English, AliYah Academy

The Great Courses Plus, Changing the Way I Homeschool

**Update: The Great Courses Plus is now called Wondrium and has added much more content.

Sometimes you come across resources that change or reshape the way you homeschool. I have been homeschooling for over 20 years now, so this has happened to me a lot. My oldest is 22 now and I believe I started at birth, maybe before. I always felt like a homeschooler, these children are my responsibility and I want to give them everything so that they can have the best opportunity in life.

When I started, the internet was new. I would come across an educational computer program and get excited, or an educational series on VHS (remember those?)

But now there are so many resources you can’t keep track of them all and access with technology is amazing! Back then, I would buy one VHS (or DVD later on) and we would watch it like crazy until I could afford another. Now we have streaming access online or on TV. YouTube is exploding with educational content and I use Pureflix and even Netflix.

But I have come across something that is changing the course of our homeschool once again. And when I say homeschool, I mean life, because homeschooling for us is just life. Yes, we pick courses each year and have curriculum and lessons, but the majority of it is just free learning. I gear it toward our “theme” courses for the year or the grade level they are at but mostly we just have fun. For example, we are going to study Eastern Hemisphere History this year so naturally, programs, stories, or activities having to do with Japan, China, Russia, Korea, etc. will peak our interest and supplement our learning.

So what is this resource that is changing our homeschooling? The suspense!

Well, you must have seen the title. It is The Great Courses plus. You have probably heard of the Great Courses. I have gotten their catalogs and seen the ads online, they have high-quality, high school/college level DVD courses. But they are pricey! They usually range around $300 or more for one course. Sometimes I’ve seen them on sale for around $70 or so and I’ve even seen them in the used book store but I could never justify the price, especially for only one subject and not being able to preview it. What if we hated it or what if it wasn’t in line with my beliefs? Especially since there are so many other resources out there, yeah they might not be as high quality or as refined but I could make due. I could just never justify the price.

But I recently discovered they now have a subscription, The Great Courses plus!! You have access to over 11,000 engaging video lectures (with more continually being added) on Math, History, Science, Travel, Health & Wellness, Entrepreneurship, Photography, Language, Cooking, and more, from award-winning college professors and experts from National Geographic, the Smithsonian, The Culinary Institute of America, The Mayo Clinic, and more. All for one low monthly price! You can even try it for free and cancel anytime!

The Great Courses is a mainstream, secular resource created for High School and lifelong learners (think college courses) I expect you will use your own discretion when picking courses from this resource as I do. You will get everything from Biblical Hebrew to Evolutionary Science courses. There are so many choices, pick what is relevant to your family. If your beliefs lie on the side of Creation Science as ours do you probably won’t find many courses in the Science area, but the Math courses are amazing as are the cooking, language, history and culture, plus so many more I’m sure I have not been able to review yet. For our family, this is replacing Netflix. Even though it is created for older children my younger ones are also enjoying many of the courses too.

Most of the lectures are about 30 minutes long so I figured I could pick 4 or 5 courses at a time that can supplement or in some cases be the complete curriculum. That would depend on your child, family, and the subject. That would be about 2 hours of educational video instruction! That is very doable. I personally will still use YouTube for my younger ones but I have struggled to find everything I want for middle and high schoolers on there.

Some people do not like too much “screen” time but I find it extremely valuable to my children’s education if I choose wisely.

You can watch these easily on your computer, phone, or tablet. You can watch them from your TV with Roku, AppleTV or the Amazon FireTV or Echo. If you don’t have one of those and want to watch it from your TV you can plug your laptop (or desktop computer if it is close enough) to the TV and voila! Some smart TVs can pair to your phone which might also be an option. I personally use a laptop that is kept near my TV and set it up to easily hook up to it (it usually stays hooked up) we watch videos on our large screen and do some online lessons this way too when I want multiple children to see.

Also if you have a high schooler it is important for them to learn to become an independent learner, with your guidance of course. It is always necessary to oversee your students, they cannot homeschool themselves. You have to know what is going on, what they are learning and guide them when they need help or encouragement. In comparison, if they were at school they would have teachers and administrators at home they have you and the resources you provide. I will suggest that you consider The Great Courses plus as one of those resources for your High Schooler. For about the same price as Netflix or similar service you can have access to these high quality courses.

You know I rarely write blogs about products but, I was so excited to find this I wanted to share it with you. This is going to change my homeschooling this year. We have added this to our Resource page or you can click on the links in this blog. We are an affiliate for this company and if you purchase here it will benefit the school. But keep in mind we first and foremost share resources we use or would recommend then, if they have an affiliate program we participate in that. There is no risk to try it for free and preview the courses to see if this would benefit your family. You may find that it greatly enhances your homeschooling too.

As always, Happy Homeschooling!

Confessions of a Homeschool Mom

So here it is, January, mid-school year, and time for us to record semester one grades. I have to confess, even though I am confident in the education that my children are getting, I have a moment of doubt when it comes time to record grades. After all, I am a busy mom, I work 2 days outside of the home and I also help to run our business from home. I have a one-year-old who is still quite attached to me; a 2-year-old and a 5-year-old who both require lots of my attention and constant activity; and a 7-year-old girl who is such a big help but still needs much guidance and training. Then I have 3 teenagers, high schoolers. I spend so much of my time reading to and teaching little ones, that I doubt, for a moment, that my high schoolers have gotten what they need. Besides that as a homeschooler our “school” does not have to be founded on grades, these are my children. For most subjects, we go over or they go over, whatever material is at hand until it is understood. We don’t move on until it is mastered, it’s as simple as that, it’s an “A” or we aren’t done. In a typical school setting where there are 30 students in a classroom, one year with each teacher to accomplish said subject and all subjects are compartmentalized. Yes, a grading system would be needed to try to “chart” how much of said subject was internalized by each student that year. But we as homeschoolers are not limited in that way. When I hear my children discussing “the British perspective of the Revolutionary War vs. the “American” perspective”… Then I know they “got it”. That would mean the material was mastered and that, my friend, deserves an “A”. So now here I am, mid-year to record my children’s grades. I go subject by subject that I have put before them at the beginning of the year to complete. I have trained up my high schoolers to be independent. I stay mostly hands-off, only to check final reports I have assigned, and I commonly discuss with them what they are doing just to check that they are still on track with their “school,” after all, their school is still my responsibility. I allow them to chart their own course in high school but they know the boundaries and what is expected. If they get off track, I am there to guide them back. So I get to each subject, some of them they do on the computer, I check their progress, remind them where they need to be by the end of the year, we make a new plan for completion if needed, then move on. I get to English… What have they done for English? I can’t even think, have they done anything? I had a teacher in high school who, at grading time, would call me up to his desk. “What should I give you an A or a B?” This was so crazy to me, did he not know my grade? Did I really have a choice? I would then have a discussion with him that would end up with me reminding him of all I learned and accomplished in his class. Everyone did not pass his class so I know our grades were not only based on that discussion but looking back, how brilliant, to remind the student of all they had learned by getting them to regurgitate it back, or was this not unlike our family discussions around the dinner table and me being able to see that they “got it”. So I call each child to me, first Mason, a senior this year, “What have you been doing in English?” He reminds me he is writing a novel. Of course! He is using the book “Learn to Write the Novel Way” by Carole Thaxton. He references it and uses it to get his writing juices flowing. He is always discussing his ideas with his dad, his brother, and me. He shows me his progress, I have to say, I am impressed. We discuss plans to complete it by the end of the school year and I happily mark down “A”. Now Ethan, a junior this year, … oh my what has he done? So I call him to me, “What have you been doing for English?” He says “Mini Weapons of Mass Destruction”… at first I’m about to blow that off as a joke, it’s a book by Jason Austin, using office supplies to make fun little gadgets like catapults, slingshots, etc. Then he says, “No really, I’ve read it like 3 times.” Then I start thinking, he had “OKed” a project with me concerning this book, I just didn’t think of it as English. But he is making “how-to” demos on YouTube. He writes and creates a dialog, does research, and creates video media, not to mention computer skills, mathematical, and scientific applications. Oh yeah, he gets an “A”! We discussed what I would like to see by the end of the year to include more writing, and I continue with my grading. By the way, we are always reading and discussing novels and Scripture around here, so I know that we have that covered, in their English, I am looking for more writing. Now Ethan is very hands-on, he would much rather be reading a manual than a story. Twice in the past few weeks, I have heard the quote “Find what you love and you will never work a day in your life.” I do believe, that is what both of my boys have found this year in English, so much so that I didn’t even see it as work until they showed me. To me, this is a dream come true, for my children to love to learn. For them to be finding their strengths and building on them. Now, again, I have no doubts. And I LOVE homeschooling! It is my hope that this will be an inspiration to you in your home.

Happy Homeschooling!