Time for Learning Review

"Can we just do Time for Learning from now on?"

L seems to have liked it :-)

Time for Learning is an on-line curriculum that covers the core subjects. We received a 1-month free trial in exchange for an honest review, so here goes.

We used Time for Learning as a supplement to our normal work, since it was just a try-out. But I tried to keep their regular stuff light and gave them plenty of time to get the computer lessons accomplished.

At the beginning, K loved the PBS-educational-show style of the Time for Learning lessons.

(I'm having a hard time conecentrating as L is having a royal dramatic meltdown because she simply can't do her writing properly (and she might get another B! Oh, the humanity!!) if she doesn't get to use the TV tray and stool that K claimed this morning. Darn that K for picking the "comfy" spot! anyway...)

Then the PBS-educational-show style began to really get on K's nerves. Because every example they showed was the example+dialogue+humor+animation and it took forever to get through every example and the lesson seemed to drag on forever.

I have to pause and preface the next part by saying that I'm not being prideful or better-than-you. It's just the way they're made.

My kids are smart. As in rather intelligent. They're accustomed to getting through their work quickly with minimal explanation and interruptions.

The constant repetition and lengthy teaching segments drove both my girls batty. For L, the worst was the reading where she had to redo the same story with a little less help each time. She kept saying "I've already done that!" Sometimes the problem was that she had simply not clicked through every part of the lesson and sometimes she just had to do several similar lessons in a row.

Both the girls liked the ease of having their lessons on the computer and I liked how little I was responsible for. Many of K's lessons were ones she had to read and even some of L's first grade lessons were the same. Sometimes a voice read the words on the screen and sometimes it didn't.

From what I saw, Time for Learning is a great tool if you need something your kids can do mostly independently. It would work well for most learners with the repetition and explanations and instant feedback when you answer a question incorrectly. Because we've always used a fast-paced curriculum with high expectations, most of it was too easy for my kids, but it's probably on an average grade-level.

If you'd like to learn more, you can use the following links to their website.

http://www.Time4Learning.com - Online interactive curriculum for home use, PreK-8th Grade.
http://www.Time4Writing.com - Online writing tutorials for high, middle, and elementary school students.
http://www.Time4Learning.net - A forum to chat with parents online about kids, education, parenting and more...