Hi! Welcome to Peace Creek on the Prairie. If this is your first time here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting! Have a blessed day. I have been hearing about Time4Learning for some time now in the homeschool circles. I was very excited to get the opportunity to review this with The Old Schoolhouse Review crew.
Time4Learning is an online curriculum for ages Preschool through eighth grades. Time4learning is a comprehensive program for preschool, elementary school, and middle school. Science and social studies programs are provided as a free bonus for most grades. Time4learning cost $19.95/month for one student and 14.95/month for each additional student. Time4Learning has lesson plans, progress reports and interactive advice from actual teachers about your child’s work.
Please note, that my children have had VERY limited computer experience, as you read my review.
My four year old was super excited to get to use the computer. We tried several of the activities, but he is unable to use the mouse, and being that he is very independent was quite frustrated. He soon decided that he would like to color instead. He just turned four in May. Again, this was his first time on the computer. I didn’t want to make it a bad experience, so allowed him to move on to something he enjoys and can do on his own.
My five year old, really like getting her first experience on the computer. She loved the game Different Fish. I was a bit disappointed in the garbled sound on this game, however it didn’t stop her from enjoying it. She was able to get quite handy with the mouse in no time. This game was good for visual discrimination. She also enjoyed reading the stories. Each time they click on an item, it reads a short blurb about the story. She loved this. I was glad to hear the sound to be of good quality. The vocabulary was good, as it helped introduce new words. She liked learning them and wanted to spend every time she had computer time doing the stories.
My second grader really enjoyed the phonics part of this program. I liked that many of them included lots of spelling practice. She also enjoyed many of the other games, though struggle with the math games. Still not sure why. For our family, I would say that second grade is the best age to introduce the program. They are much more able to be independent.
The instructions for the student appear to be very easy to follow. However, I did need to sit with all of my children during their activities. Again, none of the children in our family who tested this program had used computers before. I did find that site navigation was a bit challenging. The icons did not seem to be labeled well with what their function was. We did however, figure them out in time.
Time4Learning is a good program and seems to cover many areas of education, but I found it quite gamey overall and noticed that the cartoonish characters were distracting for my students. I did not use the grading feature, as I sat with my students during the time they used the program. For us this would be a supplement to our regular curriculum, and would not be used on a daily basis.
For what other members of the crew have to say, check out the Crew blog.
Disclaimer—I received a free one month trial period to use this program in return for my honest review.
You know, not all days are good when you are homeschooling, however how you handle those days speaks very loudly to your children. We woke one morning, and one of my children seemed to forget how to read, the mouse for the children’s school computer broke (desktop), and the baby was fussy. The kindergartener does not have independent book time, and things just weren’t going to well.
I called the school’s “hot” principal, with the idea to just take a fun day that would include making memories, not the kind where mama is in the corner begging Calgon to take her away. He agreed. Sometimes, God puts these bumps in your homeschool road, so He can take back the lead. My children sat around coloring, reading a new atlas, playing games, reading books, and helping with a few chores that have been neglected. 
Other times on days like this we will cook, bake take a nature walk, play out side all day, or just watch movies. I am not a perfect homeschool mom, um actually I haven’t met one yet. However, this year I have set a goal, that I will not become stressed when we have days that could easily turn into one of those “Calgon take me away” days. Nope, we will roll with it, and learn to accept those days and see just how much we can learn on those days.
Taking a deep breath and allowing God to run your homeschool day for you will give you freedom you never thought you could have. We don’t have these days often, but when we do, is it really so bad, just to let things go? Isn’t it good for our children to watch us deal with these types of issues? When they grow up and are out on their own, there will be days where nothing seems to go right. No, they probably won’t be able to just walk away from the circumstances, but they, by learning by our example should be able to use the tools we taught them how to make the best of it.
What homeschool Snip or Tip do you have to share this week? Grab the button and add your URL to the linky below.
One of Philip’s goals this summer was to catch a bull snake, and catch a bull snake he did.
 This was not one of those cuddly snakes, notice the gloves? This thing decided to strike at me as I was walking by. Yeah, umm, I didn’t handle this one. He found it outside of his daddy’s shop. At first sight, he thought it was a rattle snake, as it was coiled, and doing the mock rattle. Brad called me when they found it to help identify it. My first question was not does it have a rattle—rattle snakes can lose their rattle, therefore that is not a reliable way to identify a snake. I asked about the head. Does it connect nice and even to the neck, or is the back of the head wider then the neck? A bull snakes head should flow right on into the neck, whereas a rattle snakes head is wider then the neck. Anyway, they got it caught and now it is living in our stick pile that is full of mice. However on his way to the stick pile, he found a huge toad.
 
While I was waiting for him to get back to the house, I found lots of mushrooms in our yard. In the last two weeks, we have had around eight inches of rain.
And finally a few hot peppers from our garden. And according to Brad, who didn’t believe me, they are HOT. We have made 14 quarts of salsa so far this year.
What have you seen in Nature? Grab the button and link up to share your homeschool nature studies.
As part of my job on The Old Schoolhouse Review Crew, I was asked to review Peterson Directed Handwriting. This is a handwriting program unlike any other we have tried in our home. There are both gross and small motor activities to help improve the motor skill needed for good handwriting.
I tried this with my dysgraphic student, but it was not a good fit. I think mainly because he has learned cursive and is doing fairly well. He learned a different font, and therefore, trying to teach him another font was not good. So, I moved on down my students to our second grader who has not started cursive.
This has been good for her. She is mastering the strokes of cursive and about ready to start forming her cursive letters. She naturally has very good handwriting, so this font will work better for her, then it did for my dysgraphic student. For him, all the loops and such were a bother and distracting him from actual letter formation. That is him though, not the program.
I like how this program includes the American Sign Language signs with the introduction of each letter. I also like how the student learns a phrase for each stroke of a letter. Such as sharp top, loop top, round top etc. Those help when a student gets stuck trying to form a letter and all you need to do, is say an m is three round tops. This program does not have any tracing of letters. The child learns the basic strokes and then learns to put them together to for their letters. Thus eliminating any need for tracing. This program really stresses the need for proper pencil grip, paper position and posture. It also stresses that you need to slide your arm across the paper to keep everything in line so you are able to see what you are doing. I have found that many children struggle with that alone.
The customer service is above and beyond. If you ever need help learning to teach their programs to your student, they are there willing and ready to meet your needs. They will set up an online meeting so you can see on your computer what they think will help your student, explaining it to you step by step.
We received Peterson’s Cursive Step 1, $19.95 to review. Peterson Directed Handwriting offers a wide variety of books, software, and ebooks to meet your handwriting needs. To purchase this book or any of the levels offered, you will need to go to their shop.
Check out what other TOS Crew members have to say about this curriculum.
Disclaimer:
I was given a copy of this eBook in return for my honest review. I will not receive any other compensation.
We have been homeschooling now for about six or seven years, or in reality for almost eleven, as our oldest will be eleven in September. In the past, we really have not had our students use much technology, however this year My students are using the computer and digital camera.
We have used eBook . . . → Read More: Plugged in Homeschooling~A Semi-Advanced Technology Homeschool
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I am a Christian Homeschooling Mom to six beautiful children. I am married to one awesome farmer, who is the second light in my world. God being the first. This blog is about our journeys that God chooses to guide us through. Our struggles that we face on those journeys and our accomplishments. My goal is to offer you a bit of encouragement through my words, because choosing to go against the grain is not always the less bumpy path. 
