Not Your Mother's School

Interest in homeschooling is on the rise.  In the past two weeks I've had several friends and a stranger ask me for more information about homeschooling.  I've also had many people say something like, "I'd love to homeschool, but I can't because I don't have enough... money/patience/time/creativity/teaching experience (you fill in the blank).  Well, this post is about the k12 online curriculum that may put all those excuses to rest.  

One night I just happened to be browsing on the internet looking for new curriculum ideas when I came across www.k12.com.   I was intrigued so I searched for k12 schools in my state, and almost accidentally clicked the "request a call back in the next few minutes" button.  Since it was nine-o'clock at night I really wasn't expecting a call, but true to their promise my phone rang within the next few minutes.  The rest is history.  I signed up, enrolled, and here we are two months later logging in to school every day.  No more lesson planning for me, no more buying curriculum, no more wondering what I'm going to teach next.  It really can't get much easier than this.  

Within a week of enrollment we received three big boxes of everything we need to complete our lessons.

It was a little VERY overwhelming at first, but once I got a chance to go through it all and organize everything, it started to fall into place.  Here are some of the things that came to our door:

Art, History, and Science books and supplies...

 Textbooks and reading books...  I used the boxes they came in to create book shelves.

I organized the Math manipulatives and Art supplies into separate containers.

Here is The Free One using the balance and weights they sent us...

These pictures barely show half of what they sent.  You can read the complete list of materials that come with the curriculum for each grade and course on this page:  http://www.k12.com/courses/materials/k-8

You may think that with a virtual on-line curriculum your child will be staring at a computer for most of the day, but in reality only about 20% of our time is spent online.  The lessons are interactive and hands-on which is what my active boys need.  They are also very easy to add-to or tweak to make them just right for your unique learner.

 There are so many more great features to this program (i.e. field trips, flexibility, and extra-curricular clubs) that I won't even try to cover it all in this post.  So if you have any questions, please ask away.  And the next time you say, "I wish I could homeschool, but..." you may need to re-think your excuses ; )