Making learning fun when your children are in the elementary grades can be a lot easier then when they begin to hit the upper grades. It can be difficult to find something that will engage teens. They are at that age where they either like it or they don't. Standard Deviants Accelerate provides a curriculum supplement for Middle and High school courses. There are classes for Grades 3rd-12th grades but the bulk are for upper levels. The core basis of Standard Deviants Accelerate are high energy videos that teach every thing you need to know for that subject along with additional online tasks.
For my review I was given a full annual subscription to all the Standard Deviants Accelerate Homeschool Courses You can purchase the course for the use of one student for $99. for a year or $24.95 per month.
AP Courses are available for one student for $14.95 per month. This page reflects the homeschool Pricing. Below is a list of the courses...
Arithmetic - Grades 3+
Fundamental Math - Grades 4+
Earth Science - Grades 6+
Nutrition - Grades 6+
Algebra - Grades 7+
Biology - Grades 7+
Chemistry - Grades 9+
English Comp. - Grades 9+
U.S. History - Grades 9+
AP Biolody - Grades 11+
AP Chemistry - Grades 11+
AP U.S. Government & Politics - Grades 11+
AP U.S. History - Grades 11+
AP Eng. Composition - Grades 11+
When you get your log in you will be able to load the courses that you have purchased. I loaded all of them to mine and so my child's page looks like the one below. Very colorful and easy to read icons appear for an easy location of courses.
I took a look around through all the courses and played around a little before we worked in any of them. I managed it in two different ways. One way was to take a look at the guide for that particular course and build a curriculum around the videos and online activities. The other way was to look at the curriculum I was using and match like subjects to the topics and work on those particular links. The courses are generally set up in a similar fashion. So I will walk you through one in particular.
One of the courses I decided to work through was the Nutrition course. I did this one with my 8th grader, Although it is suggested for a 6th grader. It was easily modified for his level. We have all been working hard on eating healthier and exercising . So I thought this would be a perfect way to explore this topic. This is one course that I built a curriculum out of what was present in the online session. Below is a list of all the topics that are touched upon in the Nutrition course. You do not need to click them in order if you don't want to . You can click any of the links, enter and complete them. We worked through them in order and I added some worksheets and other activities along with what was present.
Once you click on the link ...below is what you will see. The video on the right is your first stop. They are energetic and wonderfully made. To the left you will find the transcript of the video and can follow along. At the bottom of the screen your child can take notes and then print them out for a Nutrition Binder. I loved the notes idea.
The next tab in the lesson is a vocabulary tab. You can click and hear the word and read the meaning of the vocab. word.
The next tab is one called "Diagram". In this section students will drag and drop answers on the screen. This screen varies and are not all identical to the one below. It is a simple way to reinforce what they learned in the video and with their vocabulary.
The Quiz section is just what it says. A quiz to evaluate what you got from the video and vocabulary. It is automatically graded by your computer. You can come back later as the parent and check on their scores.
The last section is the "written answer" section. You are giving a rubric for grading the answers that your child writes to help you with grading.
My 8th grader also used it with his Algebra 1. It was a nice additive to his existing curriculum and really helped us solidify the topics that were presented in his books. I would just match the topics and have him click those specific links and work through the screens. Then we would work together on other problems on an as needed basis.
From the very beginning my son enjoyed the humor of the videos. He is an auditory learner so the videos provided him with that need. My son also does not like long drawn out subjects so he appreciated that most of them were no more than 15 minutes in length. I was not focused on the grading aspect but we did try a few. Mostly we used the videos, vocab section and the Diagram section.
I did also used it with my 3rd grader . He used the Arithmetic section. I found it a bit harder to match with our curriculum. It was missing some of the algebraic concepts we were learning in his math book. It also showed us how to complete larger multiplication facts and in our book we are just beginning to learn our facts. So There were only a few links that we were able to use and match up. I'm thinking that our 4th grade math book will match better to the 3rd grade videos.
My thoughts
I enjoyed the change in scenery for my child. Meaning that the videos provided us with a change to our regular schedule. I was able to match up nicely to my sons Algebra course to the video course but struggled to do so with my 3rd graders math curriculum. Standard Deviants Accelerate is a secular program. The Sciences will teach evolution. However you do have the ability to skip them.
If you would like to read more about this video course click the graphic below to learn more.
Warm Blessings,
Nikki