who thought that the writing of Joy Hakim's (I think that is her name) "A History of Us" books was biased and inappropriate.  While I do not feed on contention I didn't respond to her on the forum.  I firmly believe that most of us, when upset, just need to feel validated so I wasn't going to negate her feelings there.  I am however, opinionated enough to have to say something about it here.  (I am assuming it is a "her").

I have personally never found history as interesting and neither have my children.  I firmly think that the way these books are written is the main reason for this.  Joy Hakim tells the history as a story and takes you back in time.  The parent in the forum was mad about her saying that lives during World War II were wasted.  I think that the author was grossly misinterpreted.  I think she felt that their lives were needlessly taken, not wasted.  This makes me wonder if there won't always be parents, public schooled, homeschooled or otherwise who just need to take issue with something.  I would take such a comment in a book to be a great teaching moment for my children.  I can see being offended but be proactive, not reactive.  There is not an author on the planet who could write a history book that pleased everyone. 

All in all, I am so glad to have these books.  History truly has come to life for my children and I and I hope that others have had the same experience.

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• Aug. 13, 2008
Kindergarten Curriculum

I am looking for anyone who is really familiar with the K12 Kindergarten curriculum.  Reason being, I am using it this year and am overwhelmed.  If it was the only child I had to do for it wouldn't be hard. 

Although I have used K12 for several years, I have never used it for Kindergarten.  The Kindergarten curriculum seems so hands on for the parent.  I know that there is no way around it but I am used to the older grades that allow the child to be more self sufficient.  I guess I just want to know that it is good curriculum and it is worth it.  Right now I am trying to squeeze it in when the baby naps because if she is up she wants to be at the table doing what the big kids are doing.  That is much to painful for me so we do our Kindergarten work undercover!  :)

 

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