Time 4 Learning is an online learning environment for ages pre-k up to High School level. It can be used as homeschool curriculum, afterschool curriculum, summer use schooling, or even just tutoring. It can be used as a supplement or complete curriculum. Ease of record keeping is an added bonus.
They offer Language Arts, Math, Learn to Read, Science and Social Studies as well as Language Arts Extensions.
subjects are organized into chapters composed of interactive lessons, printable worksheets, quizzes and tests. children are guided through the activities at their own pace by an automated system.
Your child(ren) get their own log in and the parent gets their own. The parent has access to many aspects of the program, such as records, scores, upcoming activities and more.
They also offer an active parent forum, where you can connect with other parents and families using Time 4 Learning. I did head into the parent forum to ask a question about scheduling and was pleased to find that it had already been asked and answered by a moderator.
When your student logs into their account they are greeted with options as to which subject they would like to work on. Each subject has chapters and subchapters and sometimes even sub-sub chapters, which is where the lessons actually are. They click through to see how much they have done and to see how much they have left to do.
One concern I had was that it was too much online time. This can be the case if you don’t use the resources they provide as in printable worksheets and suggestions to go get some items. For instance, for the very first science lesson we had to get some household items, such as a ruler and a thermometer and more to show different types of instruments that scientists use. In the parent account there is a science supply list.
Your child can also earn “play-ground time”. Which is free time within the Time 4 Learning website. The “play-ground” is full of basic fun and entertaining games. You set up the amount of time a student has to work to earn the “play-ground” time as well as how long they get to play.
Our Story with it:
Due to my daughter not reading at your typical 3rd graders level, we moved quite a few of the lessons down to the 2nd grade level. In 2nd grade the system reads to you much more than at the 3rd grade level.
I printed out a weekly plan at the beginning of each week and I also went in and preprinted any worksheets/ flashcards, etc. she would be using for the week.
Then I would put the list where she could see it and I let her choose which subject to do each day. Within the subject she had to go in order of the plan. (See a picture example of the plan below). This way she knew when to do a worksheet and how close she was to being done with the week.
The curriculum changes between some games and some basic listening, reading, trying for the lessons. This way your child is learning more than one way.
Like I said above, the curriculum is not completely online. There are worksheets and games that go along with it.
One of the science lessons we did had her watching some fun stories and then doing a simple worksheet of the life cycle.
One of the Language Arts Extensions had us print off some flashcards and do different activities with them. There were also some worksheets to go along with them.
What we thought:
First of all, my daughter loves computer learning. I mean LOVES IT! She has used Time 4 Learning in the past at the younger levels, so we kind of knew what to expect as far as format goes.
This came in very handy as I used this to keep her busy and learning while I was busy planning and preparing for our school year. I had procrastinated (surprise, surprise) and got much further behind than I would have liked to. So Time 4 Learning came in very handy as far as already being set up and just a log in and go type curriculum.
One thing that bothered me was that I was not able to schedule her activities online. That function is only available for schools that are using Time 4 Learning. The way I got around that was by printing off a weekly planner for her. I really like the flexibility to be able to work between the three grades. As my daughter is at a much higher math level and a much lower reading level. The weekly planner only scheduled one grade. We were able to work around this by printing both and me marking which lessons of which grade she was supposed to do that week.
Time 4 Learning comes in a monthly membership for Pre-K to 8th Grade for $19.95 per month for the first child and $14.95 for each additional student. For High School age children it is a cost of $30 per month.
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