This is our third year homeschooling. We started homeschooling our oldest in first grade. As a homeschool mama, I know that learning isn’t across the board. Just because you have a friend that raves about a certain program, doesn’t mean it’s going to work with your child. I also know that just because a program works for my 8-year-old, doesn’t mean it’s going to work for my kindergartener one day. I like to pretend it will so I can save money, but in reality there is a chance it won’t.
My third grader has begged for computer based learning since first grade. Since it isn’t available until third grade I hesitantly took the plunge this year and purchased him Math (not TT), Science and Language Arts for the computer. I still wanted to teach him History and Bible.
Most days our Bible study is a group discussion with both boys and I love it. Just yesterday our twenty-minute Bible study turned into an hour-long Bible study because they both contribute to the conversation.
Anyway, back to what I was saying. We are currently six weeks into the new school year and I am constantly seeing struggles. The math software is sensitive and he gets frustrated. The homeschool software we purchased doesn’t come with a book like TT so it makes it hard for him and myself. One day he was in tears because he was doing it right and it kept moving his numbers. I then tried, thinking maybe he was doing something wrong, but it did it with me as well. So basically, I have been recreating all of it, print it off and let him do paper form
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The Science is another hard one. Once again, there is no book and really no printable resource options. Once again, I’m really seeing struggles even though he promises me he is “getting” it. I have to remind him that I see his grades and I’m pretty sure he isn’t. Some of the lessons are very vague and just two weeks ago, I was pulling some of our Apologia Science just so I could get more in-depth information to help him understand. We then did the Apologia experiments to go along with it. After that, he got it!
For example, he read a unit and took a test yesterday in the Science. I look at his grade and he made an F. He got 25% correct. He struggles with math and always has, but Science is completely different. So I go once again and recreate it so we can print it off. I even recreated the test. It took about an hour out of my day to do that, and then we set down and did the unit together. He then took the quiz. Guess what? He got 100% right.
While this isn’t a bad program, it’s just not for us. I always hear of parents having to repurchase new curriculum because something isn’t working and this is going to be our first year. It’s an expensive lesson, but nothing to do but move on. 
I’m not saying this form of learning will never work for him, but at this point in his education it isn’t. So I’ll be tucking it away in case my youngest wants to give it a try, but honestly for me..it’s hard to beat old-fashion learning that involves books, papers, and hands-on learning.
So what’s next? Purchasing new curriculum for the Science and Math. I’m really looking at TT for the Math, but still undecided when it comes to Science.
