Secular Homeschool Science Curriculum Review

Visual Learning Systems Online Science Program

Looking for a secular homeschool science curriculum? You might want to consider Visual Learning Systems. A web-based program, perfect for visual learners, kinesthetic learners, and  perhaps everyone in between.

Vlog

In this video, I share the gist of my review. Watch the video or just continue reading below 🙂

What We Received

We received a subscription for a full year for Digital Science Online. Our subscription includes the Elementary Edition (Grades K-5), and the Secondary Edition (Grades 6-12).  In exchange, I am to provide you with my thorough and honest review of this program.

What to Expect

I received full access to the administrator, the teacher, and naturally, the student accounts.  I’ve only navigated through the teacher and students accounts. These are all that we’ve needed for solid science learning.  Thus, I haven’t had the need to go into the administrator account, not so far anyway.

To start, the teacher account details the learning objectives per topic.  It guides you on how to present each topic before watching the videos.  It provides with you the complete video transcript that you can download if desired. I didn’t actually use the video transcript yet. It’s a good thing that it’s there though. If I want to get gist of it beforehand, a quick glance should suffice.

Once Super Hero logs in, he can access all videos and the extra materials.  The content’s organization is superb.  No need to spend countless hours digging or classifying it into lists or topics. Visual Learning Systems has taken care of all that, as it should. All the child does is watch the videos in the sequence.  There are approximately 5 to 8 videos per topic. Each video represents a subtitle within that topic. Each video is short, no more than 3 minutes, on average. Thus, the entire video session lasts about 15 minutes. Then the child may watch the animations and images, if needed or desired.   The child may revisit a subtitle by clicking directly on the corresponding video.  Such handy feature.

Afterwards, it’s activity time! This is the funnest part.  There are many downloadable teaching supplements to reinforce the learning:

• pre-tests
• post-tests
• video review (what I often call quizzes)
• writing prompts
• vocabulary
• data tables
• graphs
• maps
• and many hands-on activities like experiments or scavenger hunts. How fun!

So, what’s the pricing?  Learn all about them at their pricing catalog. They offer special homeschool pricing of $99 per level for up to 8 students.

How We Used Elementary Science Edition

Super Hero has been using the Elementary Science 3 times per week or more the last 6 weeks. He’s allowed to choose any topic he wants to watch, and then he gets to pick the activities. He needs not do them all. He is to select at least 1, but he’s chosen to do at least 2 or 3. Fine with me.  Ain’t it grand when kids choose to learn more all by themselves? 😉

So far, we’ve just used the elementary science. It’s so good to know, we can access the high school science at any time, if we want to.  Such a deal!

Our Opinion About

We liked Visual Learning Systems very much. It is a sound, well put-together online science program with many positives. High-quality,  professionally made videos, a pleasant voiceover, practical animations, hands-on teaching supplements.

The short, to the point video lessons are perfect for young learners. Particularly those who may get wiggly or impatient with long, meandering explanations. I especially appreciate the superb organization and teaching guidance. Nothing’s more frustrating than good content locked behind an ineffective navigation.  Thus, Visual Learning Systems gets an A+ from me in that aspect.

Visual Learning Systems gets a quite favorable opinion from Super Hero as well. “Would you recommend Visual Learning Systems to other homeschoolers?” –I asked him. –”Yes” –”Why?” –”Because of the videos and the hands-on activities,” –was his short answer.

In a Nutshell

Yes I would recommend Visual Learning Systems to anyone seeking an online science homeschool curriculum. Its secular nature and accessibility to all levels, make it an excellent choice and value.    I look forward to doing more online, fun, hands-on science with this fine curriculum.

Want to Learn More?

If you’d like to read more reviews from my fellow Crew members, click on the graphic below. Or visit Visual Learning Systems‘ website or social media accounts:

Facebook –http://facebook.com/visuallearningsystems
Twitter – https://twitter.com/visualearning