k12 or Calvert for 2nd grade?????

[Amber]

Has anyone here used either k12 or Calvert for 2nd grade? That's buying k12 independently and not through a virtual academy.:)
I would love your input on why you liked k12 or Calvert or why you did not like them.
Thanks,
Amber

[BizyPenguin]

I reviewed Calvert on my blog. Click on "Curriculum Reviews" to find it. I don't have any experience with K12, but I'm sure someone else will chime in. Good luck choosing.

[Sue G in PA]

Now, we did use it through a VA, but the curriculum is the same. I don't know about Calvert except that I've heard it's not as rigorous. I like that K12 is classical in its approach to History (chronological, 4 yr. program from 1st through 4th and then American in 5th/6th and on to World for 2 years in 7th and 8th). I LOVED having art mesh with History. The math for 2nd grade was a neat, colorful workbook which my dc liked a lot. No wonder switching to Saxon was difficult for them! If we could afford K12, I'd use the Math, LA, phonics for my Ker and 1st grader, Art. The science is good, but I wanted something more creation-based, not secular. I got tired of editing. Same for History, although one good thing: SWB wrote their 1st grade and some 2nd grade History :) It reads MUCH like SOTW! Oh, and LOVE the online school for keeping me organized. I do miss that this year. It kept me in line as to what needed to get done and my oldest dc could track their own daily schedules and check off what they accomplished. Very nice. HTH

[TracyR]

We've used Calvert for grades 1, 2, 3 and 4 ( and 5th grade math ) So far the only grade level we've enjoyed is 4th grade . That's it only because of the CHOW book and the readers for reading that follow the topics that are in Child's History of the World .
I'm not at all a big fan of Calvert but we use it with a cyberschool and my oldest has been begging me to pull her out . We were able to see some of the K12 curriculum at another cyberschool fair and we love it ! It almost is like Sonlight with some workbook stuff thrown in . I love how they teach children to write ( I don't care for how Calvert teaches I call it the " Learning to write through Osmosis method " . Calvert's Art is a joke . There is really nothing artsy about it. More like arts and craft time ,, even in 4th grade . Not anything to get excited about at all . Everyonce in a while we find something of interest . Calvert doesn't include music . And math , well its our least favorite subject of them all . After 2nd grade Calvert sucks the life out of learning math( jmo ) . I'm not sure about K12's math but they have online review and so forth and it just looks more interesting but we have no experience with it yet so I don't know .
Plus if your going to go at it without a virtual school I'm sure you can go at your pace and enjoy K12 . You can pick and choose as you want so you aren't made to do it all like you would with a VA .
Calvert is a bare bones type of curriculum. I've found I had to supplement it ALOT ! I've talked to alot of people who feel the same way . Granted we don't have to pay for it . But a friend of mine does and she feels that it is just too costly of a curriculum that needs to be supplemented alot too . And she feels that putting that much money into a curriculum to only go out and have to buy more stuff isn't worth it really .

With all this rambling . I would say if this is your only child and you don't have a broad then K12 is really worth it . If you have a big family . Don't want to spend alot of time with teaching time then Calvert might be a better choice . After saying all of that if I could afford to homeschool traditionally I would and I would not choose Calvert for my family . But I don't regret getting to read Children's History of the World though :>) I do plan on trying K12 with my 3rd daughter this coming school year .

[Barb F. PA in AZ]

I've used both in the past and without going into all the reasons why (I really need to sign off, LOL) I prefer K12 over Calvert. Calvert is very textbook driven in Science and pretty light in History. K12 is richer in comparison and gives you many ideas to take the lessons further. Problem is, K12 is so expensive so you have to weigh that against the quality.

Barb

[TracyR]

Yes totally agree. That was one subject I forgot to mention . Calvert's Science books are the typical dry boring textbooks . Not at all enjoyable .
Calvert's 2nd grade history book is mighty boring as well . Just a black and white book with words and some activities . It was a book for both of my girls I just never used . I went and got library books instead .

[Linda in NE]

I can get you access codes effective for a week. You can take a look at the online portion of the lesson content. Of course, you won't have all the actual books and materials that go along with the lesson, but it might give you an idea how the whole thing works.

Let me know.

[EKS]

I have been using K12 with both my kids since January. My 6 yo is taking Language Arts 2, History K, and Science 1. He was taking Art K but we dropped it. My 11 yo is taking Life Science.

For a while I really liked K12, and I still do but with reservations. All the courses are very thorough and rich. The required and optional books have obviously been selected with care as they are always excellent. The activities (for the lower grades) are usually homeschool friendly and to the point.

However, K12 seems obsessed with assessment. There is usually at least one assessment per lesson per subject. The assessments are very frequently about topics that were just introduced in that lesson. It is rare that a topic will be developed over the course of several lessons and then have an assessment on it. Anyway, the constant assessment is starting to drive me nuts.

Overall, I'm happy with the courses my 6 yo is taking, with the exception of the unrelenting assessment aspect. I am less happy with the middle school life science course my 11 yo is taking, however. It seems extremely dumbed down to me. This could be because it is written to the student, I'm not sure. I have also found some of the information to be inaccurate (my degree is in biochemistry so I may be a little critical here). The labs are good but most of the activities are busy-work (things like making collages with pictures cut out of magazines) and we have all but stopped doing them. The questions they ask in the assessments and worksheets are frequently about irrelevant details, almost as though there wasn't enough real information presented in the lesson but they felt they had to come up with a certain number of questions. Sometimes they want you to be able to infer more from the information given than is reasonable.

In the first few weeks of using K12 I had thought that next year I would have my 6 yo continue with LA, history, and science and my 11 yo would take Physical Science and World History A. After experiencing it for a few months though, and having looked through all the courses with the demo account (something I highly recommend!), I have decided to only use K12's Science 2 course. I will be assembling LA materials from several sources and using SOTW for history, having the history reading and narration my son does count for LA. For my 11 yo (7th grade next year), I have decided to go with Spielvogel's Human Odyssey for world history and Conceptual Physical Science Explorations for science. There just didn't seem to be enough relevent meat in K12's middle school science and history courses for us.

Now if I had to use a packaged curriculum, I would definately choose K12!