Product review: Time 4 Learning

Ahh.. back to reviewing homeschooling stuff! I love trying new things and reporting back to you all and this particular product is one I'm especially excited about!

As you know, we have been through complete chaos in the last two months. We've gone from completely homeschooling, to completely public schooling, and finally settled on homeschooling some and public schooling some. I think we are going to stay at this level of schooling, as it feels like a perfect happy medium. I'm definitely looking forward to homeschooling everyone next year though! it will be SO nice to have our family back!! But Time 4 Learning is a very interesting product because it met the needs of both my homeschooled AND public schooled kiddos.

Homeschooling using EXCLUSIVELY Time 4 Learning

I pulled my 7th grader and Kindergartener out of school pretty quickly and without much of a back up plan, so for the first week or so they both used Time 4 Learning as their primary curricula. I loved how thorough the subjects were, and how it covered interesting topics that I have found tend to get Neglected, like my 7th grader's "idioms" and "roman numeral" lessons. I, personally, am NOT a huge fan of doing ALL our school work on the computer though. I guess i'm old fashioned :) As we procured other supplies we gradually weaned off of the computer a bit.

Homeschooling using Time 4 Learning as a supplement

This, by FAR is my favorite of all the scenarios i'm presenting. We had the main curricula for most of our subjects but certain subjects were still a bit sparse for my taste, so I had the kiddos do whatever we had in book form, and group work early in the day and in the afternoon, Nikolas would finish his book work, having more since he's a Jr. High school student, and Leif would get to use Time 4 Learning when he'd finished his chores and whatever else i wanted him to do, because Time 4 Learning, is FAAAABULOUS bribery material because its WAY more fun than book work!! So, after i'd extorted tons of of schoolwork out of Leif in the morning and chores after lunch, I was so generous as to allow him his fun computer time (WINK, WINK) and he did many, many more learning activities. Now, the one caveat to this plan, and I think, honestly, that this is Leif-specific, is that once he's ON the computer he never wants to get off, and so it was a real struggle to get him off the computer after a couple hours of Time 4 Learning. Nikolas also enjoyed using time 4 Learning. He found it to be a nice break from reading his textbooks and literature- He eventually found he liked alternating a subject he was doing on Time 4 Learning with a book subject and he found that to make his day go nicely.

AfterSchooling with Time 4 Learning

Now, I'm probably not the best person to review for this particular way of schooling- as i'm finding that with our size family, the school kids get home, get snacks, do homework, play with their little brothers, and then its time to start dinner, and more homework with dad and family stuff and bedtime, so I found it REALLY hard to have time to encourage my girls to give it a go, but they did a few times and both really enjoyed it. I think our family is unique in having very little time at the end of the day since it takes us SO ridiculously long to do everything, with there being 7 children, including 2yo twins. I think this program would make an EXCELLENT after schooling program, and if you are blessed with MORE time than you need in the evening, this would be a much more productive way for your child to spend time than television or video games.

Time 4 Learning overall

Overall I am VERY pleased with the program and think its economical and useful and has SO many great features. I'm planning to continue with Leif, and possibly Nikolas, later when our finances start to settle down a bit.

I love how the parents can customize the learning experiences for their children. For example, I have learning disabled children and i was able to go into Annabeth's settings and lower her grade level so it was manageable to her. Also I was able to modify how long they had to work to use the playground, which was awesome. There's so much I didn't get to try out, either, just due to being insanely busy. there's lots of parent support features and a forum and everything!

I guess the one thing i'd like to see differently is the pricing structure. I'd LOVE to see a single family rate, instead of the base price plus add on additional child prices. I appreciate the price break anyway, but realistically, if you have a whole bunch of kids, they aren't going to be able to use the program as much as a one child family would, and it would be a LARGE difference. I would LOVE to get it for all my children, but that's just not in our budget right now.

All considered though, I think Time 4 Learning is a FANTASTIC program, well worthy of your consideration no matter WHAT kind of schooling you do.

NOTE:
As a member of Time4Learning, I have been asked to review their online education 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. Write your own curriculum review or learn how to use their curriculum for homeschool, after school study or summer learning.