Friday, September 06, 2013

Time4Learning: Second Grade {A Review}


Time4Learning recently gave us a subscription to their curriculum ($19.95 a month). It is designed for homeschool, after school or summer study for preschool through high school. It can be used as an entire curriculum or in addition to your current program.  You can see a personalized demo.



What is Included?
We received an online subscription from Time4Learning for Jo-Jo for second grade. There are animated lessons, interactive activities, and reinforcing worksheets.



The lessons are designed to work through the student's pace. Each student has her very own dashboard with the subjects available to choose from her grade section. Second grade includes LA Extensions, Language Arts, Math, Science, and Social Studies.


Each grade level has different subjects and numbers of activities available. One thing I found helpful to determine was how much work Jo-Jo would actually need to accomplish in one day to complete the second grade program by the end of our school year. I used the lesson plans by grade and subject chart to find this out.


First I added up all of the lessons provided for second grade (784). Then I divided it by the number of school days we have in a year (180). I came up with about 4 lessons a day. Then I figured that would equal 1-2 Language Arts activities, about 2 Language Arts Extensions, 1-2 Math lessons, and 1 science or social studies lesson a week.

For second grade, many of the lessons took less than 10 minutes. So to complete 4 lessons a day you would need 30-60 minutes.

 What do you need to use the program?

  • computer
  • internet connection
  • flash
  • printer
  • printer paper
  • pencil

How do you get started?
From their homepage, you click on the Member Login and the grade band opens (or parent page). Click on the appropriate band and a login screen appears with a place for your child's first and last name and a password. You can click to start lessons or wait for further directions. When you click to start, the child's dashboard comes up.

As a parent you can set a number of minutes that the child must "work" before getting to go to the playground area and play games.

How we used it?
Although I determined that we would do about 20 activities weekly. I let Jo-Jo choose which activities she completed and how many. She always choose to complete more than 4 at a sitting, unless we needed to do something else and I had to stop her. 

It was easy to see which assignments she had completed and which she still needed to work on.


completed assignments were checked off


I liked to track her work by looking at the recent work and to the generate reports section was great for finding a subject average. 

recent work


generated report


What did I like?
All of the kids like to watch the animations and Jo-Jo told me that she likes the quizzes, which surprised me a bit. I also like the way that the program explains the different subjects. She was rarely confused at the end of a lesson and was excited to start a new one.

Each child has access to her own grade level and can access one level above and below it.  In this way, you can adjust it based on your child's ability. 

What did Jo-Jo like? 
Jo-Jo would often ask if it was time for her to "play on the computer." She said, "The people in the lessons that taught you how were awesome." She also mentioned that she enjoyed the animations showing her how something worked.



What has Jo-Jo learned?
"I learned that you can spell digits instead of writing the number. Also, some lands can be marshes and swamps. I learned about food chains and how to make a food chain...an animal eats a plant, and an animal eats an animal and then another animal eats that animal. Or it could be all animals eating without a plant."

What's on our wishlist? 
We would love to see some recommendations for further study or additional resources (books or internet sources) that would go along with what the child is learning.

Who would I recommend to use this? 
This curriculum would be great for families that would like an all in one program that tracks and records grades and student data. And for children that enjoy working on the computer. Or for families that would like a supplement to what they are doing for more reinforcement.



What's our future plan?
Jo-Jo has worked really hard on this. She has completed the science and social studies components. So for about 20 minutes a day for 4 days a week, we will continue working on the LA sections and math. This is a supplement to what we are already doing and she views it as a sort of reward.

If we were using this as a full program, we would spend the rest of our school time reading lots of books and taking lots of trips.

Wishing you homeschool blessings,

 
Click here to read more reviews from Schoolhouse Review Crew. *Our review was in the Top Ten on pinterest!! To see all ten click here.
 

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2 comments:

Unknown said...

Nice review! My kids have been using T4L for several years, but we never got to use it for the lower grades much. I believe the lowest grade we've used is 4th.

Bethany said...

Thanks! Jo-Jo sits and works for about 20 minutes a day now. She just has math and LA stuff left. Little Man sits with her and tells her which activities to complete. :)

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