Back to School in 3 weeks

DISCLAIMER: PLEASE NOTE THIS IS SOLELY MY OPINION, AT THE BOTTOM I AM ONLY STATING WHAT I WOULD PERSONALLY LOVE TO SEE WITH THIS CURRICULUM, I AM NOT SAYING THERE WAS NO GARDEN OF EDEN, AND YES I UNDERSTAND THIS IS A CHRISTIAN BASED CURRICULUM. PLEASE SEE MY GETTING PERSONAL FAQ

Where has the summer gone? As I was sitting here I realized it is back to school for the kids in 3 weeks. Well the public school kids 2 weeks, but they go for a half a day and do not return for another week.

I try to keep Gillian’s schooling as close to the public schools as I can, this helps me keep up better with holidays and what not, but with home schooling does she really need those big holiday breaks? Not really, but mom does. :)

So I started to get everything organized I installed her Curriculum, I have to still get it on her computer, I printed out a few things I need. Set up her school calendar year. Which is one thing I love about the curriculum we are using.

Now for the Curriculum. We will be using the Switched on Schoolhouse curriculum. I have a few dislikes about this, and we may switch next year it all depends on how this one turns out and if I can handle all the religion in it. I believe in God do not get me wrong, but I do not believe in some things that are in the bible.

Switched on Schoolhouse thus far, remember I have only just installed this, and did a skim down of what was in it. First I will start with the pros, because there is a lot more then the cons.

Pros:
I love how you can set up a network and run it on other computers. This will make it nice, I can have it all set up on my computer and Gillian can still access it from hers. I have not set it up on hers as of yet.

I love how you can easily set up the school calendar year. You can either do this manually or the program will do it for you.

I love the widgets you can customize on your main page, and the fact I can also customize them on the students page.

I love how it grades, keeps attendance and does the lesson planning.

I love the flash card system that is built in as well as the mini games.

Love the fact this also schedules her tests and quizzes.

Love how I can print her vocabulary out and she can practice off the computer.

Cons:

However, everything has to have at least one con, and to be truthful as of right now I really only see one con so far and it is not a con for everyone since this is a “Christian” based curriculum. I wish they would have a setting where you could shut off or switch it to a not so “God” based curriculum.

I personally think if they would give this option more homeschoolers would use this curriculum. So far I have noticed a lot of the “God” reference in the Social Studies, not to much in the Science, but I have not looked that far ahead. I am hoping we will be able to either work around this, and explain to Gillian that this is a “belief” that some people have, and she is entitled to her own believes, and even though in a certain part it states the first garden was the Garden of Eden this may not be fact.

UPDATE: I just showed this to Gillian, she is excited to work with this Curriculum, I read some of it with her, and told her some of the items in it are peoples beliefs and if she wants to believe how things got created she can, but I was not going to force her to believe one way or another.