Home school Curriculum preference : online or workbooks?

Question

This is our 1st year homeschooling and we have one online course and the rest are workbooks. The online course seems to be working out better for my daughter (10) and I was wondering if there were any preferences for all online courses.

It can be Christian based or not. The course she is taking now is only available in Science.

Answer 1

I like a mixture of both as well and work books tend to be cheaper then on line. There are a lot of free online resources for homeschooling that are free from games to actual lesson plans. I usually use google and search for what I am learning and then build around it with a workbook. I hear time for learning is good for on line curriculum and I am impressed with K12 (another online program) but I haven't seen anything they offer that I haven't been able to do myself.

Sometimes when you are first starting out, for the first year it is good to use to curriculum - it helps with the transition for both you and child. Good luck. Hope this helped.

Answer 2

It sounds to me like she might be more of a visual/auditory learner.  In that case, I'd add in more online courses.

We use an online curriculum, K12, but not all of it is done online.  There is a lot of offline work also.  It's a very good mix.  For Language Arts, for instance, it's hard to do online, so the portion on the computer is mainly just taking tests or entering scores, or keeping track of the plan and progress.

We've used K12 for five years and love it!  My son is a global learner (learns by all of the methods fairly equally), so it's been a great fit for him.  It's also a great fit for me, too.  We've always used K12 as independent homeschoolers, not as part of a virtual school/academy.  So we purchase it ourselves.

http://www.k12.com

Answer 3

I'd say a healthy combination of both with some real-life experiences mixed in (field trips, community programs, cooking/shopping/paying bills/etc with mom)

I wouldn't reccomend a strictly internet-based curriculum... At least, not a cyber-school. This is pretty much just bringing the school setting home, not home schooling. You have a lot more freedom when you don't sign up for a cyber-school and maybe just take a few online classes to add to what you do at home.

Granted, some online schools are great. But I'd avoid the online PUBLIC schools.

Answer 4

We homeschool independently, so we don't do on-line courses right now.  However we do use a few computer programs for some courses, for example we are doing Health and State History through Switched On School House (the CD's, not the on-line school), and we use Rosetta Stone for foreign language.

We use a big mix, workbooks, textbooks, hands on projects, computer programs, the library, field trips.  Limiting yourself to only one thing, no matter what that is, is likely to get boring.

Answer 5

Eh, we're unschoolers. We don't use either.

But it seems to me that if online is working better for your daughter, you should probably do what works best for HER. What does she say?

Answer 6

I've heard good things about Switched on Schoolhouse.

Answer 7

I have done both with my sons but whether they enjoyed it or not really depended on the subject.  English was too awkward for them online but they have excelled at computer-based math classes and the sciences.

Answer 8

I like to use a mixture of both. It's important for kids to be comfortable with using technology, but also important they don't grow dependant on it.

Answer 9

We are eclectic.   We do nothing online though.  

We use some workbooks but I try to use a lot of hands-on things if I can.  Our science is mostly hands-on (A Reason for Science) , the kids are learning sign-language, our social studies is Five in a Row (so a lot of reading rather then just workbooks).  

Math of course is math, not much you can do there - we do Math U See.