Homeschool Curriculum Reviews

Who am I to review Homeschool Curriculum?

Before reading the homeschool curriculum reviews I have written, I feel it would be fair to the companies that I review to explain a little about myself.  I have spent 6 years in a public school classroom with students of all abilities.  I have seen many different types of curriculum and even served on 2 book adoption boards while in the classroom (math and science).  I believe strongly that the book doesn’t teach children, but their teachers abilities to know where a child is developmentally and academically and where the child needs to go.  I used goal based lessons in my classroom as well as at home with my own children of different abilities.  With this said, finding the right tools to help your child is important.  That is why I will try to address in my reviews which children types of learners the curriculum best suits as well as my gut opinion as a parent. I will be honest about it.  

To be fair, I will only review curriculum that I have given and fair change and tried with my learners.  You can find each review of curriculum based on its subject.  Please feel free to email me at meredith.landis@gmail.com if you have any questions about my reviews or if you would like to have someone to bounce ideas off of as you begin searching the right curriculum for your home.  Thank you.

Time4Learning:

Time4Learning is a vender who offer Odyssey Compass Learning programs that are used in some public school classrooms.  The same program is available as homeschool curriculum.  It is a great visual and screen time program to back up and support what students are already learning through other curriculum.  I have used the program in the classroom and know all the bells and whistles, so I was slightly disenchanted with the parts of the program that Time4Learning offers.

Homeschool Curriculum Grade: Overall C+

Grades:  PK- 8th,  I used it with my 6th grader and Preschooler.

Cost:  $20 a month for first child, $15 for each additional child. (Not bad considering tutoring costs more)

Best Uses:  
The homeschool curriculum or online product is best to be used as supplemental to a stronger more thorough curriculum.

Student Types:  This curriculum is good for children who need 15-30 minutes of screen time to help make it through their day, it is also good for struggling students who need some extra support in math and reading/ language arts.  It is lacking in the content of grammar, spelling, social studies, and science.
Pros: Children usually like the characters and learn the concepts with practice.  (I always make my child or my students go back until they get 80% on each assignment.  It provides immediate feedback on wrong answers and helps guide and scaffold students to the correct answer.  It does include the worksheets that you can use for paper and pencil time.
Cons: It is not a full curriculum so there are alot of gaps and holes in what needs to be learned overall.  It also does not allow parents to pretest and post-test to be sure that their child really can accomplish the skills.  After being able to use this in the classroom, I had hoped that it would transfer over the same way and allow me to set up the units, create pretests, and then it set the learning path off what he needs to learn.  This particular version of the program really limits what the parent or teacher is allow to assign and how they can assign lessons.
Overall Opinion:  I gave this program a C+ from the teacher aspect of it.  Yes, it keeps my children engaged and they learn, however, it is not a full homeschool curriculum and is missing the ability for me to set it up to meet my child’s needs and my desire to have a goal based education system in our house.  This is a great supplemental progam, and is cheaper than paying for tutoring.  However, if you want your child to have a complete education, do NOT use this as your only math and reading curriculum.  Also, if you want to have more of a say in how to use the program or want to set goals for your child to meet specific goals, this may not be for you.
Curriculum Website:  http://www.time4learning.com/