How to Use Thinkwell Homeschool Honors Math {Review}

Finding the right homeschool math program for can be tricky–especially for upper level math courses. We recently received a 12 month subscription to Thinkwell, which offers curriculum for 6th to 8th Grade Math (including Pre-Algebra, Essentials and Honors) as well as High School Math (Algebra to Calculus, including Essential and Honors).

I had my oldest three girls work on this review. Raena, my senior, took their Precalculus course. Alexandria, my freshman, took Honors Geometry. And Ellawyn, my 6th grader, took Honors 6th Grade Math.

What is Thinkwell Homeschool?

Thinkwell is a company that looks to support the homeschool community by offering quality level math courses. Their pedagogy is that “Learning challenging subjects doesn’t have to be hard–it just takes the right teacher.” They believe that “great teaching leads to great learning.”

Knowing that each homeschool situation is unique, they offer many different course options and levels. The courses are all online video courses, so you can watch the video and do the work when it is convenient to you.

Classes are also self-paced, allowing your student to work slower or faster depending on their need.

Variety of Middle School and High School Homeschool Math Courses

Thinkwell offers many online video courses for homeschool students.

6th-8th Grade Math

Middle School math courses include:

• 6th Grade Math
• Honors 6th Grade Math
• 7th Grade Math
• Honors 7th Grade Math
• 8th Grade Math (Pre-Aglebra)
• Honors 8th Grade Math

High School Math Courses

High School math courses include:

• Algebra 1
• Honors Algebra 1
• Algebra 2
• Honors Algebra 2
• Geometry
• Honors Geometry
• Precalculus
• Trigonometry
• Calculus

High School Honors Courses

Other High School honors courses, not math related include:

• Honors Chemistry
• Honors Biology
• Honors Physics I
• Honors Economics
• Honors Macroeconomics
• Honors Microeconomics

Essentials Courses

Essentials courses are review courses. They are not meant to replace the math courses. They make great refresher courses, like when studying for the ACT or SAT.

• 6th Grade Essentials
• 7th Grade Essentials
• 8th Grade (Pre-Algebra) Essentials
• Algebra I Essentials
• Geometry Essentials
• Algebra 2 Essentials
• Precalculus Essentials

College Math Courses and Foreign Language

Thinkwell also offers several college level math courses to help better prepare your high school student for college course work. The downside to these courses is that your student is doing all the work of a college-level class, without earning any of the credit.

However, it may be a good opportunity to see the type of work expected at a college level. If they do well enough in the class, theoretically, they should be able to test out of that math and into a higher level math once in college.

In addition, they have Rosetta Stone available for several foreign languages.

Homeschool Math Honors Courses

One of the very first things that intrigued me about Thinkwell was that they offered honors courses. Even for the middle school math. The Honors 6th Grade Math moves at a faster pace and is geared toward advanced students who would be preparing to do Algebra their 8th grade year. It still gives them a firm foundation of middle school math, while preparing them for upper level math sooner.

Likewise, they have three different options for Geometry. There is regular Geometry, Honors Geometry and then a Geometry Essentials Course. Honors Geometry covers more topics and has more class days than the normal Geometry course. The Essentials course is geared toward students who have already completed a Geometry course and need a refresher.

Thinkwell Lesson Overview

Students have a separate login, although you can access their account from your login.

Each lesson has a short 10-15 minute video. The video can be viewed with subtitles or in transcript form.

After watching the lesson, there is a worksheet to complete.

There are also quizzes, practice tests, and chapter tests. Unlike the worksheets, these are done online and are graded. The answer key for them appears after completion. You can find the results for these in the grade book.

Navigating the Thinkwell Homepage

The course homepage gives a list of all the topics. When you click on a topic, it gives you an expanded list with all the lessons for that topic.

On the side bar, students can access the videos, animations, and assessments separately. This makes it easy to re-watch a video without having to go back to the lesson.

There is also a link to resources. This is where you can find the lesson plan for each course.

Recent activity is also found on the side key making it easier for students to pick up where they left off.

We Loved Thinkwell Homeschool Math

My girls all loved Thinkwell Homeschool math. Specifically, they loved the teaching style of Professor Edward Burger. Ellawyn told me,

It’s like you’re not even learning math! He uses songs and things to teach, so then it’s just fun.

Several times one of my girls would call me over to watch a skit or song that he used. They would even re-tell me things that he did during the lesson that they thought were funny, such as winking when explaining how many times to move the decimal point.

I’m not even sure how many times Raena replayed The Top Ten List of Mistakes. She thought his song countdown was great.

This was great because it provided an easy way for her to remember them and she didn’t even realize how much she was studying because she was just having fun.

I loved this because it meant that my girls were excited for math. And even though they were all taking challenging courses, they didn’t complain because he made the lessons engaging. Because they were having fun, the lessons felt easier.

His use of songs, skits, and props to teach also meant that my children remembered the concepts more easily. What they were learning stuck! It was great listening to them share with each other what Professor Burger did in their lesson. By sharing they were also recounting the math concepts they learned, so I know that they were actually remembering and understanding what they were being taught.

“Great teachers lead to great learning.” We definitely saw that with Professor Edward Burger.

I would definitely recommend Thinkwell for your homeschool Middle School and High School math needs.

Other Crew members reviewed different levels. Be sure to check them out.