FLVS Flex Kindergarten Review
Florida Virtual School Flex Elementary (FLVS Flex) is a great FREE program for Florida Homeschoolers. There are many pros and many cons though.
The 2018-19 school year my oldest daughter, A, was a registered kindergartner with FLVS Flex. We went into the school year with a full course load. She was registered to take ELA, Math, Social Studies, and Science. It only took about a week before we dropped the Social Studies and Science Courses.
Let me rewind and explain why we chose FLVS for Kindergarten. My husband is a public school teacher. Our girls are very highly motivated to learn and absorb all sorts of knowledge. We decided to take homeschooling on a year by year and case by case basis. I spent hours and hours researching curriculum and fell in love with a couple… but my husband wasn’t comfortable yet. I landed on FLVS, and we decided to try it out. The main reason was because it was curriculum based on the state standards. This was important at first because if we chose not to home school the following year, our daughter would be completely on par with the local school system. This gave a peace of mind knowing that she would learn basically the same things that our friends in the public school learns.
At a glance, we are organized and set up our home school and school room very much like school at home. I will say, if school at home is NOT what you are looking for, or are comfortable with, then I can not/would not recommend FLVS. I also supplement with nature studies, science, and other subjects as needed.
Some of the characteristics of FLVS can be Pros or Cons, depending on how your family view homeschooling.
How is FLVS Set Up
FLVS is set up in a modular type system. There are slides that have different activities and stories on them. The child will work through lessons in units. This is awesome and terrible at the same time. It is amazing IF you have a reader… if not, you have to read the whole slide and assist in all of the assignments. There is an auto-read feature, but it could be improved tremendously. The auto-reader is very robotic and the non-readers get bored very quickly by it.
There is a lot of busy work that doesn’t need to be done unless your child needs extra work. When we first started I made my daughter do all of the assignments in the lesson. It was very overwhelming for her. After a couple of weeks, I just started making her complete the “turned in” assignment. That was much more manageable, and each lesson only has one grade (either an assignment or quiz) due each week.
Every Tuesday and Thursday morning starting at 9am was the live course time with an actual teacher. If your child is enrolled in the FLEX program (NOT FULL TIME) it isn’t required to attend the live courses other than twice a segment. I really liked the live courses though. A enjoyed being a part of class time and working with the teacher.
Our FLVS Week Overview
Our weeks were pretty organized. Basically on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday we worked on the lessons and the assignments for the week. Then on Tuesday and Thursday we attended live class at 9 AM and 10:15 AM. The ELA/Social Studies class was at 9AM then Math/Science picked up at 10:15 AM.
Why did we only do ELA and Math
We chose to only stick with ELA and Math because I supplemented the other subjects. Doing all four courses was way too much for both A and me.
What I LOVED about FLVS
I loved knowing that if at anytime she needs to go to public school, she will be current with them. I loved that there was a live teacher that was also explaining the lessons in the live class times. This gave me the confidence to move forward with it. I actually really liked the assignments that she had to turn it each week. They were challenging and fun for her. The curriculum is fun and engaging with the kids.
The teachers are fun and exciting for the little ones. Our teacher was also always there for us to reach if we needed.
What I did NOT Love about FLVS
I wasn’t fond of the fact that non-readers were left in the dark with the lesson slides. I of course planned to be the home school teacher, but I didn’t want to just be a narrator. With non-readers, the “home educator” becomes a narrator for the lessons and must read the slides to the kids. I am hopeful and sure it must be in the plans for the future to have a better narrating system for the young elementary grades.
I also didn’t love all the busy work in the slides. If you did all of the work, there would be 2-3 assignments for each lesson in a unit. One: that is a lot of printing, and two: that is a lot of busy work in my opinion.
Will we use FLVS again
Honestly, we probably will use FLVS again. I did enjoy it once we reached concepts that A didn’t know already. In the very beginning she was very advanced and it was quite boring for her and me. We haven’t figured out if we will enroll her for 1stgrade yet or not.
A few things to note
Your child has to have a computer and head phones in order to work in FLVS. You also have to have a printer and a web cam. We have our school room set up with my girls Windows Surface Computers at their desks with head phones and notebooks. This helps keep them focused. With that said, there have been many times that we have done school at the dining table or on the couch.
There it is... a really quick review of FLVS Flex Elementary. I wrote this up really quick the day that we completed Kindergarten, so I will probably come back and add more information.
If you have any questions on FLVS, please comment or go to FLVS.net for more information.
