Using Online Programs to Supplement a Customized Education

I have spent the last decade creating 95% of my children's school curriculum. Of course throughout the years we have used a plethora of picture books, topical books, videos, and all sorts of media to help deliver content and learn about a topic. Sourcing all of that is a large task to be sure!

As we move through high school the demands for content are higher and sometimes it can feel like a lot to pull all of that together. One help this year has been a Study.com subscription (gifted). On Study.com they have hundreds of courses and thousands of lessons that I can access through a simple search. Rather than me sourcing a bunch of book and videos on the industrial revolution I can search the topic and pull up a series of lessons, add them to our dashboard and have my high schooler go through the content. These lessons are always followed up by quizzes and we could leave it at that.

I however lean more towards working with content by using other skill building activities. This might look like descriptive writing, creating an infographic on Canva, developing a theme based game or even (gasp) a dating profile for a historical figure. Just because I'm using an online program to help deliver information doesn't mean I still can't add in those activities that move us towards our other goals. I'm all about hitting "multiple birds with one stone" so to speak.

As we work our way to the end of our school year I found myself a bit short on some history connections so I started to peruse Study.com for what they offer for World History. There are a few notable ones but looking at World History 2 I came up with a plan for the last few weeks of school that will allow for interest led and independent learning. 

There are 25 chapters in this course with 230 lessons. It’s a lot. So instead of starting at Chapter 1 and working our way through I’m having my son choose any chapter and work through the lessons there based on his interest. 

Some of the chapters include:

📚 The Elizabethan Era in Europe

📚 Industrialization in the Western World

📚 WWI: Battles and Diplomacy

📚 Latin America after 1945

For each chapter I'll also give my high schooler a choice of engagement activity from my book "Whimsy Schooling". This massively cuts down on the time I spend culling resources and we still get to customize our education plan.

You can use my code https://bit.ly/3RFoy2e for 25% off your first month’s subscription. 

What’s a period in history that you’d be interested in studying?