As we approach the end of the first year of LaVCA I sit back and reflect on the past year. I was a traditional home school mom for three years before starting the K12 curriculum. I used a mixed bag of curriculum not just one publisher.
So how do I feel our year went? I had a child entering 2nd grade a year ago and a child starting Kindergarten. I feel like my children learned a lot and enjoyed it for the most part. I have one child that just doesn't like school no matter what. We are re enrolled for next year. I feel like the curriculum is worth the trade off of the very few things I dislike.
Let's start with the second grader. He began the year not reading. He started out in Language Arts 2 but was quickly moved back to LA 1 and Phonics 1. He completed them and moved back into LA2. After several phonics and reading programs he just hadn't learned to read. He can now read. Is he proficient? No. Is he more self confident in his reading and able to read things without help? Yes. The phonics program in K12 was great for my son. It could be a combination of the program and his maturity and readiness to learn. Is it perfect for everyone? No. My second grader is great in math and picks up math facts quickly. He was able to finish second grade math and move on to third grade math. I loved the ability to let him move ahead and challenge himself. The history and science curriculum were both excellent and my child loved them. The art was good too. It combined art history and technique that followed along with the history program. It was an excellent supplement for the history course. The music lessons left a lot to be desired. As a mom that is completely tone deaf, I found this the most trying part of my day.
My kindergartener began reading at three years old. He hated the phonics. He said it was boring. He hated the math because it was boring. In his defense, he wanted to do math last year in PreK so I let him do the Primer level of MathUSee. He had done most of the math already last year. This was all very boring for him. About a month into the school year or more I found out that the children may take the assessments and skip all of the other work involved in the lesson if they have previously mastered the material. We finished K phonics, language and math and moved onto first grade in all three of these subjects. He still doesn't care for math but he is at a point now that he is being challenged with it. He has completed first grade phonics already is almost finished with first grade language. He enjoyed the history, science and art as much as my second grader. The music was an even bigger issue with this little one. He doesn't enjoy "baby" music as he calls it.
From a mom's perspective.
Overall it was a good year. The boys enjoyed the curriculum as much as any other we've done if not more. They loved the science and art more than what I had been previously using. The curriculum is free and while I didn't have quite as much freedom as I had previously, I still had quite a bit. I felt some things were disorganized in the beginning of the year and for the most part they have gotten straightened out. I had a great second grade teacher all year. She was a veteran of K12 in other states so she could help me figure out what I had to do and what was optional. I think if I had had a newer teacher it would have been harder. My K teacher quit after the winter holidays and we got a new one. They were both good but also both very new.
The testing was the big trade off. I had planned on testing the oldest when he was in third grade. I hadn't planned on doing it in second grade and was initially told they didn't test until third grade anyway. Louisiana changed that and implemented ITBS testing for second graders this year. The testing site was very unorganized and chaos was abundant especially for the second graders at our test site. The problem was with the proctor not the school so I won't go into it here.
What do they expect from you on a daily/weekly basis? They expect you to log six hours per day. It's not as hard as you think.
Weekly for second grade we had to do 5 math, 5 language arts, 3 history, 2 science, 2 art, 2 music and 1 PE lesson. Each math is one hour but sometimes they only take 15-30 minutes. Each language art lesson is two hours. The key to these for us was I would make a list of all the books and stories we had to read for the upcoming week(s) and we would read them at bedtime or on the weekends when we were having some down time. This meant when we got to that part of the lesson we could just do the discussion questions and move on. History was also an hour lesson but they rarely took us more than 30 minutes. The science lessons are an hour and depending on how long the hands on part took it may take us up to 90 minutes to complete. Science is one lesson you need to prepare for. There are hands on tasks almost every lesson. Art and music lessons are 45 minutes and sometimes take longer if they are very creative in their assignment.
Weekly for kindergarten we had to do 5 math, 5 language arts, 5 phonics, 1 social studies, 2 history, 2 science, 2 art, 2 music and 1 PE. Language arts and phonics were both an hour. Everything else was 45 minute lessons. Language arts I did the same as for the second grader. We read books at bedtime and quiet time so that the lesson went quicker. Phonics is very intensive and for some might be too much. I found the activities my boys enjoyed and we did those. I did phonics with both because my second grader wasn't reading when school started. The other subjects were similar to the second grader time wise. Some took the full time others took much less. In Kindergarten you also get one hour supplemental hours for a nap.
How do you log hours every day? You can log them from your computer or your smart phone. There is an app for attendance. Log the greater of these two: the actual time it took or the time they allotted for the lesson. If your child was sitting in a classroom and finished his work in 10 minutes he'd still have to sit there for an hour and get the credit for the time. What if you do more than six hours in a day? You can "bank" it. What if you are sick or the child is sick? You can either use banked hours or let them watch an educational movie or read to them and use it as supplemental. What if you go to the doctor, dentist, eye dr or other medical appt? You put it under health. Field trips are put under supplemental as well as anything else you do that is educational, for example, cooking (science, math), gardening (science), and just about anything else you do. Any sports activity including team sports, active play, even wii fit or other like games that get you up and moving and increases your heart rate count as PE.
What are "banked" hours? How do you keep track of them? Let me see if I can explain this well. When you begin school, get a notebook to use as your bank. Each day as you complete lessons you log them into the OLS as completed. IF you do more than six hours that day write down the course and number of hours or lessons you completed OVER the six hours. Then when you have a day that you can't do school work for whatever reason you go to your notebook and take hours out. Mark them in attendance (you have already marked them in OLS) and scratch them out of your notebook. Does that make sense?
If you have any questions or want to know more don't hesitate to ask.
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