Khan Academy, Homeschool, & Chaos

I had to make a difficult decision on Monday that has been brewing for weeks. What do I do with my teenage son? In our area there are no school buses... it is all up to the parents to get kids to and from school. His carpool has been flaky since the beginning of the school year. He would have to cross 2 freeways to get to school so biking or walking was out.

There is another school down the street within walking distance. But its less than stellar (read horrifying) reputation has most parents shipping their students an hour and a half away to another school. We missed that bandwagon by agreeing to the carpool.

So I decided that despite doubling up on my grad school classes for the next 16 weeks.... I would homeschool him as well. YEP... I AM CRAZY! He is in 8th grade but tests at 11th grade so yea... I have a challenge ahead of me with him.

The high school here is better and in walking distance so next year, we are good for all kids being in school. The little two are still in school so that is at least a relief there!

I totally forgot about Khan Academy until my homeschool friends reminded me! It is all about science and math and its free! There are some amazing videos on there that I have used often but I did not know about their math practice section which includes calculus and trigonometry! SCORE!

While there are videos that provide information on the subject they are more of a refresher or a starting point to jump off of the topic and delve deeper. So it can't be used alone. The teacher's section allows you to add a whole class of students to it so yep... I am adding this as a resource for my classroom website.

My teen thinks it is fun. The graphics aren't top notch but they are much better than I have seen before and the fact that he adds a new star to his galaxy every time he masters a concept is exciting for him. My littles also practiced basic math concepts yesterday and loved it.

Now I just need 3 more computers so they can use the program and I can do my homework!