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k12+/Virtual Schools Fall 2010

10K views 178 replies 33 participants last post by  elanorh 
#1 ·
Hi all!

I suppose it's time to start our K12/Virtual School thread again for the fall. Our boxes o'materials arrived a couple weeks ago and I've yet to unpack them.
The plan is to get the desk all cleaned up and organized before I unpack - start the year well on track! So that's my goal this week (among many other goals of course
).

So - here it is! The support thread for those families who are doing a virtual academy/school (k12 or otherwise) this year - newbies and old-timers are all welcome, we look forward to hearing from everyone! It would probably be nice if we all introduce ourselves a little so everyone knows "who" everyone is.

This is my family's second year of k12. Dd1 will be a first grader this year. We liked kindergarten quite a bit, other than the music program -- really liked our teacher, and liked the flexibility combined with forced accountability for me (I tend to procrastinate, so needing to do attendance etc. really kept me on track!). Initially we thought we'd just do k12 for a year or so, mostly because I was overwhelmed by trying to figure out what the 'right' curriculum to follow would be, for homeschooling independently and k12 was to give me a year to research while still homeschooling; but we are back this year. We do k12 because we travel a lot, which wouldn't be possible if dd1 were in school; and also because she has an egg allergy which the school didn't seem very receptive about when we discussed it with them, and of course, concerns about overall academic theory/focus in the public schools. We very much appreciate that most days, Ina's school takes around 2 hours (sometimes less, sometimes more).

Our WYVA doesn't really start 'til the 24th, but we are thinking about starting to ramp up next week - I'd like to get ahead because dh's Grandma (94) is coming for a two week visit the last week of August and we'd like to spend as much time as we can with her. Also, if I can start ahead and stay ahead, that would mean that we might be able to end 2-3 weeks 'ahead' in the spring - which would allow me (and dd1) to really enjoy getting the garden in and basically do a garden "unit study."

This summer we did a little schoolish work - we did a unit study on butterflies, with a butterfly kit, which was a lot of fun, and we did random math from the first grade math curriculum, since we'd worked ahead far enough that we got that before the end of the K year. Also, we read books from the library all summer, so I think dd1's reading skills are well maintained/improved over the summer. I haven't worked on handwriting at all, and plan to actually do a little review on that this coming week ... Ina wrote a backwards "a" last week signing a birthday card (of course, one that was going to a skeptical family member
).

We are planning to do music lessons (still undecided whether violin or piano) this year instead of the k12 music; we were told that would be an option for us this year. We will either need to rent a scaled violin, or purchase an electric keyboard if we do piano, so either way it's an investment. Ina would like to do both. So my Big Project tomorrow is to go to the local music store and ask them what they charge to rent scale violins (if they do), check out their keyboards, see what teachers they have on list and recommend - I hope to know what we're doing for music by tomorrow evening.


My other big goal this year, is to check out the two local homeschooling groups. We have some friends that the girls play with - but they're younger than Ina, and although she does Cloverbuds and swim lessons/art class, those are more sporadic, less interactive - and the swim lessons are with older kids at this point, too. Ina told me the other day that she really would like to have more friends her own age. SO -- I'll check out the homeschooling groups and see what they're like. I dread it a little since most of the homeschoolers here chose to homeschool because of their religious beliefs, and that's not at all our concern.

I got a lecture from my aunt about when Ina will go to "real" school, this summer. Ugh.
I knew she was opposed to homeschooling, but it still stunk to have the conversation with her.

Our K12 'teacher' emailed today to say that we will be working with a different teacher this fall - she's been assigned to do only 2nd graders this year (last year they assigned teachers to various grade levels so she worked with k-5 I think). This must mean they have more students this year?! Maybe our local gatherings will actually have a few more people in attendance, but we will miss our teacher, who was very flexible and supportive of how we were working with Ina (and didn't make us do any online class time with her other than during her phone calls).

Looking forward to hearing from everyone else - how was your summer, what are your plans/goals?
 
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#27 ·
We will join this group this year!

I signed up our ODD (6) to start Kindergarten. We are waiting to be "approved" with OHVA.

We had a big ol bunch of trouble with the local school district. Being a former home schooler my self I got the willies and didnt feel safe sending ODD to the school. So here we are! I LOVE how friendly the OHVA people are when you call. Our local school district should take notes!

This has been a good compromise for us. DH was a public school kid and I was not ( well mostly was but HS was the BEST thing my parents ever did!) so having a laid out way of doing both has been a happy medium. My parents wish they had this option when I was in school they would have pulled me out sooner!

ODD is really excited about this year. I have a feeling we may be doing allot of 1st grade work by December.

Q: Do you need to buy pencils and scissors etc. for your kids or do they come in the kit?
Q: What is the music program like for K12?
 
#28 ·
Quote:

Originally Posted by p1gg1e View Post
We will join this group this year!

I signed up our ODD (6) to start Kindergarten. We are waiting to be "approved" with OHVA.

We had a big ol bunch of trouble with the local school district. Being a former home schooler my self I got the willies and didnt feel safe sending ODD to the school. So here we are! I LOVE how friendly the OHVA people are when you call. Our local school district should take notes!

This has been a good compromise for us. DH was a public school kid and I was not ( well mostly was but HS was the BEST thing my parents ever did!) so having a laid out way of doing both has been a happy medium. My parents wish they had this option when I was in school they would have pulled me out sooner!

ODD is really excited about this year. I have a feeling we may be doing allot of 1st grade work by December.

Q: Do you need to buy pencils and scissors etc. for your kids or do they come in the kit?
Q: What is the music program like for K12?
You will LOVE doing OHVA this year, we're in our second year of OHVA when we start here (ols comes up Monday YAY!) and I loved the K program. The teacher my girls had last school year (and dd2 has her again this year) was AMAZING. She really cared and helped out when I needed a hand with coming up with ideas to work with my dyslexic dd1 and had all kinds of great sites that she suggested when I needed something for reinforcement. And the teacher that dd1 has this year (dd2's teacher only does grades K and 1) is also going to be a pleasure to work with I think. We had one communication so far with her through k-mail and I am really looking forward to this.

We too had a really bad experience with our ps, but with my oldest dd as a student there for K. I attended it one year in elementary school, then my family pulled me out and my grandpa paid for me to go to the best private school in central Ohio for a couple years then I went to one of the "best" ps districts in the state for a couple years before ending up back in private school for 2 years and then ended up in a rural district for my last 5 years. *whew* I would have done better hs'ed though with my personality, but am thankful they sent me off to school.

As for your questions.................. uhhhh let me look up at them again lol

You will need to buy the basic supplies. For my K'er last school year, I got glue sticks, pencils, crayons, markers, colored pencils, and notebooks. This year we got the EXACT same stuff for 1st grade (and my 2nd grader too) but we also changed how we organize our lessons.

The music program for k12 stinks. This is coming from a former professional musician too. Its REALLY bad, and sooooo irritating. I ditched it after a week it was so bad. I'm planning on contacting dd1's teacher the day she's back from China (they are bringing home their newly-adopted dd) and in office again to get music changed to attendance-only because its just that bad really. I don't have the patience for bad programs, and the music program is just bad. If you are completely tone deaf with no sense of rhythm at all, then it'll work well for you. But if you have a musical background (even just high school band or choir) it will annoy the heck out of you. That's just my opinion of it though.................... we are doing piano instead this year.
 
#29 ·
Oh yeah, and something that you'll need for the history K that I would have never thought of is FILE FOLDERS. lol You'll be taking a "world tour" of the continents and will make a suitcase for each continent to hold the stuff you did each lesson of that continent's unit. You'll also need a photograph of your child (and a stapler if you don't want to glue or tape the suitcases to your file folders). And YES scissors, its one thing I have at least 10 of around all the time so I don't think of it. And construction paper, you'll need it too. There's also some other stuff that is kind of odd like a shoebox or something like that (or is that in grade one we needed the shoebox for a diorama? lol I can't remember) but you'll be able to see what all exactly is needed when you get approved and the OLS is loaded up for you with lessons, you'll be able to access advance prep and lists of materials needed for each individual lesson.
 
#30 ·
OOOOOOO they are starting to put lessons up on the OHVA ols for the school year. Yesterday dd1 had NO subjects listed, and as of right now she has her phonics 1 and LA 1 up and ready to start. *happy dance* So I'm going to guess that when I get up at 5am tomorrow like I'm planning so that I can wake up and start prep for school to start, the OLS will be fully loaded and ready to go. At least I hope it will be............

I can't wait for the next 14 hours to pass now. lol Tomorrow is such a big day for me, with starting to watch that sweet lil man in the morning and it being the last day of my first college class and the OLS coming up live. WOW what an exciting day. Oh, and from what I understood when my h and I were talking about his work, on Monday his work schedule is *supposed* to be changed to accomodate the 2 new medicaid contracts his lab got (they now have contracts with 3 states to make the medicaid glasses PLUS a military contract) so I'm going to find out just how bad this is going to hurt. Its all coming up at once right now.................. lol OK now I have to go finish a paper that's due tomorrow, and another assignment that I also have to do. What an exciting time for me. Whew! I'll be back once the OLS is up and I've had my first day of babysitting and lessons all in one................
 
#31 ·
Anyone here use K12 for high school? Our area has a new K12 highschool virtual school option. I haven't talked to them to find out much, because I was curious to hear feedback on the actual classes first. I know the high school classes have an outside teacher, not as self-paced, etc., but how is the quality and rigor? Any meaningful interaction with the teacher and/or other students? How are the science labs?

Just curious if anyone is that far along. We've used some of the K12 classes in elementary long ago. I'm working more and having to farm out some of dd's school. She likes some online classes we have tried. If the virtual high school we have access to is any good it would certainly be cheaper!
 
#32 ·
Music - I *am* tone-deaf and have no musical talent, and still was frustrated with the music program. In its defense, one of our moms last year loved it and said she thought it did a really good job of covering the basics. My frustrations were the songs (ugh, hardly ANY that I knew, and jangly kiddie stuff) - and I felt like their differentiation between rhythm and beat, etc. were just not clear. SOOO - give it a try, you may like it. But if not, there are ways to be flexible and still do music.

Supplies - What Cat said.
Let's see, there were some other random things they thought I'd have in the house - cotton balls, paper lunch bags, radish seeds, index cards, yarn/string.... There were other things I had to scramble and buy at the store, but I don't recall what they were. I had seeds, string, cotton balls but no reason to have paper lunch bags
....

mom2ponygirl, there was a high school kid at our k12's year-end picnic, and he and his mom were talking about how challenging the curriculum was and how far ahead of his peers he seemed to be by the end of the year. I think math especially was "ahead" in their opinions. Teachers work with the secondary ed students by subject area - so your dd would be working with a history teacher, an English teacher, etc. And I think it's mostly self-directed by the time they get to high school.

Going to get supplies together so Ina can work on some k12 while we're traveling this week -- I'm hoping we can knock through a bunch of math, and maybe get a head start on reading.
 
#33 ·
Well, I'm sitting here at 6:45am with my lessons all prepped for the day and I'm dressed and awake (meds taken too
nice job for me remembering this early in the day). I'm literally bouncing at the fact that we'll be starting soon. In just under an hour my dcb will be here with his mom, and I have figured out my block scheduling already. I'm doing art on Mon, history on tues, science on wed, piano instruction and our appreciation on thurs, and then health and PE on friday. We bought Horizons health to do this school year, so it'll go perfectly with our needs I think (I hope!). Oh, and we'll also do Spanish lessons on Thursday along with music stuff (piano practice will still be done daily but the actual lesson is on thursdays). So that's how I *think* its going to go, but don't hold me to that just yet......... lol Oh I also have one extra of every lesson listed on Friday just in case we decide to do an extra lesson or two on our scheduled day.

I really like how the new OLS is set up though, its a little easier for me to navigate than the old one was. I like how literally everything is just right there and I can flip easily from one area to another without having to go back to the home page for some stuff.
 
#34 ·
Quote:

Originally Posted by kittie313 View Post
Well, I'm sitting here at 6:45am with my lessons all prepped for the day and I'm dressed and awake (meds taken too
nice job for me remembering this early in the day). I'm literally bouncing at the fact that we'll be starting soon. In just under an hour my dcb will be here with his mom, and I have figured out my block scheduling already. I'm doing art on Mon, history on tues, science on wed, piano instruction and our appreciation on thurs, and then health and PE on friday. We bought Horizons health to do this school year, so it'll go perfectly with our needs I think (I hope!). Oh, and we'll also do Spanish lessons on Thursday along with music stuff (piano practice will still be done daily but the actual lesson is on thursdays). So that's how I *think* its going to go, but don't hold me to that just yet......... lol Oh I also have one extra of every lesson listed on Friday just in case we decide to do an extra lesson or two on our scheduled day.

I really like how the new OLS is set up though, its a little easier for me to navigate than the old one was. I like how literally everything is just right there and I can flip easily from one area to another without having to go back to the home page for some stuff.
Hope you have a great day! Let us know how it goes!
 
#35 ·
Quote:

Originally Posted by kittie313 View Post
We too had a really bad experience with our ps, but with my oldest dd as a student there for K. I attended it one year in elementary school, then my family pulled me out and my grandpa paid for me to go to the best private school in central Ohio for a couple years then I went to one of the "best" ps districts in the state for a couple years before ending up back in private school for 2 years and then ended up in a rural district for my last 5 years. *whew* I would have done better hs'ed though with my personality, but am thankful they sent me off to school.
.
Funny sounds like we had similar childhoods! We are in a rural area also. Wonder if we are close LOL

I was in one of the "best" districts also. My parents pulled me in 7th grade and they wish they had done it sooner.

Ive grown up in a musical family. So I will likely be bothered also. So I just tell them we are supplementing then if you don't like it?

ODD is really excited to get the supplies out ( I raided Staples yesterday!)
 
#36 ·
I'm doing art on Mon, history on tues, science on wed, piano instruction and our appreciation on thurs, and then health and PE on friday.

I haven't yet seen what we need to do but, your idea above sounds good and much easier for me to remember.
 
#37 ·
I have turned everything thing in but one thing. I checked that R had IEP and 504 thinking they were the same. They want a copy of the 504 if he indeed had one but the counselor at his old school hasn't returned any of my phone calls!
Connections won't go any further without knowing for sure if he had a 504. Mind you that this was from 3 years ago..but whatever and apparently she's the only one in the whole school that can tell me yes/no.
 
#38 ·
Quote:

Originally Posted by LilMamiBella View Post
I have turned everything thing in but one thing. I checked that R had IEP and 504 thinking they were the same. They want a copy of the 504 if he indeed had one but the counselor at his old school hasn't returned any of my phone calls!
Connections won't go any further without knowing for sure if he had a 504. Mind you that this was from 3 years ago..but whatever and apparently she's the only one in the whole school that can tell me yes/no.
Sounds like you need to pay her a visit!
 
#39 ·
Quote:

Originally Posted by p1gg1e View Post
Sounds like you need to pay her a visit!
Every time I call they say they don't know if she's in and transfer my call to her office. She doesn't pick up and I leave a message. The last time I called the receptionist said they would get her to call me back.
 
#40 ·
This time I called and asked for the principal. She was able to tell me that no he did not have a 504! I should've asked for her in the first place.

eta: They are now officially enrolled and books will be ordered. They said R won't be able to sign up for an elective till after 30 days of schooling.
 
#41 ·
Quote:

Originally Posted by p1gg1e View Post
Funny sounds like we had similar childhoods! We are in a rural area also. Wonder if we are close LOL

I was in one of the "best" districts also. My parents pulled me in 7th grade and they wish they had done it sooner.

Ive grown up in a musical family. So I will likely be bothered also. So I just tell them we are supplementing then if you don't like it?

ODD is really excited to get the supplies out ( I raided Staples yesterday!)

We may be close, I live east of Columbus (about halfway between C-bus and Zanesville). As far as the music, as soon as you get your teacher assignment contact the teacher and ask for paperwork to be filed to get you approved to go attendance-only, that you want to do private instrumental lessons instead (I told the teacher we were doing violin with dd1 last year and got it approved in less than 2 days, a week later I had my return label) I really need to do this again for dd2, but am a little too lazy. I'm also thinking of dropping dd2's art class and just doing dd1's program for art (or maybe dropping it too, I haven't decided yet really)
 
#42 ·
Well, I just spoke with dd1's teacher for this year. We spent about 20min on the phone discussing her and her current level and learning needs, and getting some things scheduled. I'm feeling really good right now about it all. Her teacher is going to assess her right after Labor Day and then we're going to see if she qualifies for title 1 services with the school, and then we are waiting on the testing for her learning issues to be done so that we can get a 504 or IEP in place ASAP to better help her succeed. She also approved my putting off history and science for dd1 until after dd2 finishes her 1st grade science/history so they can do it together, and just asked that we have her join in on the lessons with dd2 so that she's getting hours for it and we keep up with her math and lang arts so she's not behind at all there. Not a problem, so now I'm going to rework my schedule to give us 2 grade levels of those subjects over the year. I'm really pumped now..........
 
#44 ·
What do your weekly schedules look like? Our plans haven't been loaded on OLS, and we are newbies. So, I was just wondering how everyone else plans their subjects and days. DS will have K science, art, music and history and 1st math and LA.
 
#45 ·
Quote:

Originally Posted by Love_My_Babies View Post
What do your weekly schedules look like? Our plans haven't been loaded on OLS, and we are newbies. So, I was just wondering how everyone else plans their subjects and days. DS will have K science, art, music and history and 1st math and LA.
Ditto!

We finally after resending our paper work are able to view the system! Hopefully our stuff with come next week!
 
#46 ·
Well I'm off to a productive start already for the day. DD1 did her phonics lesson this morning before her other sisters woke up, then shortly after we had breakfast dd2 did her phonics and handwriting practice. Here soon my h will call on his morning break to remind me to do history, and once we get off the phone I'll do history. Then after lunch I'll do math with the big girls, and at some point today I'll do a reading lesson with dd3. Oh, and I promised the girls we'd get out the pastels today and do self-portraits............... *sigh* lol so that's where we stand for today, I am hoping this weekend that among all our other stuff (I have a leadership meeting tomorrow at 11am and then we promised my cousin that this week we'd come check out his church on sunday) I can manage to finish that last 3 college assignments. They are just simple stuff, but time consuming, so I'm going to need to spend some time really working on those this weekend.

Whew, I'm already tired just thinking about all that.
 
#47 ·
We were able to do school Wed, Thurs, and today. Both kids ages 8 and 11 want me to sit next to them the whole time! Not to mention I have two younger ones who want to climb on me or sit on my lap and nurse. I feel like the 11yo can easily do this on his own. The problem is he doesn't read directions and flies through everything. He told me 30 mins after we started that he was done doing 4 lessons!
He skipped through without reading everything and then did the little quizzes at the end (and getting it wrong!). Dd age 8 needs me to constantly direct her through the whole thing. After each question I have to tell her what to do even through she can read it herself. I'm so frustrated! For physical education, I'm doing the active lifestyle. They both do 2 hours of dance each week and dd will be doing an hour of gymnastics so I thinks its doable. Its just that dance doesn't start till next month though and so I need to come up with things for them to do.
 
#48 ·
Quote:

Originally Posted by Love_My_Babies View Post
What do your weekly schedules look like? Our plans haven't been loaded on OLS, and we are newbies. So, I was just wondering how everyone else plans their subjects and days. DS will have K science, art, music and history and 1st math and LA.
We followed their default schedule last year -- for K, it was:
Monday: Math, Language, Phonics,
Tuesday: Math, Language, Phonics, Science, Music
Wednesday: Math, Language, Phonics, History, Art
Thursday: Math, Language, Phonics, Science, Music
Friday: Math, Language, Phonics, History, Art

.... Talk with your teachers about moving things around and whether they want you to do 5 hours/day even then .... Frankly, our teacher told us that "They expect students to do about five hours a day," because of attendance things from the public school system. I read between the lines (as I suspect she wanted me to do) -- what we did was entered the full estimated time for each course every day -- even when we finished much quicker. And, remember, you can enter time for any of the subject areas BEYOND what they expect. So, days we were traveling and spent the morning at a history museum, we would enter 3-4 hours of history that day even though we didn't complete a history lesson on the k12 curriculum that day. So the teachers may be OK with you doing that if you're subbing something like that those days.

In all honesty there were many days where I entered full attendance without entering any assessments -- and other days where I entered assessments and attendance for work Ina had completed over the weekend or etc. I know our teacher knew what we were doing but didn't care because Ina was doing well .... I think some teachers are far more strict about this than others though.
 
#49 ·
Hi ladies!

I used to be a rather active mdc'er however the last year or so have not been around so much! We just recently started the enrollment in our state's virtual school...we did have the public school experience for a few years and it was a mixed experience. I personally always had leaning towards homeschooling, but felt at the time that I lacked the knowledge about setting up an elementary curriculums, etc (though I used to teach secondary math and science). Working with the girls and finding out about this program which was just expanded this year in our state made me take the plunge. Though, by golly I admit I'm nervous!!! I know my girls with thrive and my oldest daughter especially has always had a strong desire to homeschool.

I have read little on the whole homeschooling concept, mainly as I thought that my dh was not supportive of the idea. But, especially after last year and our experience with the schools not supporting my daughter's needs to read at her own level instead of being held back to those of the others in her class made it especially frustrating. I think I posted about that a while back here on mothering!

So, we will be taking the plunge! Trying not to be nervous, it sounds great from what I've read!
 
#50 ·
Quote:

Originally Posted by elanorh View Post

In all honesty there were many days where I entered full attendance without entering any assessments -- and other days where I entered assessments and attendance for work Ina had completed over the weekend or etc. I know our teacher knew what we were doing but didn't care because Ina was doing well .... I think some teachers are far more strict about this than others though.
A friend of mine told me the SAME thing. Its an estimated time with each lesson so say they are to do 1 lesson and its says estimated 30 min. then you log 30min.

Now I'm a newbie so I'm just going by what my friend told me.

I'm hoping to focus on a subject a day rather then 5 a day...we will see...
 
#51 ·
Quote:

Originally Posted by p1gg1e View Post
A friend of mine told me the SAME thing. Its an estimated time with each lesson so say they are to do 1 lesson and its says estimated 30 min. then you log 30min.

Now I'm a newbie so I'm just going by what my friend told me.

I'm hoping to focus on a subject a day rather then 5 a day...we will see...
I did the same thing last school year that your friend said. Especially with my second girl. We'll do a history lesson as an example. History says to take 45 minutes, but if dd2 spent only 15-20 minutes on history before passing the test then I logged the full 45min unless she really really wanted to keep going, then I did another lesson or we dug deeper. Same with math. I had days where dd2 would test out of a unit completely, taking 10 minutes to do it, so I would mark the full hour anyway. And on days she actually DID the lesson I think I spent less than 20min again on the material before she had it down. Yet I would still log the full hour because honestly, we did an hour of work even though it took us almost no time at all.

Although, this year since we're combining the girls for history, science, and probably art (haven't decided yet though) we are actually attempting to spend the scheduled amount of time on all subjects. Meaning, that 60min it says I should spend on a math lesson will happen, just that dd2 will probably do 3-5 days of math each day. She'll pass up dd1 in math in NO TIME flat at that pace, but I know she'll be fine as long as I keep math as a separate subject like I am doing now. She'll probably also pass dd1 in phonics as well, which is mildly unsettling.

Hmmmmmm I have a discussion I'm going to take over the the learning at school forum, if you can sneak over and reply on it I'd appreciate it. It really is a situation I feel would be better to get input from the at-school crowd too so I can see different angles.
 
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