Power Homeschool Acellus High school?

[ECingMama]

I'm thinking about using it for geometry and chemistry next year. Experience?

Maybe all 7 subjects. My teen isn't loving public school because everyone at her school is *really* into school. It seems like they all want to be MDs at her school.

[rdsmommy]

We used the Chemistry. Ds said it was ok. Not awful but not his favorite and I know there were some sections we had to look on YouTube for better explanations.

[ECingMama]

Originally Posted by rdsmommy

We used the Chemistry. Ds said it was ok. Not awful but not his favorite and I know there were some sections we had to look on YouTube for better explanations.

What did you do for labs? I can't remember what we did. My teacher was a first year teacher. Maybe 2nd year.

[rdsmommy]

Originally Posted by ECingMama

What did you do for labs? I can't remember what we did. My teacher was a first year teacher. Maybe 2nd year.

We didn’t do any. I had planned to supplement with labs but didn’t get to it. However this year another homeschool mom is doing weekly chemistry labs so he is doing them this year. I know there were lab videos included so he could watch labs and write up reports but he skipped a lot of them.

[ECingMama]

Originally Posted by rdsmommy

We didn’t do any. I had planned to supplement with labs but didn’t get to it. However this year another homeschool mom is doing weekly chemistry labs so he is doing them this year. I know there were lab videos included so he could watch labs and write up reports but he skipped a lot of them.

appreciate that

I might have to enroll my kiddo in the co-op where they do labs once a week

[Soliloquy]

My oldest is doing it and likes it.

[tempus vernum]

We used it. Not for chemistry or geometry (that’s this year in public school) but environmental science and algebra 1. S is considered a very strong student at school and the guidance counselor told us outright compared to other curriculum kids coming in who used acellus don’t struggle the way some homeschoolers did.

S did labs but tbh I have no clue where they came from. He’d print what had to be done and we’d be off. He’d guide me through what had to happen and explain why we were doing what we did.

Other than occasional algebra assistance and hanging out for labs, I didnt do anything except monitor progress

I loved acellus as a parent and so did S. If homeschooling was ever on the table again, I’d not hesitate to use it.

Sorry to hear people are so in to school high achievement schools can be very difficult to tolerate (((((hug))))) . That’s not at all how S’s experience is and would be completely off putting for S as well

[rdsmommy]

Originally Posted by ECingMama

I'm thinking about using it for geometry and chemistry next year. Experience?

Maybe all 7 subjects. My teen isn't loving public school because everyone at her school is *really* into school. It seems like they all want to be MDs at her school.

I just wanted to add that if dd or ds were to be home again I would definitely use accellus again. It wasn’t perfect but ds did retain a lot more using it than he had been with other curriculum. I think the difficulty with Chemistry was more because it was a difficult subject for him. The good thing with accellus is that you can try it out and switch if it doesn’t work since your only paying one month at a time.

On a side note: The “into school” part is a struggle for my dd too but for different reasons. She is a perfectionist and feels like she has to be the best. It is not good for her mental health especially on weeks like this one where she is sick and freaking out about missing school. I wish I could get through to her that she doesn’t have to go to Yale to succeed in life. (I mean that literally. She now has her sights set on Yale.)

[ECingMama]

Originally Posted by rdsmommy

I just wanted to add that if dd or ds were to be home again I would definitely use accellus again. It wasn’t perfect but ds did retain a lot more using it than he had been with other curriculum. I think the difficulty with Chemistry was more because it was a difficult subject for him. The good thing with accellus is that you can try it out and switch if it doesn’t work since your only paying one month at a time.

On a side note: The “into school” part is a struggle for my dd too but for different reasons. She is a perfectionist and feels like she has to be the best. It is not good for her mental health especially on weeks like this one where she is sick and freaking out about missing school. I wish I could get through to her that she doesn’t have to go to Yale to succeed in life. (I mean that literally. She now has her sights set on Yale.)

Since this is my daughter's first year in public school, she's not used to the culture. And this particular school does attrack kids who want to earn 4.0s. My kid wouldn't be interested in that even if she'd always been at public school. She's fine with a mix of As, , and Cs. Most of her classes have 18 students. Her English class only has 5. She can't hide in there, so she has an A.

Oh. Yale. Wow. A friend went there. I'm not sure she could have gotten in without playing soccer. It's next to impossible. I hope your daughter finds a way into the school where she'll thrive, Yale or not.

...........

Were your students able to finish the classes in a year? My son was scamming me early on. It shows that he did a class if he just opens it and leaves. I didn't realize he wasn't doing the class for a bit. Now he's behind. He prefers if I sti with him for 1/2 or more of the lessons. I don't mind, but I don't want my daughter to get behind in high school classes.

So my question is: if she does whatever they automatically assign, will she finish the year's work?

[rdsmommy]

Originally Posted by ECingMama

Since this is my daughter's first year in public school, she's not used to the culture. And this particular school does attrack kids who want to earn 4.0s. My kid wouldn't be interested in that even if she'd always been at public school. She's fine with a mix of As, , and Cs. Most of her classes have 18 students. Her English class only has 5. She can't hide in there, so she has an A.

Oh. Yale. Wow. A friend went there. I'm not sure she could have gotten in without playing soccer. It's next to impossible. I hope your daughter finds a way into the school where she'll thrive, Yale or not.

...........

Were your students able to finish the classes in a year? My son was scamming me early on. It shows that he did a class if he just opens it and leaves. I didn't realize he wasn't doing the class for a bit. Now he's behind. He prefers if I sti with him for 1/2 or more of the lessons. I don't mind, but I don't want my daughter to get behind in high school classes.

So my question is: if she does whatever they automatically assign, will she finish the year's work?

Ds did finish most of his classes. The AP/Honors classes have a lot more sections to do especially in Chemistry which he didn’t finish because he was getting stuck. I switched him to the regular Chemistry class along with reading a Chemistry textbook about half way thru so he didn’t quite finish. He did finish his history, English, and Spanish classes. In the high school classes there is a quiz after each section so you can tell based on the grade they get if they are actually doing the work. Ds was only able to skip labs because those are printed out and done on paper.

[Soliloquy]

Originally Posted by ECingMama

...........

Were your students able to finish the classes in a year? My son was scamming me early on. It shows that he did a class if he just opens it and leaves. I didn't realize he wasn't doing the class for a bit. Now he's behind. He prefers if I sti with him for 1/2 or more of the lessons. I don't mind, but I don't want my daughter to get behind in high school classes.

So my question is: if she does whatever they automatically assign, will she finish the year's work?

With Acellus? I can see what assignments she did, her score, what questions she got incorrect, and go look at individual questions. And how many minutes she spent watching the teaching video.

[ECingMama]

Originally Posted by Soliloquy

With Acellus? I can see what assignments she did, her score, what questions she got incorrect, and go look at individual questions. And how many minutes she spent watching the teaching video.

He was "doing his school" while i was driving his sister to and from school. He'd just open his page and show me that he finished every subject because it marks it green if he opens it and immediately closes it. I was not looking in my parent portal. I'm not new to it anymore, and they are sending me emails too (mabye they were before, but I didn't notice). And he feels really bad that he was dishonest. I switched the subjects that were causing him to melt down to a lower grade level too.

I think he'll have to work into June to finish. I would have liked to have finished in May.

[tempus vernum]

Have you found the spot that indicates “% of coursework done.” That is the spot I checked regularly and set goals for

I allowed freedom in regards to what was being done on a given day as long as around mid to end of January 50% of all credit work was completed. Some people have their kids do one class at a time every X weeks (which is actually how our districts virtual schooling option works.)

The first year using acellus S easily finished. The second year there were too many hospitalizations (total of 12 weeks of 1 hour of school a day) so only 5.5 credit were completed.

[Soliloquy]

Yes, I look at the percentage completed to guage how we're doing and to let them know whether to expect days off school when a holiday or summer break is coming up. One of my kids is on a tight schedule right now to earn back her Christmas break (we usually take 2 full weeks off, she's not going to get that unless she reaches a certain point).

[ECingMama]

Originally Posted by tempus vernum

Have you found the spot that indicates “% of coursework done.” That is the spot I checked regularly and set goals for

I allowed freedom in regards to what was being done on a given day as long as around mid to end of January 50% of all credit work was completed. Some people have their kids do one class at a time every X weeks (which is actually how our districts virtual schooling option works.)

The first year using acellus S easily finished. The second year there were too many hospitalizations (total of 12 weeks of 1 hour of school a day) so only 5.5 credit were completed.

Yes, I did find that spot a bit ago. I wish I had followed that from day 1! He was doing the easy classes (the classes he likes) and skipping math.