There Will Be A $5.00 Charge For Whining: A TOS Review: Standard Deviants Accelerate (2015)

I like having the option of using online resources in our homeschool. I think it promotes independent learning and teaches some valuable techy skills along the way. Recently I was had the chance to review the Homeschool Courses from Standard Deviants Accelerate.

This program offers several different courses for a variety of grades.

Arithmetic (grades 3+)

Fundamental Math (grades 4+)

Earth Science (grades 6+)

Nutrition (grades 6+)

Biology (grades 7+)

Algebra (grades 7+)

Chemistry (grades 9+)

English Comp (grades 9+)

U. S. History (grades 9+)

AP Biology (grades 11+)

AP Chemistry (grades 11+)

AP U. S. Gov. & Politics (grades 11+)

AP Eng. Composition (grades 11+)

We've had the pleasure of reviewing SDA before (we took the Nutrition course) This time around I decided to have Josiah try out the Fundamental Math course to give him some additional help with his math. I also poked around the site a little myself to check it out.

Initially, I also had Josiah working through the U.S. History course. Notice is says grades 9+. Ooops!

He is in 8^th grade, but he handled it just find.

Here is a look at how it works (using U.S. History course as an example).

After clicking on the U.S. History graphic a list of units and sub-units are revealed. I have noticed that after Josiah has completed a section some sort of green graphic appears next to it. He has a completely different account than I do, but I still am able to keep track of his progress.

I clicked on the first lesson under American Presidents. You can see that the screen has tabs up at the top. This is the video tab. This approximately 11 minute video is presented by a cast of characters. You can see that a full transcript is available for viewing or printing. There is also a section that allows the student to type up notes as they watch.

The second tab features vocabulary words from the lesson. I like that there is an audio feature so the student can hear the pronunciation, etc.

The Diagram tab is generally an interactive activity. In this case, the student must drag the appropriate President to the correction box.

This tab is the Quiz section. I like the fact that there are very few questions in these quizzes. They also have a bit of a sense of humor. Notice the middle question. "The number one cause of death for young democracies is _______." The first choice is "bad hair days." You have to wonder sometimes don't you?

After completing the question the student clicks a box to check their answers. You can see that I completely bombed on this question. I love that SDA gives us instant feed back. I simply clicked on the "see video" tab and a video popped up giving me the correct information.

The last tab is the Written Answer tab. I will tell you that we did most of this work orally. I also had to explain (or reword) the question just a little. It made for some good conversation.

I didn’t take a poke around the AP classes. We aren’t quite ready for that, yet. But I have to think they would be a big help for students in High School.

Josiah found the videos to be engaging and I think he handled the whole program well. Because he is dyslexic I always worry a little bit about what he might encounter, but SDA was a perfect format for him. Another aspect I enjoyed about the program is that there is a short quiz with every lesson. This helped me determine if he was actually retaining the information or needed a redo...which is especially important with the math courses.

I think SDA's Homeschool Courses are terrific option for homeschoolers in general. I also appreciate the fact that they can be adjusted to fit the needs of any homeschool. We can rewatch videos, go through a section again or simply start a course we are have been curious about.

Check them out! There is a FREE Trial available on the website.