Disclosure: I was paid to do this review, but the opinions expressed are my own and I tell you below what I will be using this curriculum for in my own homeschool. 😊
I often receive requests from companies to review their online homeschool curriculum or their membership communities and usually I just politely decline. And I almost responded to the request to review iugoWorld with a “no thanks”, but something inside me told me I needed to check it out.
I am so glad I did!! Iugo.world is going to fill a hole that we had in our homeschool plans this year…middle school Spanish. I will also be evaluating it over the course of this year to possibly become our main curriculum for 8th grade and/or high school.
What is iugo.world?
Iugo.world is a new online learning platform that provides educational resources for K-12 students to learn through a project-based learning model. Students can work through the projects independently or with family involvement depending on your family’s style. The platform is designed to have “the heart of a homeschool”, but also provide a “strong academic foundation”.
Resources cover the four core academic areas: math, English language arts, science, and social studies. Electives include Spanish as a foreign language, visual arts, and personal finance. Online resources, teaching guides and support material are included for each of the courses.
Private communities for each grade as well as different interest groups are also included in the platform to foster connection with other homeschoolers around the world. And there are live office hours twice a week with a homeschool consultant that you can take advantage of!
There is also access to local events such as competitions, field trips, and fairs through iugoEvents. Currently those events are in California, but as more members join, in-person events will be schedule in other areas as well.
One thing I love about this platform, is the cost is so low, you can use it to just fill some gaps in your homeschool year like we will be for Spanish! Or it can be your whole curriculum…it is up to you.
Quick details:
Cost: Just $12 per family for the iugoPRO Plan, which contains everything I mentioned above. I was blown away by how inexpensive iugo.world is right now!! And if you would like them to keep transcripts for your high schooler, they will for a small, additional fee through their Iugo World Academy. If you just want access to the online communities, there is an even cheaper iugoCONNECT Plan!
Where: Iugo.world is set-up to be used legally in any of the 50 states, as well as, some other countries. However, you may have responsibilities like filing a Notice of Intent to Homeschool with your state. You can check the laws for your state here.
Secular or Christian?: Iugo.world is set up to provide learning to Christian homeschoolers as well as secular homeschoolers.
Project-Based Learning
In the iugo.world online homeschool curriculum, the core subjects are learned through an inquiry-based model. Project-based learning is a great model for homeschoolers to learn through, but it can be daunting to get started and know how to implement. Iugo.world takes care of all of that for you.
To learn more about how this would work, I looked at the first week of their 7th grade curriculum. The Unit for the first six weeks is Who We Are Collectively.
The first week there are two activities for ELA...a writing prompt about being mindful and in-depth lesson about writing. The lessons start with a very short video and reading passage and then students are given small research projects where they present their work in different formats.
Science is presented in a similar manner with short research projects about the scientific method. The math lesson has children working on a project to make a miniature item and doing calculations to determine scale. Social studies for the first week focuses on maps and has students design a map. Here is an example of what the lessons look like in the platform…
Students complete the work on their own time and submit assignments as they finish them. There are options to discuss their work with other students in their grade level. English and Spanish versions of each lesson are available.
Electives in the Online Homeschool Curriculum
Iugo.world also allows families to add on a few different electives as part of their online homeschool curriculum: Spanish as a foreign language, personal finance, and art. As I said at the beginning of this post, we decided to try it for our middle school Spanish this year. Students are encouraged to attend the lessons live, although a replay is available if needed. Lessons are 30 minutes long, three days a week.
We were able to attend our first lesson before I published this post. Each live class is limited to 20 students and then it is saved and available for replay if you miss a class or just want to review it! I really liked that it focused on conversational Spanish, but included slides with the text displayed to build literacy in the language as well. The classes are also taught by a native speaker of Spanish.
Who is the team behind this online homeschool curriculum?
I had a chance as part of this review to do a video chat with Windy Fama, one of the founders for iugo.world. She is a former homeschool mom herself. We chatted about how she homeschooled her children while living in Mexico and eventually started a private school there. That school became an IB certified school. The mission of IB education is help children learn to think globally and to develop an inquiry-based approach to learning.
That private school transitioned to an online school during the pandemic and that experience planted the seed for creating iugo.world as an online homeschool curriculum. She emphasized how she wanted iugo.world to have the heart of a homeschool combined with a strong academic foundation so that students will be ready for any post-graduate paths they want to pursue.
And in case you were wondering, ‘iugo’ is pronounced /yugo/, which is Latin for ‘yoke’…to bind together and connect.
Windy is excited to see iugo.world grow over the next year and committed to listening to feedback from families to make the platform a great learning experience for homeschoolers. Check it out and see what you think.
