Thinkwell Homeschool {Homeschool Review Crew}

Those of you who have been following my blog for years now have heard me say numerous times: math is not my easy subject to teach. Three of my four offspring don't care much for math, either. But my youngest, my remaining homeschool student? That's always been his favorite subject, which usually means he's willing to check out any math products we get to review.

The past few weeks we've been reviewing Algebra 1 Honors class, part of the high school math by Thinkwell, which is an online math curriculum. When I was considering how to fill out the interest form for this review, I wasn't sure what level I should request for SJ. Fortunately Thinkwell provides placement tests, so I printed off a couple for SJ to fill in. Well, he actually aced the Algebra 1 test, even though he hasn't done Algebra 1 yet! So we signed up for Algebra 1 Honors.

Thinkwell high school math offers award-winning, video-based online math courses which prepare students for college. In addition to video lessons, there are worksheets, notes, and unit reviews in pdf to be printed off.

When you first log in, you'll be taken to a dashboard, which lists a course table of contents. Algebra 1 Honors covers more topics and offers more video lessons than the standard Algebra 1: 103 topics and 392 video lessons, compared to 77 topics and 288 video lectures for standard Algebra 1.
When you click on the topic from the table of contents, you're taken to a page that breaks the topic down further by listing a more detailed list of topics, and listing the review worksheets for that unit.
One click further lists the video lectures for that topic, as well as notes, and worksheets to go with those videos.
Another handy feature are glossaries of terms. You can either print off all the terms in one document, or you can click on each individual term, and a small window pops up with the definition.
The screen layout for the video lectures is pretty awesome. You see the instructor, as well as having a view of what he writes on the worksheet, which also appears on the whiteboard. There is a list of key objectives, and the terms with definitions, which appear in boxes. There is also the option of using subtitles, if needed.
One more feature that is handy, is the checklist. That way you and your student can keep track of the completed activities. It tracks notes, animation, exercise, document, and video lesson. Which means, it can remind you to print off the notes! (I didn't get those printed off right away for SJ; now he does have the ones he currently needs!)

Until I realized there were documents I needed to print off, SJ was just watching the video lessons. He didn't even do the first online exercise, until I pointed it out to him. But now he watches the videos, does the online exercises, and fills in the worksheets.

He's been going at a fairly leisurely pace, and not accomplishing as much as I think he should. So I reminded him, we have a one year subscription, and if he wants to complete the whole Honors Algebra 1 course, he needs to be doing a chapter a month, at least. We'll see if he has enough self-motivation to go at that pace.
From the first video lesson SJ watched, he was hooked. He now says it is one of his most favorite math programs. I think that says a lot, because he's tried several that he really likes...and he's my math "connoisseur"!

Thinkwell offers around 20 different math courses, from middle school math through high school math, including Algebra 1 & 2, Geometry, and even Trigonometry and Calculus. Members of the Crew reviewed various levels, so you will want to check out the rest of the reviews to see what those families thought of Thinkwell. Simply click the banner below.

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6th to 8th Grade Math (Pre-Algebra) and High School Math  (Algebra to Calculus) {Thinkwell Reviews}

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