Building Independence in your Homeschool with BookShark Virtual
One of our favorite ways to learn as a family is by reading books together, lots of books. It’s easy for my Outside the Box kids to move and play while I read or while an audiobook plays, and we can avoid extra fine motor tasks which are hard for some of my kids by using discussion instead of worksheets to check comprehension and learning.
When I heard that BookShark, a secular homeschool curriculum, was adding virtual learning to their literature based homeschool packages, I jumped at the chance to check it out. This year one of my middle schoolers is using BookShark Virtual Level F Eastern Hemisphere.
We will be taking a look at life on the other side of the world. Unlike most other BookShark levels, Level F is not a chronological study, but is more of a unit study as we travel around the Eastern Hemisphere, exploring countries and cultures very different than our own, such as Japan and China.
BookShark Virtual creates Independence
While only one of my children will be using BookShark for history this year we will all be enjoying the read aloud books. That is dad’s job at bedtime. He is an awesome reader, he does numerous voices for the characters, and is able to read quickly and dynamically. Each year I give him the read aloud stack and he makes sure we read them all be the end of the year.
I was really worried that with only one child needing me to choose their history we would have to look somewhere else, because it would be too much work on me (assigning readings and giving tests and such). But BookShark Virtual made it easy and we could still use a program we love.
With BookShark Virtual both my student and I each have accounts we can log in to each day. I can assign their lessons for a given day and check their quizzes. My student can log in to see the daily assignments they need to complete for Literature and History. It’s an added bonus for me that I get to encourage independence and organization while also making my job easier!
A Typical BookShark Virtual Day…
After we do our family morning time activities my student can check the family schedule to see their tasks for the day. They have 6 areas of work this year: Math, BookShark reading and history, Writing, Science, Co-op and a chore. They need me to guide their writing assignment. They have a science workbook they can complete independently and then finally, they head to the computer or iPad to complete their online math lesson and find out their BookShark assignments for the day.
When they log into their BookShark Virtual account, they can see the assignments I have scheduled for them to complete, which cover reading and history. It also tells them what pages to complete in the Eastern Hemisphere Notebooking pages and if they need to add anything to their timeline or do map work.
I love the structure of BookShark and the flexibility of the program that allows me to meet my Outside the Box kids where they are without making extra work for me. While the History, Literature and Readers all coordinate on the same theme, they are three different strands with different learning happening in each domain.
I can swap out the Readers to match my child’s reading level without impacting the History or Literature content, and this is what won me over to switch to this style of program a few years ago. I needed a program I could easily customize to meet my students’ needs with minimal extra work on my part.
Simple Hands-On Activities
The BookShark program is centered around reading great books, but that isn’t all it includes. There are several intentional activities included throughout Level F that helps student engage with what they are reading:
- Timeline Figures
- Map Work
- Eastern Hemisphere Notebook Pages
- China Kit
Throughout the Instructor’s Guide and BookShark Virtual Guide there are Timeline suggestions. We add these labels to our Timeline book each week. My kids have been adding to their timeline books since Kindergarten. Now that we are several years into it, they can see other events on a page when they add an event and begin to make connections about what else was happening at that moment in history.
When new locations are mentioned in the the literature or history books, there are notes to help you label the various laminated maps included in the package with the wet erase markers. Throughout the year you will continue to add labels to the same maps, and by the end of the year you can step back and say “WOW!” at all the places you visited during the year. It only takes a few minutes per week to complete.
Unique among the BookShark levels, Level F includes Notebook pages to fill out as you read. Graphic organizers, questions and observations are all part of the different pages. They are scheduled for you to use in the Virtual guide or Instructor Guide.
The first country you will visit on your Eastern Hemisphere adventure is China. There is a special activity kit included with additional activities for this unit. There is a calligraphy kit, game to play and chopsticks to practice with. It’s a great way to kick off the year while exploring a new place together.
BookShark Virtual does a great job of using technology to make homeschooling easier and letting students be more independent without sacrificing the great literature choices they are known for. I always thought homeschooling couldn’t be any easier than reading a bunch of great books, but BookShark Virtual has made it simple to use in a new way, while giving more power to my student.