Judah Bible Curriculum isn’t an open-and-go standard Bible study, instead it is geared to encourage you as the parent to explore the Bible for yourself with major themes called ‘keys’ in mind and then use what you’ve learned to teach your children in a notebooking-style approach.

Designed to be used for all ages (K-12) the program relies upon drawings, narration, and scribe tasks performed by the parent in the earlier grades with independent work being completed by older children for their notebook binders as they grow in skill and ability. Since you’ll have to do more work yourself for your younger ones you may wish to keep it very formal for them until they are able to tackle more themselves (this is what we do).

The program itself has somewhat of a Principle-approach flavor. Rather than focusing on the big ‘W’s that many programs do (Who, What, Where, When, Why), the course goes further into examining self-governance, the kingdom of God, liberty, and other big topics. There is definitely a strong ideological leaning that undergirds the curriculum as parents are guided to study these themes and topics for themselves, so make sure this approach is a good fit for your family. Personally, I find it fascinating, as God has been leading me into deeper considerations of government and its role in the individual believer’s life over the past few months.

I will say, that this isn’t an open-and-go program, it scripted at all, it doesn’t come with prepared questions (it does come with some simply designed prepared pages for notebooking), but it’s instead built around a series of general concepts and ideas about teaching the Word of God to your children that are laid out in the 100-page manual.

The Bible serves as the textbook itself (though other resources are certainly encouraged like dictionaries, maps, coloring pages etc.), and is divided into five major themes
(taught each year) that are divided into various keys: key individuals, events, institutions, and documents (not all of these keys will be explored at once, but rather used somewhat rotationally as the years go by). The major themes are broken into suggested weekly topics to spread the study of these major sections of the Bible throughout the year. Not all parts of the Bible will be studied, but rather those considered key to the themes being explored: creation, the plan of redemption begins, the kingdom of Israel, kingdom of God, and the early church. Suggested memory verses, blank key sheets, and filled out samples are also provided.

A 60-page booklet of notebooking ideas is included for the elementary grade that gives you real samples of completed work by elementary-aged children that may serve as a springboard for your own family’s work. This program may be best for confident or experienced homeschoolers who feel capable of striking out on their own with a general guiding philosophy and scope and sequence to direct their steps.

The included teacher training audio files often sound as though they were delivered to private Christian schools instead of a homeschooling audience working in the home/family setting). The program itself also reflects some of these leanings because each grade is told to study through it’s own themes each year rather than keeping the family together – there is a note that homeschoolers should disregard the grade level schedules and just teach the whole family the same weekly theme (I wholeheartedly agree). Here is a link to the scope and sequence – families can simply work through the different keys together each year, so starting with the first row the first year, then moving to the second row together the next year etc.

I found many of the program’s assertions on the nature of self-governance fascinating – many thoughts were put forward that I hadn’t previously considered. The teacher training audios were greatly enjoyed both by myself and my husband, who is also passionately interested in exploring governance from a variety of angles. There is also a strong emphasis on building character by exploring how God worked in and through key individuals to influence the world around them.

The underlying philosophy of the scriptures being of primary importance in education rings very true with our own ideals. Parents willing to invest a large amount of time learning and familiarizing themselves with the program and finding a way to make it work for their families could use their studies of the scriptures to incorporate many typically separate subjects into their Bible studies. Copywork, narration (both oral and written), and other skills could all be integrated along with the study of the Bible in the notebook students create for themselves.

However, busy families needing more open-and-go resources will likely find getting the program started a bit difficult. The teaching guidelines presented can be hard to picture in action without learning how best to use the program as you actually implement it.

The program can be purchased digitally for $44.00 or in a physical format for $69.00. There’s a lot to read on their website – so look around!

Don’t forget to visit the TOS Crew blog for more reviews of the Judah Bible Curriculum.

Disclosure: I received a digital copy of this product in order to write this review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Over the past month our life has been pretty wild, and we’ve been without internet for several weeks during that period.  Unfortnately we didn’t have the chance to explore K-5 Learning as deeply as I would have liked to with my children.  However, I still wanted to share with you some information regarding this supplementary program that offers both reading and math enrichment.

Designed for children from kindergarten to grade 5, there are 4 programs included on the website – Reading, Spelling, Math, and Math Facts.  K5 is a web-based program, so you need to be connected with the internet in order to use it.  Your children start with an online assessment that covers eight key reading and math skills (phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary, site words, comprehension, numbers/operations, geometry and measurement) and places your child to work independently through 3,000 interactive, self-paced lessons.  The program automatically chooses the appropriate lessons for your child based on the assessment and their results in previous lessons.  Your child’s progress is also tracked and you can view the statistics online.

The program is very skill-focused without a lot of frills and covers the core basic skills required in elementary school.  Even though the lessons are designed to be seriously educational, the highly visual format of the lessons combined with the computer-based delivery will still be very appealing to many children – you can check out the sample lessons here - my children actually really enjoy these sorts of educational activities.

If you’d like to try this program yourself, you can sign up for a 14 day free trial here.

After the trial, the monthly subscription is available for $25/month for the first child and $15/month for additional children.

An annual subscription is available for $199/year for the first child and $129/year for any additional children.  You can find the pricing details here under the Pricing and Free Trial tab.

Disclosure: I was provided with a six week trial of this program in order to write this review for the TOS Crew.

If you’d like to read more reviews from those who were able to test the program more extensively with your children – please visit the TOS Crew blog and find all of the reviews here!

I was super-duper excited to have a chance to review The Story of Swan Lake from Maestro Classics with my oldest daughter (8).  Like many homeschooling moms I struggle to get music appreciation done, and since Swan Lake is pretty cannonical fare – particularly when it comes to ballets (and how many little girls can resist a ballerina?) I was excited to get started!

The Story of Swan Lake includes the main themes from the ballet along with narration that simply retells the story by Stephen Simon, conductor of the London Philharmonic Orchestra (all the music is performed by them as well – really top notch stuff!)  There are also bonus tracks including a shred guitar rendition of the main Swan Lake song, a sing-along song that serves as a mnemonic to help children remember the main plot of the ballet set to the main theme, and an ‘empty’ sing-along song so your child can do their own performance (and oh boy, did mine ever!)

The CD also comes with a very well-designed booklet filled with a pictogram type overview of the plot of Swan Lake, a connect the dots, word puzzles, lyrics to the sing-along, biographies of the contributors and a lot more.  I’m not sure where ours is – my daughter made off with it and enthusiastically filled in every spot she could find to do an activity (it is consumable by the way).

The whole experience was incredible…except for one thing.  This CD uses the revised ending of Swan Lake..you know…the one where the prince and the swan maiden both die in the end?  Umm..recommended for ages 6-12, but if you have a sensitive little girl you MIGHT want to save this one for LATER.  Interestingly, Tchaikovsky’s original ending was a happy one where the lovers survived and conquered the evil magician.  Just saying.

With that being said, I am DEFINITELY interested in buying some of their downloads with less traumatic endings because they make music appreciation so easy.  Despite being disturbed by the ballet’s end she still had to memorize the sing-along to perform for her grandparents when they came to visit – so cute .

All of Maestro Classic’s music appreciation titles are available on CD for $16.98 or as MP3 downloads for $9.98 – you can find them all here and listen to free samples online too!  They even have free cross-curricular lesson plans you can use to take the earning even further!

If you’d like to read more reviews of The Story of Swan Lake from real homeschooling moms, visit the TOS Crew post here and dig in!

Disclosure: I received a copy of this CD for the purposes of this review.  All thoughts are genuine, and my own.

As part of my duties as a TOS Crew member this year I was given the oppotunity to review a volume of The World’s Greatest Stories.  Our family was sent a copy of Volume 1: The Prophets, a CD featuring dramatic Bible readings directly from the biblical text by George Sarris.

The readings included on this CD are:

• The Blazing Furnace – Daniel 3
• The Handwriting on the Wall – Daniel 5
• Daniel in the Lion’s Den – Daniel 6
• Elijah and the Prophets of Baal – 1 Kings 17-18
• The Prophecy of Jonah – Jonah

This is such a unique way to expose and familiarize children with God’s word!  Word for word readings (you can get the CDs in KJV or NIV, we chose KJV) full of drama and excitement.  George Sarris reads very dramatically with different voices, lisps, breathing, and much more.  Sometimes Sarris reading was a bit overenthusiastic and we had some giggles, but it certainly did enliven the readings!  There is also a dramatic sound track with music and sound effects that really captivate listeners.

My daughters asked me to, “Play another story Mommy!” when we would come to the end of one of the tracks on the CD.  This CD is 55 minutes in length with each of the stories around 8-15 minutes in length.  We like listening to them when the girls are coloring or playing quietly, but they’d also make great CDs for car trips – even quick errands because no individual story is too long.  They’d also make great, engaging listening for family devotions, particularly if you have audio learners in your home!

At only $7.95/CD I think these recordings straight from God’s word are an excellent value!  I hope that they will be available as MP3 downloads in the future!  There are currently six volumes, and if you buy any combination of six CDs you receive free shipping!

You can find a list of all the available recordings here, and also listen to some audio clips online to see if this series would be a good fit for your family.  I plan to buy Volume 2: The Life of Christ to enjoy with our girls because it has one of my daughter’s FAVORITE stories from John 9 on it!

Disclosure: I received a copy of this CD in order to review it, all thoughts and opinions are my own.

You can read reviews of the other CDs in the series here at the TOS Crew blog!

Many of our blog readers know that we live in Canada (yay!) where French is an official second language.  I’ve always considered teaching some French to my children for this reason, French is everywhere in Canada – on packaging, ingredient lists, and those fluent in French have more job opportunities as well.

When I heard of Le Francaise Facile (The Easy French) from Great Commission Languages I was intrigued.  Not only does the
program include a variety of French accents as it progresses through the years and levels to help develop an international ear for French, but it also teaches French PHONETICALLY and from a Christian point of view.

Obviously, if there were ONE French program I was going to teach with my children, this would be my top pick!  I love phonics, and I love Jesus even more .  It is also designed by a native French speaker who is a homeschooler – I love programs made by REAL homeschooling moms!

There are a few different ways this program is presented; the Junior Level for K-3 is the one we will be trying because it is best for families with younger children.  Our oldest is 8, and I have a 5 and 3 year-old as well so I thought this would be best for us with so many littles tagging along!

There are 34 lessons in the text, with lots of stories and songs being included on the two audio CDs (they also have printables on them).  You can find the table of contents on the sample page here.

The classic-style The Easy French (Level I and Level II) is recommended for families with children of all ages.  Both the Junior and classic style levels are non-consumable (requiring printing from a CD).  There is a new format available that is consumable and designed for older students as well – IA, IB, IIA, and IIB.  If you’d like to read more about the different French programs they have for homeschoolers, you can see them all listed here.

I’m so excited that the Junior Level of Le Francaise Facile is waiting for me in the city to pick up on my next trip in!  I will update you when I’ve had a chance to try it for ourselves!

Until then – check out these samples of the program – they are what really convinced me of the value of the program – it is incredibly cute and smoothly integrates both French and English within the audio to ease children naturally into understanding French vocabulary and grammar without explicit drill-type instruction.  Very fun!  There are audio samples and pdf samples to learn more about the program.

The Easy French Junior Level or Le Francais Facile! Junior is available for $69.95 from Great Commission Languages.  It has

Ooka Island Adventure is a brand new, comprehensive reading program for early readers (Pre-K to Grade 2) that incorporates sound principles for learning to read within an extraordinarily fun, game-like environment, complete with a motivating storyline and rewards that make learning fun for kids.

My children (like most) respond very well to game-based learning, so I was very excited to receive a subscription to review Ooka Island.

The 3-D computer-animated program features a compelling storyline – a villainous pig has taught his henchmen to read and used their increased mental prowess to capture the helpless (and illiterate) Ooka elves!  Your child’s mission is to free the Ooka elves by ‘reading’ books (not really reading them in the pre-levels but I’ll get to that later) – and along the way they’ll also have fun phonics lessons, alphabet lessons, phonological awareness games, and a whole lot more.  After the elves are freed, your child can play with them in the Pencil Playground – buy playground equipment, extra clothing, feed them snacks, and a lot more during their free play time (8 minutes that follows a 20 minute guided learning session).

My five-year-old has been using Ooka Island and she loves the fun games and the engaging storyline.  Your child gets to pick their own avatar who goes through all the on-screen activities, and can change her clothes during free play time, go on the play equipment etc. so it’s as if your child is really on the island having adventures.  The music is so catchy (we all get the theme song stuck in our heads), and she always ASKS to play Ooka Island – it’s really like a fun game for her, even though it includes very solid, comprehensive reading instruction.

She gets to earn stickers when she progresses through the activities (which are just plain fun in their own right), free Ooka elves, and unlock fun items for her Pencil Playground (even though the elves there are very hard to actually engage in play – some more work needed there).  It’s very motivating and fun.

From my point of view as a mom I love the phonological awareness activities that help to build blending skills, like the Clumsy Whacky moving factory game where there are a bunch of items floating in a river, a voice sounds out a word slowly, and your child needs to put the parts together and click the item that is being said.  There is also direct phonics teaching in the Cave of Sounds (although this doesn’t following a regular intensive phonics progression – they introduce two letter teams VERY early on, before even teaching all of the single letter sounds).  There is even a jet-ski game that uses microphone recognition to determine if your child is saying the displayed sound correctly.  There isn’t an easy way for me to skip ahead in the game and see how it works for older children, so I can only comment on the Pre-K levels that we’ve gone through ourselves.  In all there are 24 levels that go from Pre-K all the way to Grade 2.

For the most part, my five-year-old could complete the learning activities independently, but there was one section of the program that she struggled with, and that I, as a dedicated phonics-mommy wasn’t keen on either.

In the Popcorn Library, children ‘read’ books in the early levels, by watching a story being read to them on the screen with words that are highlighted as they go.  This is fine, my girls love digital ‘read to them’ stories, but what I DID NOT like was the emphasis on sight words that comes out of this reading activity.  There are some pictorial comprehension questions that were fine, but then comes the, “Click on the word that says _____.”  This frustrated my little five-year-old SO much, and it frustrated me too.  I don’t think the activity is developmentally appropriate, and I DO NOT want to teach her to just guess at words when she isn’t even really blending yet .

For the most part, I was happy with Ooka Island – it’s very comprehensive; all the skill building activities blend well together (except for those sight words in the Popcorn Library).  The phonological activities that lead to understanding of segmenting and blending are very promising, and I wish there was a way to do the program WITHOUT the sight word segments of the Popcorn Library.  It would be really awesome if that was the case.  As it is, I clearly have some mixed feelings about the program.

So, what does Ooka Island cost, and how does it work?  After signing up for a subscription you’ll need to download a BIG program – 2 GB, so make sure you’re ready for that!  It’s also a bit of a memory hog (and has some glitches and bugs that still need to be worked out, but there is supposed to be a patch coming for those soon), so close everything else before running it.  You’ll need an internet connection for logging in and keeping track of your child’s progress, but once you have the download, it really doesn’t take much bandwidth.

For one child the pricing is $12.95 for one month, $59.95 for six months, or $99.95 for a year.  For up to four children the price is $19.95 for one month, $99.95 for six months, or $129.95 for a year.  You can find all of the pricing details and sign-up information here.  There is even a 14-day free trial that you can sign up for to see if this program is a good fit for your family.  If you like it, you can use this code LAUNCHSPECIAL30 to save 30% on a monthly subscription!

Don’t forget!  You can also find many more TOS Crew reviews of Ooka Island Adventure here!

Disclosure: I received a 6 month subscription to Ooka Island for the purposes of this review.

Our family received a downloadable version of Visual Latin Level 1, Lessons 1-10 to review as part of our duties on the TOS Crew.  What a blessing it has proven to be!  Visual Latin is a lot like attending Latin class, only more fun!  These are visual Latin lessons (hence the name!!) that are recorded on video for your child to watch.  There are also pdfs included of worksheets and vocabulary lists for review.

I took a couple of years of Latin in high school and the instructor’s approach reminds me a lot of my high-school teacher’s.  Standing in front of a blackboard, teaching grammar, vocabulary, and sentences, Dwane makes it so much more engaging.  He’s a bit zany, his sentences are funny, and he gets students right into working with reading complete sentences and translations without bogging down in a LOT of grammar.

Each lesson is broken into three parts, the first teaches grammar, the second teaches sentences where you can see the grammar in action and develop translation skills, and the third teaches reading – this is sort of an immersive experience.  I’d have to summarize the program as more of a reading approach to Latin than an old school all grammar all the time approach; if you’re familiar with Cambridge, this is a bit similar.  So, there are 30 lessons per level, each level is a year’s worth of study (unless you are a high school student), so you can do one lesson each week, one part per day and one day of vocabulary review would make four days of Latin/week pretty easily – the lessons are short and easy to get done.

If you’re wondering about which pronunciation this program uses, there isn’t really an easy answer.  Dwane does his own Latin thing.  It’s a bit classical, a bit ecclesiastical, and a bit Dwane.  I love his approach (explained in the free lessons – see below), he’s pretty laid back about pronunciation approaches, his is a hybrid, but I love his accent.  My daughter is already mimicking his cadence and style of Latin speech.

Your child will need to be familiar with some basic grammatical concepts before diving in – verbs, nouns, and pronouns at this level.  My oldest daughter (8) is already pretty familiar with these ideas, and you need to make sure your child is comfortable with them, because the course dives right in and starts with the most important Latin verb ‘to be’ (sum, es, est, sumus, estis, sunt).  You can find the complete scope and sequence here as a pdf download.

Any beginning Latin student who can read English confidently and has basic grammatical knowledge can profit from this course regardless of age, though it is suggested that high school students supplement with further study using Lingua Latina Pars 1 and Lingua Latina Exercita 1 alongside level 1.

We purchased an iPad a couple of months ago and have been learning how to use it in our homeschool, and Latin on the iPad is amazing.  Visual Latin also has DVDs available to purchase, and the downloads can also be used on your computer, iPod or iPhone – there are two versions, high-resolution for the iPad and lower resolution for the iPhone/iPod.

My daughter has some sensory integration issues – especially when it comes to handling paper (that makes homeschooling fun).  I was so surprised when it was time to do the Latin worksheets – I had recently purchased PDF Expert which lets you write directly on pdfs, so I let her do her worksheet in that…and she had fun!

We did one part of a lesson a day, and there is one corresponding page for each part of the lesson.  When I said it was time to do her worksheet she said, “Woohoo!”  Okay, we study Latin and I have NEVER heard “Woohoo!” when it comes to doing a worksheet.  We’re in love with doing worksheets on the iPad now so I completely appreciate the all-digital option.  If you don’t have an iPad you can print the pdfs.

My daughter is literally BEGGING me to keep going with Visual Latin instead of our other program now, so we’re going to keep on with it and see how it progresses!  I can’t tell you how many times she’s told me how funny her Latin teacher is, she’s really enjoying the language now and actually starting to understand how to read it.  There is also Christian content that is very naturally presented within the course – double bonus!

Do you want to try Visual Latin out?  I recommend EVERYONE get the free introductory lessons if you are interested in learning Latin through ANY program.  The first four introductory sessions explain a bit about Latin as a language, and the many benefits to be had by learning Latin (there are MANY, trust me, Latin is worth it).  You also get two complete regular lessons to see how the course itself is structured and laid out.  And…they are free!

When you’re ready to purchase, you can buy lessons 1-10 as a download for a single family for $25, or get the DVD for $30.  If you buy the entire first level you can get lessons 1-30 (all of level one) for $80 on DVD – a bit of a discount on that.  Level 2 is also available and there are different prices if you want to show the recordings to a group or co-op.  There are also live online Latin courses for Lingua Latina available if you prefer to go that way.

You can find many more reviews of Visual Latin over at the TOS Crew blog here!

Disclosure: I received Visual Latin Lessons 1-10 Download for free to review this item.  All opinions are genuine and my own.

If your family is at ALL interested in studying Canada I highly recommend buying Michael Mitchell’s Canada is For Kids Teaching Kit!  We are Canadians ourselves, so naturally we are interested in the folk music of Canada, but Michael Mitchell’s superbly produced teaching kit includes not only three of his full CDs of Canadian music – both traditional and modern (Canada is For Kids Volume 1, Volume 2, and Volume 3), but it also includes a teaching CD filled with a wealth of fun and educational resources.

The teaching resources are really incredible and I can’t recommend this kit highly enough.  My children have greatly enjoyed the Canadian coloring pages (printable and electronic), the “Canada in My Pocket” cartoon that helps children learn a bit more about Canadian money through Mitchell’s beloved song of the same title, the interactive Canada puzzle, and more.  We have learned the national anthem using Mitchell’s recording of it, and been able to use the folk songs associated with different places in Canada as a supplement to our studies of the Canadian provinces this year.

There are also some French songs included in the collection and a recording of the French national anthem (and a bi-lingual one as well).  Lyrics to the national anthem can be printed off in either English or French.  When we studied Quebec we were sure to take advantage of the French audio resources Mitchell has provided, and he has a great French accent!

If our family was more musically inclined we could also benefit from the music charts for all 40 of the songs in the Canada is for Kids music collection that are also included in the Teachers Guide CD.  If you can’t play music but just want to sing along there is a lyric sheet that is easy to print off (6 pages for all the songs).   The only down side is you do need to have the CD in your computer in order to access the resources, there doesn’t seem to be a way to install them to your own machine.

If you haven’t enjoyed Mitchell’s Canadiana music before, you are missing out.  His voice is clear, rich, and smooth, so the lyrics are easy to understand for children and adults alike.  He is a very expressive vocalist who brings much enthusiasm to his recordings and many a day has found my children hopping around in the living room to some of his more upbeat tunes.

It has been a real blessing to have this easy to use collection available to us so that we can instill an appreciation of traditional Canadian music in our children – something that would have been hard for us on our own because of our own limited exposure to Canadian folk songs.

Thanks Michael Mitchell for all you have done to keep Canadian folk music alive!

We received the first edition CD version of the teaching kit to review, but it has been repackaged as a USB product with fewer songs (25 of the most popular), you can buy it from Michael Mitchell’s website here.  He also has a new teaching kit you can download for $4.00 that just contains his Canadian national anthem resources.  Good deal!  Whether you decide to buy the teaching kit or the CDs themselves (also available as physical copies or downloads) from this website, you won’t be disappointed.

Disclosure: I received a copy of  the Canada Is For Kids Teaching Kit by Michael Mitchell for review.  All opinions are honest and my own.

 

Have you heard of Big IQ Kids before?  Most homeschoolers interested in online learning have, because they have a renowned free spelling and vocabulary program, as well as a free math drill and free geography program, but in case you haven’t, let me tell you about them.

First, I’ll tell you about their free program.  Big IQ Kids has free programs for learning basic math facts, a wide variety of spelling and vocabulary words (these two work on conjunction with each other), and the states, capitals, and major points of interest about each U.S. state.

Each time a lesson is completed in one of these programs the child is awarded a game coin that can be redeemed to play one fun game in the games area.  These are fairly brief in comparison to the lessons, which are around 10 minutes long, but they serve to keep children VERY motivated to do their lessons on Big IQ Kids, particularly if you limit screen time and electronic games in your home.

The Premium subscription gives you access to the same programs that are available for free to the general public, but with less advertising (there is still some unfortunately), and with timed quizzes enabled, reporting capabilities and tracking of mastery and progress.  The premium programs only move on once the subject matter has been mastered and it keeps track of your child’s advancement.

Children can also create their own customized ‘buddies’ – which are an avatar that can be modified for one game coin.  Game coins can also be saved between sessions by premium members and your children can then have their names recorded if they achieve a high score – very motivating or many children!  A wider selection of reward games is available for Premium members.

My oldest daughter (8) was the child best suited to try out Big IQ Kids.  Children who are independent readers will have the easiest time navigating the site, though there is a Premium-based Spelling Junior program designed for younger children.

The math program is an effective, if basic review of the four basic operations, it isn’t a teaching tool but is designed to practice and master the math facts once they have already been taught conceptually.  I really like that it is easy to customize the difficulty level of the questions and the number of questions presented in each session.

The spelling and vocabulary program is fairly traditional – assigning spelling words and reviewing them using a number of techniques.  There are some phonics and spelling rules provided, but it is fairly basic.  The nice thing about this program is that you can either progress through the many spelling lists available or manually input your own practice list to match the spelling concepts you are working with in your main spelling program.  That being said, the Big IQ Kids spelling and vocabulary can easily stand alone for a natural speller.

The geography (learn the states) program is pretty neat because it teaches the state’s name, location, abbreviation, capital, landmarks, economy etc. in one program.  This is sort of lecture-style direct instruction – the facts are presented with graphics and at the end some questions are asked.  I did have some technical problems with the voice and presentation not lining up properly with each other and being ‘laggy’ or slow.

There are some things we didn’t like as well – there is still advertising on the site – some of it is rather inappropriate for our family (ads for psychics etc. in the sidebar).  The site could also use a major upgrade – the navigation is a bit confusing and hard to learn; it doesn’t all connect well together and the programs.  The site really needs to be updated as well.  The learning programs are all a bit dated – from the graphic style to the awkward computer generated voices.

My daughter didn’t notice though and she was willing to plow through almost any number of rather rote math drills and spelling lists in order to earn those game coins and go have some fun!  When I asked her what she thought of Big IQ Kids she said, “I really like it.  I like the games.  4.5 stars.” (That’s out of 5 by the way.)

So, what should you do if you think your family is interested in Big IQ Kids?  Try out their free programs to get a good feel for how they would work for your family, then try their 7-day free trial of the Premium programs so you can determine how valuable the tracking and other benefits are to you.  To be honest, I only like to use programs that lead my children towards mastery of content once they are in second grade and over so I really appreciate the tracking and progression that the Premium program at Big IQ Kids provides.

The Premium membership costs $9.99/month or $49.99/year, which is actually a pretty good price for subscription-based online learning.

Don’t forget that you can find more reviews of Big IQ Kids from other homeschooling moms at the TOS Crew blog here! 

Disclosure: I received a one-year membership to Big IQ Kids for the purposes of this review.  All opinions are genuine and my own.

As part of my TOS Crew duties this year I was able to give Time 4 Learning’s online learning website a one month trial with my children.  I chose my two oldest to sign up for their program: Kaelynn – 8 years old, and Rose – 5 years old.  Of course Sarah – my 3 year old also watched a lot of the learning action as well.

I love that Time 4 Learning is flexible.  When you initially sign-up you place your child into a specific grade, but Time 4 Learning lets your children navigate between the grade above and the grade below in most cases.  You can take a look at their scope and sequence to see what is included for each grade – there is quite a bit there.  I placed Kaelynn into grade 2 because I wasn’t entirely sure where she’d fit into a traditional scope and sequence, but she had access to grade 1 and 3 activities and lessons as well.  Rose I placed into the Preschool lessons where she had access to Preschool 1 and 2.  If my children had progressed beyond these levels I could have emailed Time 4 Learning to have them moved ahead – easy peasy.

I also loved the detailed reporting available for the primary grades (not available in preschool).  This told me which lessons Kaelynn had completed as well as how she had done on the graded activities and online quizzes.  Though the ability to assign lessons within the program isn’t available (though it looks like it might be), it was fairly simple to just keep an eye on the progress and ask her to do more of one subject or another.

The user interface is very easy for children to navigate. The preschool level has thematically grouped activities under brightly colored icons that the child clicks and that open into five or so activities consisting of coloring pages, online storybooks, interactive reinforcement activities, and more.  Rose really loved these and had so much fun with them.

For Kaelynn she first selected the subject area she wanted (Language Arts, Language Arts Extensions, Science, History, Math) and then just moved through the lessons in a left to right manner.  Her lessons consisted of animated direct instruction followed by interactive learning activities and quizzes.  She really loved working with Time 4 Learning – even the reading fluency tests!  She had so much fun with the online story-creator that is great for reluctant writers because children can digitally illustrate their own creative writing.  One day she spontaneously explained to me, “Mom!  Now I finally understand life cycles!”  If you’d like to sample the interactive lessons you can sign up to access some free ones here.  We both liked the language arts lessons best – she because they were engaging, myself because they teach all those tricky little things busy moms sometimes forget – synonyms, homonyms etc.

Now, there is also a fun games area that you can decide when to allow your child to access.  You can choose how long you’d like them to spend on their lessons before entering the games area and then how long you will allow them to be there for before they are redirected to the lessons.  These are sort of fun, but you know what?  My children liked the lessons and activities so much that they rarely wanted to go to the online games!  I even used Time 4 Learning as a reward for doing their core schoolwork with me and then they would eagerly dig in for more online!

After looking through the grade 1 language arts (even though Kaelynn is past this stage and Rose isn’t yet there), I can say thatI’m particularly impressed with Time 4 Learning’s approach to phonics instruction, reading fluency, and language arts in general.  It is comprehensive while being both colorful and engaging, encouraging repeats of the lessons.  I think this screenshot is from the Kindergarten lessons, but you can see how colorful and engaging they are.

Although our family can’t afford to continue with Time 4 Learning for the long term (even though my children would like to), seeing the joy my children had in utilizing some computer-based learning in our homeschooling lessons, I have been inspired to work on including more directly educational and interactive activities into our school activities.

Time 4 Learning costs $19.95/month for your first child and $14.95/month for any subsequent children.  If you are using Time 4 Learning as a core program, this isn’t a bad price, but if you are using it as a supplement it can add to the homeschooling budget fairly quickly.

That being said, I think Time 4 Learning is perfectly suited for families in the middle of moving, restructuring (new babies, loss in the family, aging parents moving in etc.), or with a prolonged illness.  It can really be a God-send in such situations because it is very well balanced and gets the core subjects covered in a very thorough manner.  Additional drills might be needed for spelling and math and easy readers in the early grades – but Time 4 Learning has the direct instruction covered in a fun and interactive way with very little parental involvement.

Disclosure: A free one month subscription to Time 4 Learning was provided for two of my children the purposes of review for the TOS Crew.  All opinions and thoughts shared are genuine and my own.

Click here to read more reviews of Time 4 Learning from the TOS Crew mates.