Tool Time: K12 Charter School

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okay, I know that those of us who homeschool, do so for our own personal reasons. As personal as the reasons we do it, is the curriculum we use to teach our precious little ones at home.

Oh, how well I remember my mom spending nights, days and weeks planning our curriculum and writing lesson plans for all 6 of us she was schooling at home! I remember the excitement of getting new books, and learning what lessons were coming our way in the fall. We were excited about school!

Now that I am there, planning school for my 3 and 5 year olds, I am excited too....AND OVERWHELMED!

I am a bit lost in the world of curriculum, learning styles, subjects, books and the cost of all of it. Despite having been raised as a homeschool kid, I have alot to figure out.

It was with this mindset that I came across K12 Virtual Charter Schools.  Now, I want to say at this point that I hesitated to write this post because I know I havent actually used this product, and cant vouch for it 100% yet. But, I figured that by the time I could definitely say one way or another the school year will be half over and if this was something that may work for you, it would be too late for this school year. Maybe it will work for you!

But, from what I know now ...

* The K12 Virtual Charter School is an online public school, that you do at home
*The school provides accountability for me, and a curriculum that meets all state requirements for my child
*Someone else will be writing our lesson plans, and telling me exactly what I need to do in each subject
*It uses the K12 curriculum, an acclaimed program for public and home schools
*It is FREE

Using my tax dollars, which I pay regardless of our education choices, this program provides ALL of the curriculum and accompanying materials that are needed for this program. We just got 8 boxes of curriculum in the mail ...there are student books, teachers guides, reading books, award winning children's books, art supplies, science equipment, math manipulatives, dvd's, cd's , handwriting paper, flash cards ... the computer/printer hasnt arrived yet.

The online public school through K12 is not offered in every state, but is in many of them including South Carolina, Texas, Ohio, Florida, Virgina, Kansas and Georgia.  The program is free in these states. 

I have been reading through all this material, and I have to say I have teared up a couple of times realizing that I could have never afforded to provide him with all of this on our own. I am so excited for all the lessons he will learn using this great, quality curriculum. I am excited that someone else has provided me with great ideas and orderly presentation for each of the lessons he will learn.

One thing I have noted, for the sake of full disclosure ..this material is not taught from a Christian perspective. I have to say, though that I am actually looking forward to being able to teach perspectives that my child will surely experience in this life, while also teaching the importance of biblical authority. We will use the bible and this material side by side, and carefully discuss the areas where the two conflict.

This certainly will not be the answer for a good portion of homeschoolers, for understandable reasons (accountability, less flexibility in curriculum choice, standardized testing). For now, we are going to try it and see how it works out for us. Worst case scenario, it is awful and I hate it ...if so, it was free and at least I will have a better idea of what I want from that point forward!

Have you used the k12 curriculum and/or the virtual charter schools in their program? Please share your thoughts, good, bad or ugly..wait, not ugly. :)