Time 4 Learning
https://www.time4learning.com
We received a 30 day trial for the Preschool level of Time 4 Learning free in order to do this review. The review contains my thoughts and opinions.
Time 4 Learning is a website offering learning activities that can serve as a complete curriculum or to enhance what is learned elsewhere–either in a public, private, or home school. Time 4 Learning covers science, social studies, math and language arts through 6th grade and for most requirements through 8th grade. Your child can work at their own pace and can enjoy a playground area of educational games. The parent sets the requirements for earning playground time–how many minutes of learning time. The parent also has access to the student’s progress. There is nothing to download onto your computer, just sign in, have fun and start learning. Monthly costs are $19.95 for one student, $14.95 for additional students.
My understanding is that the preschool level has recently been redone and improved. Since we have not previously used this program, I cannot speak to how it compares to previous versions. My 4 year old son loved the fact that he had a chance to work on the computer for his school time. We do not do much work on the computer with our children. This was my son’s biggest challenge in using this program. He had a hard time getting the mouse to move where he wanted it to. If your child is proficient in this, they will thoroughly enjoy being able to navigate this on their own. For nearly every response, the answer is verbally stated when the arrow is over it, so no reading is necessary. We did have some difficulty a time or two when subsequent answers were in the same location–the mouse hadn’t moved, so my son wasn’t sure if where he was was the answer he was looking for. Other than his frustrations with the physical aspect of using the computer, he had a blast, often completing several topics in one sitting. This is my very high energy, never sits still little boy. I was truly shocked that he sat still this long and asked to do ‘his school’ daily.
The topics are split into two groups: PreK1 and PreK2. Their are 20 topics in PreK1 and 21 topics in PreK2. They were slightly more advanced in PreK2. I have not done formal schooling with DS(4), and he could complete everything in PreK1 with ease. PreK2 was only slightly challenging. Many basic and typical preschool activities are introduced and reinforced. For most topics, their are 4 or 5 activities. These can be completed in any order and done over as much as the child desires. If starting from the left, a story or video introduces the main concept-colors, shapes, days of the week, or nature to name a few. The other activities checked comprehension or provided an opportunity to use a skill such as sorting by size or color. A few topics even had suggestions for hands on activities to do.
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I do see special instances where Time 4 Learning would be a very useful thing, for older ages especially. If you have a struggling learner who needs more practice, or something to keep up with learning in an informal way such as during the summer, then this might be just what you are looking for. If you transfer your child to homeschool in the middle of the school year and need something to use while making curriculum decisions, this would be invaluable. The length of time that Time 4 Learning is used is up to you, month to month. Because of the ability to access both a grade level below and above where your child is, this can be customized to your needs academically as well.
Not a bad program, just not for us. We take a more hands on approach to our schooling and do not use much for formal teaching at such a young age. We probably would not have chosen to use this on our own because the cost is just too much for all of our children. DS 4 has 3 older sisters who would want to do this, too. To check out other reviews, see the links on the Crew blog http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/HomeschoolCrew/776070/