Resource Description
Monarch is an interactive, Internet-based homeschool curriculum for grades 3-12 that's compatible with most web browsers on a Windows® or Macintosh® operating system accessible 24/7 from anywhere in the world. Monarch contains Bible-based online lessons in the five core subjects of Bible, history and geography, language arts, math, and science, as well as a wide variety of electives. Electives include world languages, history, literature, math, science, geography, health, civics, and preparation for GED testing. Monarch subscriptions are good for 18 months beginning on the date of purchase.
Website: Alpha Omega Monarch (may contain affiliate links)
(36 Reviews)
Before investing in any homeschooling resources, please read "How to Choose the Best Homeschool Curriculum."
Contributor Reviews
Reviews are solely the opinions of the contributor.
Cons: potential internet glitches. none with material or layout
Grades Used: 6th
Loving Monarch for our 6th grader!
I am a second-generation homeschooler so I feel like I have had significant experience with curriculum from both the learning and teaching perspectives. As a family, we are fans of AOP and have started all our kids with LifePac. Living in Ohio we are required for our students to be evaluated yearly by a certified teacher. They have always performed well and the teachers have been impressed with the curriculum. "Don't change a thing" is music to this mom's ears!!
Anyway, we decided to try Monarch for our 6th grader this year and are so happy with it! The layout, grading and learning tools are all to be applauded. We did have some glitchy issues that were frustrating (random crashing and not recording my daughters work) but we also live rurally and don't have great internet service so most of the time its been better than anticipated. I called the tech support and they were very helpful and suggested a browser change etc and we have had very minimal issues overall. I suspect anything internet based is going to have problems now and then.
I would totally recommend this curriculum and am excited by all the elective options for the future grade levels! In conclusion, I would also like to add that I love that AOP makes quality curriculum AFFORDABLE. 🙂
Cons: Practically none
Grades Used: 8th and 9th
We have been using Monarch Online for two years, grades eight and nine.
We have all positive reviews. Monarch has exceeded what we need in our home school. The student has to read each lesson. Parents may print lessons in order to help the child with study and preparation for quizzes or tests. The grades are practically taken care of by Monarch. The reports are available at the click of the button. We are totally satisfied and thankful that Monarch has been available for us.
The only problem we have is when the system is down for maintenance and this is usually scheduled.
Thankful for Monarch!
Priscilla M.
Cons: see above
Grades Used: 10th, 3rd
JUST BECAME AWARE THAT THE MONARCH PROGRAM DOES NOT LEAD TO A DIPLOMA. ..IT IS STILL NECESSARY TO OBTAIN A GED!
[From THSM: Just to clarify for anyone who might be reading this, it is not necessary for homeschoolers to obtain a GED. This Ask Jeanne article is helpful for understanding how diplomas work for homeschoolers.]
It's okay. My daughter was very upset because your website is glitchy and almost everytime she does school something goes wrong. Like when she's writing a report, she'll press submit and it will take her back to sign up and her report was not saved. For instance her Alfed the Great report. It took her 45 min to rewrite the story in her own words, using colorful words and being a bit more dramatic. And she goes "Mommy! I finished my report"
As I'm watching her and telling her good job her smile turned ino a frown and she goes "It didn't save my report"
Thanks Monarch..........
Cons: NONE
Grades Used: 4th and 8th
I must say that we disagree with most of the negative comments about Monarch.
I am a mother, and having a teaching background, applaud this online curriculum. We, (myself and our Masters in Child psychology and Masters in education tutor), both took 1 month to find a suitable best homeschooling curriculum and found Monarch.
It is Christian based, accredited, offers transcripts, marks and keeps track of your children's full lesson sessions and submitted work, and the support has been superb, especially their online chat or over the phone.
I have a 4th and 8th grader and they are simply flourishing with this system. (They both came from private schools). They love the layout, user friendly and overall teaching and learning experience. It has ample written content, video's, audio's, tasks, lesson plans, experiments, essays, rapports, you name it.
All of which enables and provides your child with a holistic experience in every single subject area. The work load may be a little much but if your student is diligent and follows a thoroughly prepared daily plan, they can easily achieve their goals. The content is rich and extremely informative. Mine learn so much and in fact learn much more than children of their age in public or even private schools.
They are able to go over their work as many times as they wish in order to consolidate and grasp concepts properly, before moving on to the quizzes and tests. Their study time is focussed and non-distracting which helps them to absorb information effectively and actually learn. The instant gratification of grading scores inspires them to achieve good results and keep record of their marks achieved. Where needed they can then review on the weakest areas and brush up on those.
Thank you Monarch for all you endeavour to achieve and do with your online system. Keep improving and keep upgrading and know that you are doing a really good job. We couldn't have done without you and thank you for what you are enabling my children to learn. From an appreciative family.
Cons: Crashes constantly
Grades Used: 7
Not happy at all. My daughter gets finished with a question that took a while to figure out and the site crashes when she submits the answer. This happens all the time. I wish I had read reviews first Shame on me.
Cons: The program is useless. See my review for details.
Grades Used: 9th
This is the worst online homeschooling program we have ever used. It is very discouraging to a student when he constantly receives the following message while trying to complete lessons:
Our Apologies - On this page, an error has been detected.
Contact Us - If this error continues to occur, you can Leave Feedback or Contact Monarch Technical Support
More Information - Not authenticated. Problem with https://monarch.aop.com/api/get_maintenance/,
When we clicked on the "Leave Feedback" nothing happens. When we click on "Contach Monarch Technical Support" we get a sad face in a square box that below says "www.aophomeschooling.com refused to connect.
We have struggled with this program through the year that we've used it. Unfortunately we can't afford to just simply purchase something else, so as disheartening as it has been to our student, we've had to constantly encourage him to just keep trying, even though the messages above recur many, many times while he is using the program.
Cons: Too many projects, Minimalist lessons, voices, grading, several test questions per test, no books
Grades Used: 4th, 6th
We've used Monarch for the past 9 months and will not be using it again. It wasn't right for our family. My 12 yr old and my 10 yr old used it and struggled throughout the entire year. The voices used are computer voices and ridiculous. They were a big distraction to us. Also, the lessons were not explained thoroughly. It gives only the bare minimum amount of information. If you have questions, too bad. There's no books to explain. The few good things are shadowed by these major problems. There were also grading methods used we disagree with plus questions on tests that we also thought ridiculous. We'll be going with video lessons from another provider next year.
Cons: Busy work, bugged material/questions
Grades Used: 3, 9, 5
I am doing the family plan, 3 kids for $70. I have a 9th, 5th, and 3rd grader. Coming from public school this year, my younger two have taken to the online program ok. My 9th grader is overrun with essays.
Basically, the technology is difficult for my 3rd grader, especially the math. It has numbers you have to drag over other numbers to demonstrate your work, and it is difficult to use.
My 9th grader is taking Algebra 2, and she is doing ok for the most part, but needs outside help often and it doesn't help that the material is sometimes wrong.
I have submitted numerous material errors for correction (sometimes weekly) and they have responded saying they fixed it. I am not sure why my family has to be the beta testers, and this material should be combed through before we get to it.
I wish they had a teacher's guide, to show how we are to correct certain assignments. I also wish the material had links in the questions (for the parents) to see where the student was supposed to read some of the information. I see often there are questions that weren't covered by the material.
Cons: Confusing and scattered material not detailed or explained good enough--or OVER explained. Questions worded horribly and confusing. Correct answers counted wrong.
Grades Used: 9
We used Monarch for the first year of homeschooling, which was 9th grade.
Some of our issues:
1. Questions worded wrong or confusingly.
2. Tons of her answers counted wrong that were right. Contacting CS became monotonous. There were even times, I had the correct answers via online link to a viable, valid website but they would still tell me her answers were wrong.
3. If we needed to reschedule, the system was supposed to evenly disburse the work over the time left in the school year, it did NOT. Some days she would have one page to read, the next, she may have TWELVE for ONE subject. As a single working mother/homemaker, I did not have time to go in and spend the hours it would've taken to fix this myself.
4. The work assigned was so far ahead of our public school (which is certainly the goal for homeschooling), it was like she skipped a grade or two and missed so much information. She had a 3.8 GPA in public school, and with Monarch, she was virutally lost.
AOP may be great for children who begin homeschooling in elementary school, but not as a late entry. There were many things we spoke to a 12th grade friend about, and he had never even had the things she was doing. I concluded the curriculum was poorly written by a novice, and also, pretty much the same stuff for all high school grades, no matter what grade you were in. Not grade specific or appropriate.
5. Complicated, scattered material, many videos were just, almost useless as far as actual explaining the information. Some things in science and algebra had NO detailed explanations or videos, in which she became just lost. We dropped out of algebra, and chose another program because it was so bad.
The platform was easy to use, and a very 'ideal' program in theory. But less than desirable because of the actual content. I wrote the main office many times, as well as emailed, but there were never changes.
She signed up for French 1 as her required foreign language, and my friend from Paris, whose mother taught French as a second language there her entire career (and is retired now), said it was the worst and most poorly written, un-functional material she had ever seen! She said there was no way a child could successfully learn French the way Monarch was trying to teach it.
I truly wish they would've made changes, we would still be with them this year because we loved the online application.
More questions? be.engme at yahoo.