When we decided not to send our daughter to the public school’s optional Pre-K program last year, we knew we wanted to do something so she would not be behind the rest of her age group. We started out with several workbooks for Pre-K. These worked well, but my daughter got tired of them rather easily.
As I began researching homeschooling as a possibility for Kindergarten, I found several excellent curriculum resources. One online curriculum that was recommended was called Time4Learning. After trying it briefly, I signed my daughter up for a subscription.
Time4Learning is an interactive curriculum that is designed for Pre-K through 8th grade. While it can be used for homeschooling, it can also be used as a summer supplement or for extra work after school.
Time4Learning has a fairly comprehensive curriculum covering everything from manners and numbers in Pre-K. It covers the same subjects that the workbooks did, but in an engaging and interactive manner. The result is my daughter has spent hours doing work that she would stop in the workbook after only a few minutes.
We have decided to keep using it for her Kindergarten year as well.
One of the best things about Time4Learning is that she has been able to work on the Kindergarten curriculum from the time she started with the Pre-K. (I did not let her use it until she had gone through the Pre-K 1 curriculum at least once.) This means if she is excelling in one area, she does not have to wait until she is done with all the other curriculum to move ahead. This has been invaluable for us and is available in every grade level.
My only complaint about Time4Learning so far is that unlike the K-8 curriculum, Pre-K does not generate reports on tracking the progress of the student. The site does say this feature is coming, but the other grade levels do this and it is one of the reasons I first subscribed to Time4Learning. As a parent and former professor, I am all about tracking learning and assessment. It helps to tell where your child is excelling and where they need work.
In addition to the assessment given to the student, the student can give feedback about whether or not they liked a given module. My daughter loves this, and I think it shows that Time4Learing cares about the students and its product.
Signing up was easy. There are questions you can answer to make sure your student gets placed correctly or you can manually place them where you want. You can easily go in and change where they can work as they move forward. Plus, you can connect with other parents in a very nice forum.
If you are interested or just want to check it out, click here.
(Although I am a paying subscriber to Time4Learning, I have been offered a small stipend for my time to write this review. The opinions stated here are my own. As with any review, you should use your own judgment about any product or service before buying or subscribing.)
Hi, I stopped by to read the Time4Learning preschool review but first, I watched the Dad’s Life video. I hadn’t seen it before. Hysterical!
I’m always amazed how much video and musical talent and wit there is. It’s really nicely produced.
Back to Time4Learning’s Online Preschool, I’m glad it worked for your daughter and thanks for the kind words and review. I personally read every feedback note. It’s funny how rarely we hear the same thing twice!
I think the student tracking for preschool is implemented. It’s only tracking, no assessment of mastery. To see what the tracking does, when you are logged into the preschool, on the left side, beneath the icons, there is the text word Report. It opens a report with a list of the activities, when they were done, how many times they were (there’s lots of replay and reuse by the kids)
You are right that there is a Coming Soon note which frankly, I had forgotten about. The Coming Soon was a feature to make the report easily printable (into a PDF without the big icons). Thanks for the reminder.