The Best Home-school Program!

When my eldest daughter was born, my fiance told me that we would home-school her when she reached school age. I rolled my eyes because I didn’t think that was going to happen. I went to regular school, and my fiance went to regular school, so I figured I would send my kids to school.

But as luck would have it, my eldest daughter turned 5 in the summer of 2020 in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. My hand was forced into home-schooling because there was no way she was going to do kindergarten virtually. How many 5-year-olds can sit for 8 hours in front of a computer to learn?

So I became her kindergarten teacher. I bought books, printed learning sheets, and set up a curriculum. It was definitely a bit of a learning curve trying to explain things in a simple way that she understood, but we muddled through. She learned everything she needed and more with flexibility that worked for us both.

We gave her a choice for 1st grade since things were still uncertain with the schools and I ended up teaching 1st grade as well. But now that she wanted to be home-schooled for 2nd grade, I didn’t think my old methods were going to work. I went searching for a program that I thought would fit her needs.

I looked at books, online programs, apps, and even just curriculums. Nothing seemed to be exactly what I was looking for until I found IXL. IXL offers a full learning experience program that is informative and fun(yes, it has some games). It is the best home-schooling program I have found for us.

IXL is an online program that offers flexible, comprehensive learning for every grade. The cost of a one-year subscription was $159 or $19.99 per month. There are other plans that offer different subject options at cheaper prices. The full core subjects package offers math, language arts, science, social studies, and Spanish if you choose to pay extra for it. The price may seem a bit expensive, but it is well worth the cost.

I use IXL to supplement her learning, test her understanding, and track her progress. It offers a lot of really great resources that make it easy to customize the learning experience. You can use the diagnosis arena to find their skill level and to recommend new skills to try. I do this once a month to check her progress and see which sections need review. The printable diagnostic plan helps me to compare her progress from month to month.

One of the best parts is that you have access to all grades. So if they need extra work in 1st-grade material, you can go back or forward to 3rd-grade material if they are advanced. You can choose different curriculums based on textbooks, state standards, test prep, or IXL recommendations. We use the IXL weekly plans to get a well-rounded learning plan.

While there is no section that teaches the skills to the child, which is why we use it to supplement my teaching, they do explain why the answer was wrong and what the correct answer is. It even reads explanations and questions aloud. The option to have the question read to them allows younger children to learn independently.

Under the analytics tab of the IXL, it gives you all the information you might need to know about your child’s learning. They show the usage details, the diagnosis from the assessments, trouble spots, scores, questions they answered, and progress. All of the information can be filtered, usually by subject, grade, and date. I tend to be very number motivated, so being able to see the number behind her learning is just so cool to me.

The only thing that I don’t really use in IXL is their awards and certificates. You don’t have to use it, but for some children, it might help to keep them motivated. In my opinion, it seems like there are just too many certificates. We have only used IXL for about 2 months and she has earned 57 certificates, which just seems excessive.

Overall, IXL is really just a great program for both of us. My daughter loves when she completes a skill and the flexibility of the learning and I love the convenience it offers to me. She has shown some great improvements in skills she struggled with before. If she chooses to continue home-schooling, IXL will continue to be my first choice for her learning.