Last month we had the opportunity to check out TIME4learning and test it for a whole month. Honestly we didn’t even get to use it as much as I would have liked but it was still a great chance to try it out. My children are 4 and 7 and only the 4-year-old is using another online learning program, readingeggs/ mathseeds at the moment.
There were several things that I generally enjoyed with timeforlearning. The easy access to the account and to log in for the child/ children worked out great. The kids were able to get around the website easily on their own, jump around in lessons and pick what they liked.
My 7-year-old flew through most of the lessons that were aligned with her grade, and I would have wished for some more problem solving in some of those areas, especially like math. If using it as a full curriculum I know I wouldn’t be satisfied with the amount and would have to supplement. The kids mostly enjoyed the videos, I on the other hand thought most of them were very boring, dry and the cartoons weren’t as inviting as with for example reading eggs.
My youngest is 4 years old and is an almost fluent reader, so was also able to maneuver around the page very easily and without my help, which makes life easier for me. She often asks to “play” on the computer but time4learning seemed not as fun as the other program she uses and she rather used her screen time with the other one. I think the characters used in the videos etc, were just not as much fun and didn’t get her excited near as much.
All in all it is a good program and we enjoyed our time with it. Once my youngest grows out of the program she currently uses I will possibly sign up with T4L if some improvements are made and additional curriculum is added. I will have to check out some of the higher levels, as it seemed that my kids were just too advanced for the grade we chose. I enjoyed that there were several other studies to choose besides Math and English, but again they seemed too plain and short. I missed the opportunity to check out the higher levels, and it didn’t seem clear to me at the beginning of sign up how to do that. I didn’t have the time to check out all the parent/ teacher settings. It seemed slightly overwhelming.
I hope in the future the other lessons get build up a bit more, with also some more professional videos that get the kids a bit more excited about using the program.
Beyond the books Homeschool 