Online Homeschool for Core Subjects

Homeschool Review Crew

We tend to do most of our schoolwork in books or all together as a family.  This is how I love it!  But this year I’ve had some health problems and two children are doing a separate curriculum for high school.  So, it made sense to try out some online homeschool for some of my middle kids.  We received a six-month subscription for three students to Calvert Homeschool.   This is the family subscription to the Calvert Homeschool Online.  

Calvert Homeschool provides online homeschool classes for grades 3-12.  Included are the core subjects such as math, history and geography, science, Spelling, and Language Arts. 

About the Program

Calvert Homeschool brings you online homeschooling in a fun way.  They help your online homeschool progress through two different programs.  The first program takes you from kindergarten through 2nd grade.  The second program(which we’re reviewing) goes from 3rd grade all the way through 12th grade.  

To use Calvert Homeschool you will need an internet connection and a device.  This can be a laptop(which is the case for us) or a tablet or even a smartphone.  I do think it would be easier if you have a device for each child using the program.  We’re sharing one laptop while our second laptop is used by other children.  This would definitely give us more time to use the program.

Within the program, there is a parent board.  On my parent board, I can choose what grade level for each subject and what overall grade my children are in.  I also get to decide what gives them an A grade and how they can use the program.  For instance, I allow my kids to have more than one chance to answer a question and they can go back in the lesson to look at their reading during daily questions.  However, I don’t allow them that freedom for tests.

Our Thoughts

When I saw this review come up I had to research Calvert Homeschool.  I had never heard of them before.  Of course, I’ve never paid a lot of attention to online homeschool programs because they just weren’t for us.  I was confident in that.  Of course, now here I am using one so maybe they are for us!  It always shocks me when a program has been around for a while but I’ve not heard of them.

As I looked into Calvert Homeschool a few things stood out to me.  It was comprehensive and easy to use.  These are huge factors for me.  I don’t like having to go in and grade things or go in and individually assign lessons.

With Calvert, I just go in and choose what grade my child should do and then choose if all subjects are in that grade or if I need to move them to different grades in different subjects.

I chose to have all three of my children using this program to use the 3rd or 4th grade.  Initially, I had them spread out into different grades but they were struggling so I moved them down.  I don’t think the curriculum is advanced, but I do know that the three children using it have struggled in some areas and this is helping them to overcome that. 

Two of them ages 11 are using the third grade.  They are both boys.  One struggles with reading and one just hasn’t allowed himself to learn much yet.  By that I mean he’s all boy and would rather be learning by doing out on the farm or with his dad working than in our homeschool.  

My third student in the program is delayed.  She’s delayed throughout and not just in school.  I really thought this program would be good for her.  I wanted to see how she did with someone or some program teaching her instead of just me. 

She is doing fourth grade and is 14 years old.  We’re doing a combined junior high year for her this year in school but she really could not just jump into that level in Calvert Homeschool.  I wanted to build her confidence while having her learn so this seemed like the best option.

Somethings I like about the program.

I really like that I don’t have to login as the parent every day.  Somedays I never touch our computer so not having to make sure I get onto a website to check my student’s progress is amazing!

My kids enjoy doing this program.  They ask to use it and get really upset when they get behind in lessons.  I set their schedule up for a five day week but then realized that was not going to work.  I had to reschedule them for a four day week.  We mainly school four days a week.  I had thought they could use the computer on the fifth day to get their school done but it takes longer than I thought so that is not able to happen since we’re not at home and don’t have an internet connection while we’re running errands. 

In the above picture, you can see how it gives them their assignments for the day.  This is from the parent portal.  It also shows me how many days left they have on their program.  This is good for me to know.  So if we’re getting closer to the end and I really want them to finish say one subject over another I will just have them work that subject and not worry about the others.  I love that we have that flexibility.

The program will let them do ten lessons in science and not force them to do all the lessons that are due on that day.  We found that out the first day!  One of my kids just kept doing the next lesson that popped up for one subject not realizing that he needed to go down and do the other subjects too!

Anything I’d change about the program.

I would love to have a few other subjects added such as a foreign language and Bible but this is a good start to online homeschool with the core subjects.  

Grading!  I mentioned before that I really like the program because I don’t have a lot of involvement.  But there is some grading involved.  Anytime the student has to write a paragraph or an essay I have to grade those. 

They also have the option of leaving me notes so I have to go in and check those too.  Not a huge thing or even a deal-breaker but do want to mention it.  It’s a downside for me. 

Something my kids would like to change is that any lesson that includes an essay or them writing an actual response to a question shows up as an F for them.  They really don’t like this and would prefer it to give them something like grade to be issues after the teacher grades the essay.

And a Few More Thoughts

You had to know I wasn’t done!  We have really enjoyed this program.  It is a comprehensive program so you don’t need to use anything else with it.  However, because we do most of our school as a family these three kids are still doing their normal work as well.  So they’re getting lots of school time!  For us this year it’s easy as they are not repeating anything we’re learning.  Because of this, I have not been a stickler when grading their essays.  I have lessened the guidelines for them. 

There are some experiments through the program.  You can do them on your own or just let your child watch them done on video.  A few of them are super simple so we did them.  I have also found that having them write their spelling words down in a notebook really helps them on memorizing how to spell them.  There is something about actually physically writing and not just typing the word that helps make it easier to remember.

Student Side

In the program, there are also some fun games to play that are part of the lesson and review.  My kids love these!

Here is how the daily assignments look within the student login.

As I mentioned above they can just work on one subject but then the next day they will show as overdue and the due date will be in red.  My kids hate that so now they work really hard to either be ahead or always on time.  If they do get behind I can prepare myself to be bugged to let them on to catch up!

My kids highly approve of this program and love working on it.  The kids who are not reviewing it ask me at least once a week if they can have a turn or if I can buy the program for them.

Here you can see how they have both reading and videos within a lesson.  Most of the lessons also offer some audio so they don’t have to read the entire thing.  The vocabulary at the top of lessons is always offered as audio to help them know how to properly pronounce the words as well. 

They do their reading and then move on to the questions.  As I mentioned before I do let them go back into the reading on their daily lessons so that they can find the answers.  Most of the time they don’t use this feature though which I love that they’re more confident picking out information.

Sometimes if they are having an issue with a subject I will have them read the information out loud to a sibling.  This helps them to process it sometimes. 

We do recommend this program.  I have not found anything bad about the program that would make it something we would not approve of.  It’s great!

Learn More

Ready to learn more about Calvert Homeschool and what other reviewers thought of the program?  You can read all of the reviewer’s thoughts on their blog posts which are linked up on the Main Blog Post for Calvert Homeschool over on the Homeschool Review Crew Blog.  Calvert Homeschool can also be found on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest.