Time4Learning Review

Well, our 30 day trial of Time4Learning has come to an end. The month has flown by.

Hannah (6 1/2) is the one who has benefited most from the curriculum. She really enjoys it and has asked that she can continue with it. I think what really appeals to her is how interactive it is. Through the lessons there are sections where they will check that the child understand what they are learning. This is done in such a fun way that the child thinks they are playing a game. Hannah has had so much fun with the curriculum that she has not even bothered heading over to the actual "game" section. I also like that this "game area" is only available to the child when they have completed a pre-determined amount of work.

Hezekiah (3) was so pleased that he got some "school work" too. I am so pleased that the curriculum can be used on an iPad as this has been a fun way to give him some on-line "school" time without him having to use one of the computers.

The curriculum is really easy to use and the children quickly find their way around. Even Hezekiah very quickly worked out that once each activity was done they would be "ticked". And once the entire unit had been done - it would have a tick on the first page too. He was so pleased to be able to do something that was similar to his older sister's work and I could see how he learnt new skills over the weeks.

Rachel (13) had a look at the High School curriculum. She is busy with another curriculum at this stage - so didn't get too much time on it. It was still great to have a feel for how it worked though and evaluate if it would be something that we could use in the future. At this stage my biggest concern is that the curriculum is not linked to an on-line calendar or schedule. Even though a scheduler is available - this does not link in to the work itself. I have seen that Rachel does seem to prefer having a daily schedule that she can link directly to her work from, and it gets marked off once it's done. This way she knows she is on track with getting the required work done - without having to check a list and tick things off. So if this aspect of Time4Learning was made available (an interactive schedule) it would automatically be far more practical for her.

Going back to the Pre-K and Grade 1 work. I did find that Hezekiah would work through one unit very quickly. I found this with the Social Studies and Science for Hannah (Grade 1) as well. In these 30 days she has done all of the Social Studies and Science units. She did start moving onto the Grade 2 lessons, but I think there was too much reading in the Social Studies for her at this stage. She has however enjoyed carrying on with some of the Grade 2 Science lessons. So if more of these were added it would be very much enjoyed by the children. :-)

I really like the fact that the Language Arts and Math is so interactive and presented in a variety of ways as I think this really helps children to understand new concepts. Hannah really enjoys spending time in LA Extensions too.

I like the fact that I can quickly check how much work has been done in the day or week or month. I can also get reports for all the work that she has done. I didn't really like the report with all the subjects in - as they were not all grouped together. I did however find that I could just run the reports for each subject - one at a time - and then I could have all of that subject's work together - with a summary grade for that subject only.

So it looks like, at least for a time, Hannah will continue using (and enjoying) Time4Learning. And I am sure Hezekiah will have times of fun with it too.

Disclosure: My opinion is entirely my own. The content was not written by Time4Learning, but I was compensated.