I'm a very busy homeschooling Mom. In addition to helping my husband on our small farm, we are moving into a new home. I also work 35 hours a week as a blogger, freelance writer, and a marketing manager. This means that (sadly), I haven't been able to develop a curriculum that is both easy for me to manage, and my kids to complete.
I was excited to try Time4Learning.com, because we have used computer-based curriculum in the past and loved them! I was already very pleased with the 100% online aspect of this course. Why? With a working mom and 4 kids in school, we never know what computer we will be at (we also have a couple of laptops and a computer next door at Grandma's house.) This curriculum helped us stop making excuses for not getting our work done (like someone using the PC we wanted) and helped the kids do their courses ANYWHERE, ANYTIME! I also liked that I wasn't bogging down my computer with lots of programs. We have had problems in the past with finding enough storage space for all the kids' courses and my software for work.
What was the program like? Very awesome. While each interactive, multi-media course is different, there were some very common pros to each subject:
- Courses can be accessed from a main launchpad. Kids can do as many or as few courses as the parent dictates, without penalty for skipping a day (or two) as needed. Kids can do assignments over if you choose.
- Parents can preview any lesson from the kids menu or their course listing. From there, parents can also print worksheets and answer keys for lessons for additional coursework.
- If a child is struggling in a subject (or likewise finding it too easy), they can access the grades above or below their grade to compensate. There is no additional charge to do this work instead.
- Progress reports are easy to generate and print for any time frame and for any combination of subjects.
- This curriculum is not a "Christian" curriculum. Based off of the Compass Learning system, it teaches courses in a similar fashion to public school (this includes an overview of carbon dating, evolution, etc.) However, I would not let this discourage parents with opposing views to use the programming. There is a very helpful parent forum included with membership, with a separate discussion thread for Christian parents. In this forum, they discuss any lessons that may conflict with beliefs, and share the course codes with each other. (Parents can use this info to decide whether to teach them from the perspective of giving their child a balanced approach towards worldview teachings OR skip them altogether.)
To learn more about Time4Learning.com, visit their website. (Check out their trial offer if you want to try before you buy!)
*We received a trial subscription and gift for trying this program, although we are now just regular purchasers of the program.
Lille, Time4Learning has been great for us too. I'm a completely eclectic educator but the constants over the last few years have been: Time4Learning.com and a reading program. Everything else seems to come and go but Time4Learning, because of it's flexibility, has remained a constant.
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