Options are great. The first person to realize they could go for Strawberry or Chocolate instead of Vanilla must have been pretty excited. But—as everyone who’s had to make the hard choice between Mint Chocolate Chip and Oreos and Cream knows—there’s a point where the options become too numerous. Over the past decades, homeschooling has had an array of “new flavors” rolled out to them--traditional homeschooling, homeschool co-ops, online schools, blends of charter schools and at-home teaching… The list goes on and on and it’s easy to feel overwhelmed. We’ve done our best to condense this array of options into three different styles of learning. Our hope is to offer something that not only works for the parent, but works for the student as well.

Style 1: You Teach

Like the name suggests, the You Teach style is traditional homeschooling at its finest. You oversee your student’s schooling directly with maximum flexibility and direct accountability. If your student needs to take a course slower (or quicker!) than what’s offered through other styles, teaching them directly at home is often a wonderful alternative other forms of learning. No one knows your student like you do! This style offers you the freedom to hone in on the areas they need to develop and create a school environment where they can learn to love learning and succeed at the same time.

You Teach Kits are your biggest ally here. You Teach Kits will include every book you need to teach a particular subject as well as digital lesson plans for the full school year. Not sure what books to have your 3rd grader read and inspire a love of reading? The Literature 3 You Teach Kit lets you get the books, teaching materials, and lesson plans in fell swoop. Already have all or most of the books? Purchase the books individually and order the lesson plans separately. Find another subject; rinse and repeat.

Every subject K-6th grade has a You Teach option along with Lesson Plans. However, you’ll want to keep in mind that not every subject 7th grade on up will have a You Teach option available and only our Omnibus program has Lesson Plans. We do our best to provide You Teach Kits (sans Lesson Plans) for most subjects 7th-12th, but some subjects are just too resistant. It’s hard to teach advanced Latin unless you’ve studied Latin yourself. For those more challenging upper-level subjects, check out Style 3 further down.

Style 2: Self-Paced Courses

As wonderful as the You Teach style of homeschooling is, life can get busy. Multiple students, part-time work, or even just a much-needed break during the day… Sometimes you want to set your student up and have them handle a subject on their own. Self-Paced courses are here to answer your wish. An online, interactive software, Self-Paced courses utilize a combination of engaging games, slides, and videos to bring history, Bible, and literature to life. Students watch lessons daily and periodically take graded assessments that are automatically created by the system. At the end of the year, you can print off an official grade report. If you’d like an example, you can view samples lessons here.

Like the You Teach method, Self-Paced courses give you the added benefit of extra flexibility, but with some independence thrown in. Each course is built to be completed within 8-9 months, but you have access to the subscription for 12 months in case life happens or you want to take longer with the course. Since you have access to the course 24/7, you can do a lesson a day and or tailor your schedule on the fly. If you run out of time, we always have course extensions available for purchase so you don’t lose your progress or have to repurchase the entire course. It’s the perfect way to get some extra time in your school day, foster responsible independence in your student, and get an accredited grade report hassle-free.

Right now, three subjects are available in Self-Paced format: Bible (2nd-6th Grade), History (2nd-6th Grade), and Omnibus (7th-12th Grade). Every course is built to be multi-level, so you can have students in different grades take it together. Want to have your 2nd, 3rd, and 6th grades study the same period of history? Go for it!

We’ve got kits for everything and Self-Paced kits are no exception. Check out Omnibus Self-Paced Kits, which include all the reading materials for our Self-Paced course. While only Omnibus has required reading material, you can also look into our History Literature Kits for some fun, optional literature that pairs up with period your student is learning about. Since students of different reading levels can take the same course, you’ll notice we have two “levels” History literature kits. Level 1 is meant for students 2nd-3rd Grade. Level 2 is for 4th-6th Grade students. A reading schedule is automatically included with the Self-Paced course, so you know exactly what book to read for which grade level even if you just want to use whatever books you already own.

Bible and Omnibus are both iPad-supported and we hope to have History join them soon! You can see if your computer is compatible by running our Compatibility Wizard and checking our technology requirements.

Style 3: Live Online Classes

Earlier on we mentioned how it’s easy to feel ill-equipped to teach the older grades. If you’re a science person, writing my not be your strongest suit. Maybe engaging your student in philosophical discussion about Beowulf is easy, but trigonometry is a little harder for you to teach. Preparing your student academically for college is a journey that can begin as early as 6th or 7th grade and often feels overwhelming. In many ways, the Live Online classes offer the best of all worlds: accredited grades, less responsibility on the parent, access to excellent teaching, and even some flexibility with scheduling.

Live Classes officially begin in 3rd grade and range all the way through 12th grade, covering every subject from 6th grade onwards. Students attend class twice a week with other students, learning from the lecture and participating via a microphone, webcam, and chat box. Homework is assigned by the teacher and uploaded to our Learning Management System (Schoology) where the teacher grades homework submissions and provides feedback. Since all classes are recorded and archived, students have access to the lectures all year and can keep watch and archive even if vacation, sickness, or even an unusual schedule keeps them from attending class in person! You can watch a sample of a live class here or view available class listings here.

For families interested in receiving an official diploma and transcript, we encourage you to check out our full-time Diploma program. By enrolling full-time with us, your students will gain access to numerous benefits such as dual enrollment with Cairn University as well as personalized help from an Academic Advisor to ensure they get the credits they need to officially graduate from Veritas Scholars Academy.

Whether your family enrolls full-time or chooses to take classes a la carte, Live Classes are the perfect way to challenge your students and keep structure and accountability in your day to day school life. Students will thrive from the classroom discussion and engaging teaching and you can rest easy knowing your student is being academically challenged in an environment that is honoring to Christ.

No matter what style of teaching you ultimately choose, our belief is that education doesn’t cost; it pays. Nothing deserves our time, resources, or energy more than our children. Veritas Press’ mission is to empower you, the parent, to provide excellent, Christ-focused, rigorous teaching for your family—whether that’s via You Teach Kits, Self-Paced Courses, or Live Online Classes. Invest in your student’s academic development and both you and they will reap the rewards for the rest of your life.