Resource Description
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: I haven't really found a con yet
Grades Used: High School
I'm not sure what people are griping about with this curriculum. I pulled my 10th grader out of public school in September because they were teaching the students things that do not align with our values, I would know because I'm employed by the district. Monarch has been wonderful for us. You can set your own school year and as far as there being so much work, that's not necessarily a bad thing compared to what's been going on in these public schools. Monarch allows you to unassign anything if the parent or guardian deems necessary. I love that it is Christian based. Trust me, get your kids out of the public school system and get a start on reversing the damage the system has caused our children! I set my daughter's sophomore year to end in April and she is well on her way to be done probably in February, if not sooner.
Cons: EVERYTHING ABOUT IT
Grades Used: 3-6
very bad
Cons: too much work too many prodjects and essays constantly glitching and questions are hard to read or understand.
Grades Used: 4-5
so much work ;-;
Cons: Lots of questions are marked as wrong, when they are in fact correct.
Grades Used: 10th
Monarch is a great way to zoom through your work in a month, if you know the material. much quicker than khan academy. the only thing that it doesn't have is a *report this problem button*. I have just started using this for about a week, and about every 8 questions it says my answer is incorrect, when I double check and it is in fact correct. Their people need to fix these bugs.
Cons: None except for timing you out for taking too long (in my opinion thats a good thing, though.)
Grades Used: 5
Monarch is a great program and it has over 2000+ assignments for each grade and It picks the right ones for whatever your child needs to either work on or is struggling in. Monarch is amazing and it has at least 10 voiced videos a day by the creators to help with work. Everybody is putting Monarch down and making a big deal because it either "times you out" or it "crashes their internet router". There are 2 easy solutions for those problems: 1. Do you work and use your hour it gives you! 2. Don't buy anymore internet boxes from mcdonalds or just get a new one! You can grade work that you think Monarch graded wrong. Some questions answered might get an F (Paragraphs) if you don't grade your child's work in time! Monarch is actually great if you are responsible and do the work on time.
Cons: Shuts down constantly
Grades Used: 3rd and 5th
We use the Monarch homeschool program . I want to just say the website is under constant repair and the problems are never resolved. It logs my daughter out constantly and erases some of her work. I'm talking 2-3 hundred word essays gone. The answers will be answered correctly but still grade her as if they are wrong. Will def not be using this program again. Please research other homeschool programs that would be less stressful for your child.
We have used Monarch for high school to fill in every subject that our homeschool class center does not offer. We absolutely love Monarch and it has been a huge help lifting a burden off of my shoulders and allowing my spirited and independent teenager to enjoy her schooling independently! We were not fans of the Biology as we found the writing to be extremely disjointed as if written by someone who does not speak English well. We have not tried the math because Teaching Textbooks is so amazing that we would not want to try anything else. But Monarch has so many features that make it flexible, self teaching, self grading, and you can reschedule your school year any way you like. You can go in and delete whole lessons as needed and you can easily print all your records. It even lets you adjust your grading criteria so that the grade weighting is more or less challenging, as you see fit! One important note is that you ***must assign the extra essays and porjects** and sometimes that will take a little research on your part but once you have figured out what you want and assigned it you can go an entire semester without thinking about it. If you do not assign the projects and essays and get ideas from online sources or your teacher friends, your child will NOT be prepared for college. That said you don’t have to assign *every* project 🙂 ...here is an example. For 10th grade world history the program just has “special project “ assigned and I decided to get the book “Document Based Questions for World History” because I know pre-AP ans AP history classes assign Document Based Questions. My daughter would take that book, learn from
It, read the documents, wrote her essay In MLA format and then I would grade it using the rubric in the book and input the grade into Monarch. It took literally 20 minutes to assign them and each time took 10 minutes to grade and since I didn’t have to plan anything else I was able to put effort into choosing something worthwhile. ...I would never use just Monarch for the entirety of high school unless I had no other option as I think it would be tedious. However it is actually a VERY good program !!!
Cons: Way to many quizzes, assignments and test's to complete and way to many reports and projects to complete in under 14 days.
Grades Used: 9 and 10th
It's not bad online program but i get sick and tired of the million projects and reports you have to do, and it will send you like 5 reports you have to do, they are all due the same day and they give you like a week in advance to get it done, 7 days to get 5 reports done, and some of them are 600 words long. The other thing is the crazy work day someday's i only do 3 assignments per class, but most of the time i'll have a test to take, and then it wants me to do 3 homework assignments and then take a quiz and another TEST, so at the end of the day i could have 5-7 assignments to do for each class and its so annoying, i don't remember doing almost 18-35 assignments a day in public school.
Cons: Not always written well
Grades Used: 3rd, 5th, 9th
We've been homeschooling for 10 years and this is our first year using an online curriculum. We've never used a boxed curriculum, either. We mostly unschool in the early years. Then we used Life of Fred for mathematics, Story of the World for history, some Apologia for science, but mostly we used real books and real life.
My kids are finding Monarch to be pretty easy and enjoyable. Mostly. The content is not too hard for them but the way many of the questions are worded makes it very easy to get a question marked incorrect.
I do not like that spelling words are not taught in word families. Rather, words are pulled out of a story. My 5th grader gets more difficult spelling words than my 9th grader. I've never heard of spelling in 9th grade but, there it is.
All of my kids are very strong in mathematics and science. So they are finding those subjects easy. Plus, we do a lot of real science and math in our home. I don't know if Monarch science and math would be enough, on it's own. I am especially concerned about my high school student, as she progresses. I don't know if we'll continue using Monarch for high school. We may look into Power Homeschool.
Final issue-- the pricing. I have 4 children who are eligible for Monarch. The family plan allows for 3 students for around $600. But, to add a 4th child, you have to pay the individual rate which is around $400. No discount for adding any extra students. So, you can great a great deal for 3 students or 6 students. Having 5 students isn't that bad, either. But 4? Out of luck. It costs about $1,000 for 4 students but only $600 for 3 students. That doesn't make sense.
I wish they had done a better job with high school math and science. I like having everything on one platform. Hopefully, they'll improve. I haven't looked at Horizon textbooks yet but I would think they could use what's in Horizon to beef up Monarch.
Cons: There are a bunch of quizzes each week, they don't explain the math very good and the videos are pretty short and the math videos, (Some of them, not all) are hard to understand in my opinion.
Grades Used: 6,7,8,9
I'm seventeen and I have been doing this homeschooling program since I was in 6th grade! It's not that bad but there are a few cons about it, like: There are to many quizzes each week and they fit to many things into each section before the TEST. Most of the subjects are easy for me except math, I have so much trouble with math and I cant help to think that it might have something to do with the monarch and the way they explain it. The videos don't make since and the examples are ether not enough explained or to much explained to where it is to confusing. I have always had trouble with math and even when I was in school it was hard for me but I still think monarch could do a better job at explaining it:) Sometimes I wish I had a teacher helping me (A real teacher, not just the computer) My mom can't help me as much as she would like because she is at work when i'm doing my schoolwork, but that's ok. When math get's to hard though, I may be working 10 to 13 hours on it! along with all my other work piled up. Also I almost forgot to mention that there is a bunch of work each day...almost each day, Some days are a breez and others are putting bags under my eys and giving me headaches. Although I may sit here and talk about the negatives, monarch is a pretty good homeschooling program and I recommend it for busy moms or kids who are looking for and easy and fun way to LEARN.
GOD BLESS:)
Cons: Shouldn't be used for too many subjects
Grades Used: 9-11
We are using AOP Monarch for high school (I recommend just to use it for a few subjects each year, not all of them) and it is fantastic. The user interface lets the parent decide and adjust everything- what the grading scale is, whether they can skip problems, whether quizzes can be open-book (allows them to leave the screen and come back), and much more! You tell the program the start of the school year and the date of the last day and then it schedules the entire school year for you, including time off for holidays and Christmas. You can even have the program send you an alert when the student scores below a grade you set, on any assignment. AND it also sends you weekly reports automatically. My daughter has had no trouble with bugs or crashing. She uses Google Chrome on a Mac. We found some of the BIblical material to be a little weird, but it's ok, as that only pops up now and then in the beginning of world history. My daughter loves the interface and she loves her independence. I would NEVER encourage you to use only MOnarch for all of your subjects. I would be especially wary of using Monarch for Math and Foreign Language. However, for English, Literature, Electives, History and Science it really can't be beat! I am a very experienced homeschool mom who has used online live classes, Well Trained MInd Classes online, packages where I grade the work such as from Sonlight My Father's World and I can tell you, for a few subjects per year, Monarch is absolutely fantastic value and very well loved by our family. I cannot believe the value we are getting, and the drama-free school days Monarch allows us to have. For a few subjects, and assuming your child is reading current events (I recommend World Teen), and reading books (I recommend the Classics), and a few outsourced co-op classes, using Monarch will provide a fantastic experience. You do need to have realistic expectations of course. It is a textbook on a screen. The student needs to read his or her own material, study, make flashcards and take notes. You will at some point have your internet go down and if you reboot your router and it's still not back up, then make it a library internet day, or take the day off! We so far have not had any glitches with Chrome, but YMMV on a different browser. 🙂