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Thinkwell ~ A Review

Thinkwell is a complete online, homeschool math program for grades 6th-12th. For each grade level there are 3 choices (essentials, regular, and honors). The essentials is basically a review course. The other two are self explanatory. There is a placement test that your child can take so that you can know exactly where to place them within the curriculum. For the review period three of my children used Thinkwell. We used, 6th Grade Math, 8th Grade Math (Pre-Algebra), and Algebra 1.

How Does It Work?

1. Your child watches a 5-10 minute video lesson
2. Student will practice problems that will automatically be graded 
3. Download worksheets for extra practice and print out study notes
4. Quizzes and Tests will test your child on mastery of concepts
5. Courses are designed to last a full year

The lectures were very well done. The concepts were taught in a way that the students could understand and follow. The length of the lectures were just the right length so that the student did not get bored or started wandering off in from what was being taught.

After lessons I had all three of my children print out the extra practice sheets in order for them to get more practice on the concepts being taught in the lesson. There were a few times that I had my child repeat a lesson video because they were not understanding the concept being taught. The lesson notes were also helpful. I wished that there were more practice problems with the lessons.

Here are a few examples of problems from the various grade levels we reviewed. 

I really liked that it gives in the "explanation" the solution on how each problem

is supposed to be worked out. 

If you get a problem wrong, they give you the correct answer and the 

explanation. All of my children that reviewed Thinkwell complained that 

there were so few problems in the graded section that if you got one or two 

problems wrong you got a very low grade. This really turned all three of my children

off to the curriculum. This did not motivate them to want to continue on with the program because they were getting low grades a lot. I totally understood where they were coming from. If there are only 6-8 or so problems that are being graded and you get one or two wrong you are not going to get a good grade. In most math curriculums you have on average 30 problems or so that you have to work through in a lesson. This is the one major aspect of the curriculum that I did not like. I wanted their to be more problems in each lesson. 

After the exercise you can see how your child did on the exercise. 

You can review each problem by just clicking each individual problem. 

The Chapter Checklist on the left hand side will show you the progress 

that your child has made in the course. 

After a lesson your child can print out a worksheet and after they complete the worksheet

they can check their answers with the online solution tab. 

For the student that learns well by reading, they can print out the lesson 

transcript and review the lesson examples in written form. 

Overall, Thinkwell is a good math curriculum. It is very easy to navigate. Students do not have to worry about keeping track of where they are at in the program because Thinkwell does that for them. There are many tools within the program to help aid both the student as well as the parent. With that said, Thinkwell wasn't a good fit for our family. While I really liked the lectures part of the curriculum, there just wasn't enough practice problems and lesson problems in each lesson to adequately give my children the practice that they needed before a new concept was taught. Math is the one subject that doesn't come easy for my kiddos and they need much more practice before new concepts are taught. Thinkwell may be the perfect fit for your family and your child. I would encourage you to check out what other Crew members had to say about Thinkwell. Also, go to the Thinkwell website and browse through their site. You may find Thinkwell to be just what you are looking for in a Math curriculum for your child. 

To read more reviews click here.

Social Media

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ThinkwellLearning/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/ThinkwellVids/