Someone on here had posted they wanted to use an internet schooling company that has been doing it for years so that their children could have the smoothest experience since it meant they were experienced in the type of teaching and learning.
Can whoever you were share again what that school is and it’s website?
We’re officially 1 month into Time4Learning. It’s been a positive experience thus far. We have a kindergartner, 2nd grader, and 7th grader going through it right now. They’ve been in Catholic School from the very beginning so we are used to a certain level of rigor. I’d say T4L has a complete curriculum, but we do add a lot of supplemental instruction and assignments to reinforce what they are learning for the week. We try to make things as hands on as possible…we use lots teaching aids and do kitchen and backyard science experiments. When the weather is nicer, we plan to take some outdoor field trips. So for us its a bit of hybrid of virtual learning and parent driven homeschooling.
For our 7th grader its more of a self-driven distance learning program as in he gets most of his instruction from the videos and modules during the week. We debrief with him and track what he is learning everyday, and go over his grades. If there is something we feel that is lacking in the curriculum or he bombs something in his grades, we reinforce and supplement until he gets it.
For our younger kids they need more help with the technology stuff and need to be monitored a bit to make sure they are understanding what is being taught, so we go through the modules and videos with them…their curriculum is lighter than our middle schooler, so we get through most of the modules on the weekends and weekday evenings. This also helps us understand what they are learning so that we know what to supplement and how.
All in all its worked well. I feel like we know our kids academically in a month than we ever did in the past and the big benefit is that we are able to tailor the instruction to meet their needs specifically. i.e. my second grader is a math wiz but we learned how terrible he is at reading comprehension because he is outright bombing his quizzes. So we spend a lot of time specifically working at it and he has progressed nicely. Its actually pretty gratifying watching your kids progress academically knowing that it is all driven by your hand. It did take awhile for them to settle as us being the teacher, and them being students…the dynamics are different in that they can’t fish me to do things for them because I need to make sure they understand things on their own. Watching your kid answer a bunch of stuff wrong on a quiz and getting a failing grade without intervening is hard at first. But again, it helps you as the teacher understand what to focus on
Thank you very much for the response. I have a single mother friend who is looking at options.
No problem. Best of luck to her. Must be tough as a single mom.
This program has worked well for us because of its flexibility…wife and I both work and we have 3 going through so we’re pretty stretched but are able to make it work
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Thanks for sharing all that; yeah it’s hard to watch
your kid flunk a quiz - but is the right thing.
We make them retake anything they score lower on but generally have a different feeling about grades right now…as in grades are less of a sign of accomplishment or failure and more a barometer on how well a particular subject is being understood and what needs to be worked on. That’s probably how grades should be viewed in general
We’ve moved schools a few times and I always feel a certain way about the curriculum if my kids are acing everything without effort. They should be challenged.
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Today is the last day my daughter will be in FBISD conducing classes remotely from home. The registration for virtual learning took a while with the registration and placement process. It appears the process is longer than usual with the higher demand and interest. My daughter starts with virtual learning next week which has a great deal of flexibility versus the structured classroom schedule. All good for her competitive gymnastics and golf schedules versus the structured classroom. She has been wanting to do the home school route for at least 2 years with her teammates and the pandemic caused me to reconsider with all the school uncertainty that was going on this summer.
We felt we better start her in her FBISD classes until we completed the long registration and placement process with school starting next week. We were far more impressed with FBISD remote learning starting in mid-August versus the mid-March to end of May remote learning we experienced in that time window. The school district did a great job with improving school execution since May. Pretty much like in classroom school and structured daily timeline than what they executed last spring when the pandemic broke out. Hopefully, all school districts made the same strides.