Disclosure: I received this complimentary product through the Homeschool Review Crew.

Homeschool Math Course

Homeschool Review Crew

Teaching Textbooks

What do you use as a homeschool math course in your homeschool?   Recently as part of the Homeschool Review Crew, we have been trying out Teaching Textbooks 4.0 for our homeschool math course.  Teaching Textbooks recently upgraded their online math course from a 3.0 course to a 4.0 and this is what we got access to. 

With Teaching Textbooks online you can choose which grade to put your child in from Grade 3 through Pre-Calculus in high school.  They do not offer grades under third grade.  There is also an option of using CDs and textbooks so that the internet is not needed.

Large Family Plan

The program we received access to is Teaching Textbooks 4.0 large family plan.  The large family plan offers the course of your choice to up to 8 students.  You can enroll less than that but one student can only be enrolled in one course.   Because we are a large family and will soon have a dozen children I wanted to chat a bit more about the large family plan before getting into the nitty-gritty of the program. 

With the large family plan, you can have 4-8 children enrolled.  This is for the annual year-long enrollment.  The individual cost of the courses does vary with the higher-level courses normally being a bit higher in price but for the large family plan, it is a set fee of $199.08 yearly.  You can move children around in courses if you need to or start them in a new level when they complete their own without purchasing a new enrollment.  To do this you do need to go through the chat or customer support network. 

You can read more about the large family plan HERE. 

My Question

I did have a few additional questions about the large family plan and took to chatting about them to see what the answers would be.  My main question was if you could add more than 8 students to the course.  With a dozen kids in our house, this could be a very real possibility due to our age range.  Our oldest is 16 and our current youngest is two.  When we start our next year of school I will have 9 students who would qualify for a Teaching Textbook level and I wanted to know how this would be handled. 

Imagine my surprise when they said they’d never encountered this before.  No one has asked them this question.  I’m a trailblazer! Okay, so I actually was pretty satisfied with their answer.  While they currently do not have an option to expand the large family plan they are working on and in chats on that.  For now, their solution would be to purchase one individual enrollment to go with the family plan.  

If I hear back that they have come up with a better solution so that you can enroll a large family with more than eight students, I will definitely pop back on and update here.  The fact that they are willing to look at and discuss it is something that I appreciate.  There are many companies that I have thought of using in the past that have capped their large families at 4 students and you then have to purchase multiple families plans to get to your family size.  I know families with more children in a small age range so I know that other families might have this issue too.  

Courses Used

I did put several children in the program with our year-long review period.  Some are in the same grade though so we’re not using eight different courses currently. Some of my children are developmentally delayed and due to this are not age-appropriate grade levels. 

With that in mind, we have two children using Grade 3, one student in Grade 4, one student in Grade 5, one in Pre-Algebra, one in Algebra 1, and one in Geometry.  Other children I have are finishing up, in other programs, preschool, first grade, and second grade.  So it is very easy for me to see within two years having nine students in this program.

Children’s Thoughts

My kids are actually really enjoying this program.  They like that it is online.  I like that the program downloads several lessons at once so I could sign someone onto one of our kindle pads (there is a downloadable app through amazon) and have it download their lessons.  Then we could take the pad with us to our doctor’s appointment and they can still do their school.

The program is customizable.  My kids have gotten to choose their “stickers” that pop up when they finish a question.  They can get one that is a good job or one that’s a try again type sticker but they get to choose.  They can also change their own personal course area.  

With my seven students using the program, I have not had a single one who doesn’t enjoy their school.  I don’t have to insist they do it.  They just do it on their own.  Most of them will do more than one lesson a day as well.  I always think if they’re willing to do more than the requirement that they must really enjoy the program.  That’s high praise from some of mine who really are not lovers of doing school in the first place. 

Student Access

Each student has their own login and password.  That means that only they get access to their course which they really like.  As the parent, I can also access their course through the parent portal.  

When a student signs in they get a screen that shows them all their options to continue.  The one we of course ask ours to go to is the lesson tab.  But there is also a spot where they can access an ebook of the textbook that goes with their lesson for the day.  Most of mine have not been needing to use that.  

Geometry is different.  My child in geometry needed to use her ebook a lot and we decided to just buy the textbook for that course as it was easier for her so she didn’t have to try to get to the ebook from her lessons.  

There are often updates available which are when I will have to log in on to their device and help them update it.  Even on your computer, it’s basically an app download on the home screen.  These updates add any new changes from Teaching Textbooks and also sync up work done when there is no internet connection. 

Parent Portal

I like that there is a parent portal just for me.  I can log in to the portal and see what all of my children are doing.  When I log in there are several different areas I can go to.  

First, you have to go to the parent portal log-in screen.  Here you have an email and password login. 

Once you log in you get an area where you can access all the different areas. 

Grade Book

In your grade book area, you can choose which child you want to look at and then you choose the correct course for that child.  You choose the course because your grade book will log the grade they are in but also any grades they have completed prior. 

This shows you what their overall average is plus what they got on each lesson.  It is also here in this area that you can reset lessons.  I have used this function before.  I had one child who thought she could just rush through it and complete the whole year. . . in less than a few months time.  Needless to say, she did not have a good grade!

To reset the lessons you delete each individual lesson.  I did ask if there was a way to reset the whole year and unfortunately there is not, you have to do it by lesson. 

The view answer keys and ebook is pretty self-explanatory.  This is where you can view the teacher’s books and answer keys for the courses you have children enrolled in.  I have to say I really haven’t used this.  The program does a wonderful job of teaching the lessons so all I am involved in is helping a child work a lesson every once in a while.  

Student settings take you to where you can set how many lessons they do a day, whether they get hints or not, etc plus what they can do for their wallpaper and stickers. 

Pause Function

Manage courses is where you get to see which grade everyone is in but also where you can use the pause feature.  The pause feature gives you three months’ worth of pause time.  This does not count against your year enrollment.  If you choose to use pause it has to be used for at least 7 days each time it’s used.  You can individually pause courses per student or for all at once.  This area also shows you how long each child has left of their enrollment period.

Final Thoughts

We have been loving this program and I do see us continuing to use this program for the remainder of the review period but also I see us renewing our yearly large family plan and continuing to use it for years to come.  It is comprehensive and my children really enjoy using it. 

This is definitely a user friendly less teacher involvement homeschool math course and I can get behind that.  I have found that the more children I have in upper grades of homeschool the more time I am spending doing school so it’s always nice if you can outsource part of that. 

Learn More

You can learn more about what other members of the Homeschool Review Crew thought of Teaching Textbooks 4.0 and this homeschool math course by reading all of the reviews that are linked up on the Main Blog Post on the Homeschool Review Crew blog. Teaching Textbooks can also be found on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram.