BB is growing up fast. Faster than I can snap pictures and post musings.  And as he grows, his educational needs do too. Until recently, we’ve been doing a big old, patchwork quilt of homeschool materials. Something for math here, a little history there, trips to the library for literature and language arts, the backyard for science…Not much cohesion but lots of following his lead and interests. To be honest, we still do a lot of child-led learning, but we’ve recently incorporated TIME4LEARNING into our daily work. I have heard people talking about Time4 Learning for years, but had resisted signing up for a variety of reasons, the biggest of which was that  it isn’t free. I also didn’t like that it seemed to be all computerized lessons. I think that kids learn things differently when they are looking at a monitor versus writing things out. Okay, I’m not a learning specialist so I don’t know if that’s a valid point or not, but it was a concern. But my biggest concern about signing him up for an online curriculum was that he’s not just on one level educationally. He’s advanced in language arts, his writing skills are not where the should be, and he’s perfectly average in mathematics. I did not want to sign him up for something that would lump him into an arbitrary box.

But BB seemed to need a bit more than what I felt prepared to give, so I decided to give it a try, and surprise! My fears turned out to be mostly groundless. We’ve been using Time 4 Learning for about three and a half months, and I’m pretty pleased.  BB likes it well enough, even if he does still grumble about it from time to time. But what kid doesn’t occasionally grumble and growl about doing his work?

What do I like about Time 4 Learning?

• It gives BB access to multiple grade levels. Actually this is the reason I finally decided to give it a try. When you sign your child up, you register him in a specific grade and they give you access to that grade, the grade above and the grade below in every subject. In BB’s case, he’s a 4th grader and is doing 4th grade science and history but 5th grade language arts. We do not use Time 4 Learning for Math because I like what we’ve been using for the last few years and don’t want to change systems on him. But I do like the flexibility of him being able to access the material that is relevant to where he is right now.
• BB doesn’t have to do the lessons sequentially. If he already has idioms down pat and doesn’t want to do them, he can skip that lesson and move right on to something else. This is a huge plus for us, since he grasps a lot of concepts quickly and easily.
• The Language Arts Program. It is engaging, fun, full of wit, and it makes BB laugh.  In fact, he like the language arts section so much that he always saves it for last…as his reward for trudging through the subjects that aren’t so fun. What makes the language arts so fun for him is the guided instructions sections. That is where there is narration by one of two voices, along with passages to be read and occasionally animations to go with the passages. The narrations are intelligent and funny; full of humor perfect for my kid’s funny way of looking at things. After the guided exercise, there is often a quiz on what was learned, and humor is added there, too. The screen flashes, you hear thunder, and  then a crest with a giant head with blood shot eyes comes on screen. The crest has the phrase “Imagination and creativity are overrated” in a flowing script under the image and the narrator, sighing and exasperated, says something along the lines of  ”It’s that time again. Time for The Department Of Multiple Choice to test you and see if you really understand your stuff.” I don’t know if the Language Arts section will continue to entertain BB, but for now, it’s his favorite subject.
• The Art Program.  Okay, we haven’t actually made use of the art program, but I love that it’s there.
• Progress Reports and Student Records.  Time4Learning keeps track of BB’s progress and I can log in as a parent and check on his work. This gives him the opportunity to work completely independently of me, but gives me the ability to make sure he’s not skipping things I think he needs to work on. In fact, just today I realized he’d been blowing off his quizzes in Science and Social Studies. He thought he could move more quickly through the subjects if he just refused to take the little quizzes they have after each section. I guess he didn’t realize I could track him, but he admitted to skipping them when I asked him about it.  That brings me to another feature I really like.
• The ability to redo lessons and retake tests and quizzes.  Needless to say, if BB pulled that stunt at school, he’d have been busted before now and he would have been in huge trouble. Or he’d have gotten zeros for what he didn’t do. But we’re homeschoolers and I don’t feel like yelling at him for not wanting to do something that’s boring to him. Heck, I hate to do things that are boring, too. So instead of getting angry or taking away the things that matter to him, I’m just not going to allow him to progress with his lessons until he makes up the things I think he needs to make up. If that means re-reading stuff about Mesopotamia, so be it. We have all the time in the world, and these lessons aren’t a one-shot deal.  I love that we can just back up and do it again if we have to–Whether it’s because a concept wasn’t fully grasped or because a certain someone decided to skip right on through.
• It is secular. As an atheist homeschooler, it’s really hard to find solid, secular curriculum. Especially science. But Time4Learning is pretty darned good. I really like the content and I appreciate that it doesn’t seem to dance around discussing “old earth” or evolution.