Back to the Drawing Board

I trust you all had a wonderful Easter weekend. We decided to take the rest of the week off due to daddy being home after having been gone to Tanzania / Zambia last week. We will also be spending a few days with my Sister in Vanderbijlpark as my mom’s visiting there from Ireland.

Jesse’s Switched on Schoolhouse General Science II arrived last Tuesday. He’s already done his sample lesson as well as the first few lessons.

Each lesson includes vocabulary, with a games Arcade & Flash card facility to reinforce the vocabulary.

Lessons also include images, short video clips & animations. All lessons have quizzes and tests of which about 85% is automatically graded, thus reducing my workload. Some quizzes & tests include questions that require the student to write an answer in paragraph form. Then there are also questions that require essay-type answer. For these the program re-directs the student to a word processor. Jesse likes the idea that he could use speech-to-text software to do the typing of the essay for him where after he can then proof-read and edit as necessary. The paragraph and essay questions require grading by the parent.

 

After his first lesson, I heard all about Aristotle, Copernicus & Isaac Newton. It seems I may have been right. Jesse’s already saying he could get used to this & to be quite honest, so could I as it would drastically reduce my workload.

So I thought if he liked the curriculum, I could make SOS his core to complete Grades 8 – 12. Thereafter he could to the GED Preparatory courses for the SAT exams, or so I thought. However, it seems Daddy has other plans.

He wants the boys to eventually do the International General Certificate of Secondary Education (IGCSE) instead which means that I’m back to the drawing board as to what material, when & where to for exams etc.

Now, after all those hours spent finding him the “right” material, I’m back to the drawing board. Now I need to find a similar type of product to help him with the Cambridge curriculum instead. I know I still have the rest of this year and much of next, but with time going past so fast I don’t want to leave it to the last moment as finding the “right” material can be such a time consuming effort.

I would really appreciate feedback from parents that have walked this road already. Please leave your comments if you have any suggestions.