This past spring Tru and I hit a wall with his school. He was getting bored with the traditional book work curriculum and we were butting heads a bit when it was time sit down and get his work finished. So I did a little research and came across Time4Learning. It looked like it would be a good supplement to what we were already using. I also thought a we both would appreciate a change. So we signed him up and we've been using it about 2 1/2 months now and it has become our main curriculum that we use along with our more traditional workbook lessons.
Basically, Time4Learning offers 4 different subjects Language Arts, Math, Science, and Language Arts Extensions (which is like social studies) all in one online package. Once your signed up, your child can log in to their account, and get started. You can pick which subjects you want your child to work on and even build a lesson plan. We focus on the language arts and the math, but sometimes he will use the other subjects. When it comes to science and history I pull a lot from our local library. Both the language arts and math lessons do a great job of getting the material across to him while keeping it engaging and fun! The math lessons have pages you can print out to go with the lessons, too.
Within the first month his reading had improved and he was much more confident about reading on his own. I think he actually enjoys reading a little more now. Tru is in the first grade level, but Time4Learning gives us the option to go a level below or ahead anytime we want. Also, we can retake any lesson if he needs to. I can log in to my parent account and track his progress. It helps me see where he might need to review a lesson, how long he spent on each lesson, and records everything he's done. I can also set up how long his sessions are and use a variety of parent resources like spelling word lists, science supply lists, and reading lists. You can also put together your lesson plans which I found helpful. When it comes to price I think it's pretty reasonable for our family living on one income. It's 19.95 a month for one child and then 14.95 for each additional child after that. There isn't any kind of contract either, so we can cancel at any time if we need to.
Now when Tru is working on his lessons it doesn't give him the option to pause a lesson. So if he's in the middle of it and needs to use the restroom or gets distracted (it happens) he might miss something and can't go back over it with out retaking the whole lesson. It would be nice to have a way to pause the lessons or come back to one particular place in the lesson. It hasn't posed any major problems, but he's not always as enthusiastic about a lesson the second time around. It is not a Christian based curriculum so you wont find any bible lessons or anything like that. I'm with Tru while he's working on his lessons and we've never had any problems with the curriculum conflicting with our beliefs or anything like that. I think Time4Learning would work well with everyone's approach to schooling their children.
All in all as a homeschooling family we have had a great experience with Time4Learning and will continue to use it as Tru finishes first grade this summer. I hope this has been helpful to anyone who is thinking about using Time4Learning and I would be happy to answer any questions. I enjoy teaching my boys at home and using this curriculum with our first grader has helped make it a little more enjoyable for all of us!
***As a member of Time4Learning, I have been given the opportunity to review their program and share my experiences. While I was compensated, this review was not written or edited by Time4Learning and my opinion is entirely my own. For more information, check out their standards-based curriculum or learn how to write your own curriculum review.
