Via Bella: ThinkWell Homeschool Math

Sometimes it can be hard to find really good math lessons online especially in a full curriculum and today we get to review for you Thinkwell homeschool. We will be reviewing both the 8th Grade Honour Math through their 6th to 8th Grade Math (6th Grade to Pre-Algebra including Essentials and Honors) as well as their Algebra I through their High School Math (Algebra to Calculus including Essentials and Honors).

Finding a good program is SUPER important especially for my sons. They both are highly advanced in math. Especially my 8th grader who was pulled out of Brick and Mortar school partly due to the fact that they wouldn't meet his academic needs that is part of his educational plan. It wasn't until we said we were going to pull him that they finally were open to putting him in High School math. By this time, there was, of course, more going on, and we have decided (teacher and student) to pursue homeschooling instead. So finding a program that could help meet his academic math needs was super important to me.

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Getting the course ordered:

If you purchase online straight, it's a straight forward process. If you have a subscription or course code, they make it easy with a button at the top when you log in to be able to get the instructions.

They also had a little automated message come up asking if you needed any help, which was great.

If you are getting more than one course, which is mostly yes if you have more than one student, it was a little bit of a pain to have to get each course separately in different orders rather than being able to load them all and get any codes to work at the same time. However, glad they made it simple to go back and order the ones that were needed instead of having to log in and out each time. But it makes sense as well. For most people, this shouldn't be an issue.

The specific courses I am reviewing are 6th-grade math, Honours 8th grade math (pre-algebra) & Algebra I. This is great since my 8th grader is actually really good at math and this could be great for him to be able to have both pre-algebra and algebra because he will soar through them both!

Usability of the Site:

It is standard, simple, well laid out and easy to use and find things. My son didn't find it as easily usable as I did and thought it was more of a beta version of the site's potential but I actually really appreciated it being more simple. Like, cmon child, not every school lesson has to be a video game styled lesson. Ha ha.

Assigning the Courses & Creating New Accounts:

When you first do your order, you start to wonder, "do I have to log out and then re-log back in?" I LOVE the answer. And that answer is NO! You can do it RIGHT THERE by creating an account when you assign it. It will ask you to assign it to yourself, or someone else and you can assign it to a new account an existing one. For example, on the 8th-grade class, I created my older son's account with that course. Then for the Algebra course, I just added that to an existing account- his.

They made the login and doing accounts and assigning things SUPER simple. For that, I am very grateful!

Placement Tests:

Before you buy your courses, don't forget to take the placement tests for your child(ren). You can take that test here. https://www.thinkwellhomeschool.com/pages/placement-tests.

My children are knee-deep in school already so I knew where their ability was so I didn't do this as much as I should have honestly, because my kids just took placements tests.

You can see that it's a quick placement test, not what would feel like a thousand questions to the kids, so it's relatively painless. With the PARCC and other testings that are used in schools, it can be tedious and over the top in my honest opinion and makes it hard for kids to be okay with doing their best on the test without being utterly overwhelmed by it. So I appreciate this is used to find a placement for a child rather than feeling like it's a definition of their ability (if that makes sense).

Something I really appreciate about it is that it not only has the answer keys to it but also has video solutions. This is vital, in my honest opinion, to be able to help students understand WHY an answer it the way it is rather than it simply being wrong or right.

It downloads as a pdf but also opens a new link with the pdf for you. This is great because you can save it to your google drive to be able to print when you need to but also be able to have the child look at it and then do it on paper if you are like me and don't have a printer. I know, I know. I homeschool and don't' have a working printer-- I am working on that.

The Way the Course is Delivered:

I really like how it is delivered, personally. It's like I am sitting in school again and it's being streamed for me with easy to follow notes on the side. Everything is easily usable and visible, which is super important. And you can also see that those that are hearing impaired or deaf can also turn subtitles on so they can watch and read the audio so they can follow along. I have a huge respect for this and it makes it more reputable of a curriculum just because you can tell they have kept in mind those that have certain physical or educational needs.

You can see how to keywords are highlighted in red with the definition just in case you have a hard time writing notes and following along at the same time without pausing every few minutes.

He breaks down the math problems both in the video by doing it, which is good to show how to kinetically do it (and I would even argue that kids should copy the notes as they are teaching it so it helps retain better) as well as putting the whole problem and how it is worked including written explanation on the side.

As you can see the videos are short, which is great especially with kids like mine who have ADHD and have shorter attention spans.

Doing the Exercises

For the exercises, of course you will need to have paper and pencil on hand. I can't stress pencil enough. My kids ALWAYS want to use pens and it drives me nuts! I remember back in school when we didn't get pens until high school! And even then... but I digress.

For the exercises, there a pop-up window with multiple choice. So remember to keep the option open to be able to have pop-ups appear in your settings and if you don't want to do a general okay of this setting you can also customise it for the site specifically. But this is important and crucial to the usability of the site for this portion of the lessons.

There is a good amount of questions, in a healthy way, of course, that doesn't make it overwhelming for the student.

Transcripts

I REALLY really love that they also include the transcripts for each lesson. The reason for this being is that not all kids learn the same way. My children all happen to be avid readers and some days they may be into reading the transcripts either ahead of time, after, or even instead of to be able to absorb the information. But also, today, my son isn't feeling well and said the screen was bothering him for some reason so this was a perfect way to meet halfway. Whereas tomorrow, he will be likely fine to do the next video.

My Son's Review

This website is called ThinkWell and it is a way to learn different courses online. The first thing I saw about the website was that it incorporated visual and auditory aids, allowing the knowledge to be learned quickly. Another positive about this program is that it is compact and can be easily sorted through to get to the lesson. A problem, however with the program, is the visuals. This is a good program, it just feels like a Beta version of the real thing, and it could use some sprucing up of the quality. Otherwise, the lessons are enticing and have some fun integrated into them. It is a program meant for personal schooling and is fit for all ages. Overall, this is quite a well-built program, and it deserves checking out.

OVERALL

I found my son was able to finish these lessons pretty darn fast and that was great. Not only for his attention span but also for him to know and feel that homeschooling with worth it as he can focus on what he really needs to do to be able to grow himself at his own capacity and not be held back by a collective in his learning process. It also reminds me why I did homeschooling in the first place.

I REALLY LOVE this program and can't wait to use it with my child(ren) fully throughout the next year & definitely will be suggesting it to others.