My youngest son Jack, age 13, has not been happy with school for a while now.  We’ve been using K12′s charter school, mostly for convenience sake.  Until we moved to Las Vegas two years ago, I was working outside the home.  It was too much for me to try to work a 50 hr + work week and create my own curriculum.  So I used the charter school.  At first my oldest was the one who had some trouble with the schoolwork, but in California the K12 school was a little more relaxed on schedules and deadlines.  I thought that the NV equivalent was going to be the same, but I was wrong.

Not only do the boys have to finish on schedule, but they have to stay on schedule through out the school year.  Which, this year, my oldest is not only doing fine, he’s ahead of schedule.  Roger finishes his schoolwork quickly and easily, and is doing 2 or more lessons in each subject.  Jack, on the other hand, has been having trouble doing just one or two lessons in a 12 hour time period.  It’s not because he doesn’t understand the work either, because when S and I have been working with him, he knows how to do everything.  It’s more a matter of feeling like he can’t accomplish it, and so things get harder and harder for him to complete.  His self confidence has gotten worse because of it.

For a while now I’ve been considering taking him out of the K12 charter school.  Mostly thinking I’d take him out at the end of the year.  I’m going to be going through a different school for Roger next year when he’s in High School, and thought that would be a good time to switch schools for Jack as well.  But after discussions with S about the whole thing, we’ve decided to go with a new school for Jack now.

So since Monday was a holiday, Tuesday we started him at Time4Learning.com.

Time4Learning.com is a totally online curriculum using interactive software to teach kids in grades preK – 8th grade.  They teach all the major core subjects and have tons of lessons for each subject and each grade level.  They have a low monthly tuition, with a discount for the second child, and it’s reasonable enough that almost any budget could afford it.

We’ve used Time4Learning.com before, when the b oys were younger.  At the time they didn’t have any curriculum pasted 6th grade, which is one of the reasons I stopped using them.   In looking around for different curriculums, both free and for cost, Time4Learning.com was the best price for what you get.  This means that no matter what, I could afford to do this for Jack.

And you should see the difference in him already.  It’s only been 3 days that he’s been using Time4Learning.com, and already there’s a huge difference.  He’s happier, doing more schoolwork than I thought possible, excited about it, and already his self confidence is up 100%!  Jack also can’t stop saying thank you for changing schools.  It’s nice to see him so happy and back to his normal self again.  He’s getting so much more done, and his grades are still very high, plus he’s done doing schoolwork by 3pm and usually with at least 2 lessons done for each subject.  It’s just amazing!

With Time4Learning.com there are no textbooks, and very little printing out.  There are some worksheets that need to be done offline, and they also have answer keys for the parents.  The tests are all online and they also have research projects that need to be done for the different subjects that are fun and interesting.  Like the project Jack is working on right now is about an invention that was created in his lifetime.  He has to write a report on it and do research online for it.  He’s very excited about it because it’s something that he can do on his own, and doesn’t have to be done by a certain schedule.

I think that the biggest thing for him is that he doesn’t have the schedule hanging over his head, so he feels free to do what he wants too.  Plus the online videos explaining the various subjects are more interesting and more indepth than the K12 was giving him.  Time4Learning.com also gave him a much wider variety of subjects to work with.  In Social Studies in K12 he was having to study US history for the last two years, which is fine, but 2  years in a row is a bit much.  In Time4Learning.com he’s able to study ancient civilizations, religion, US History and more!  It’s fabulous!  Again, he’s so excited about the different subjects that he can study, I haven’t seen him this happy with school in a very long time.

I would probably take Roger out of K12 if it weren’t for the fact that Time4Learning.com doesn’t go beyond 8th grade.  I think he’d be happier in Time4Learning.com, but he’s not doing badly enough to take him out of K12 now.  He’ll be done with this school y ear soon enough and then we’ll be using Odyssey for his High School.  Which is the same programs that Time4Learning.com uses, so it’s basically the same thing.    I guess it’s still a possibility that I’ll use Time4Learning.com for Roger’s schooling this year too… I just haven’t really decided yet.  We’ll see how things go.

Side Note:
This is my honest opinion about Time4Learning.com, however to be completely transparent, I will be compensated for this review.  It’s the equivalent to one months worth of  the subscription.  Although this may be a paid review, I would be saying the exact same thing even if it wasn’t.  I truly am extremely pleased with the outcome and the reaction I’ve seen in my son after starting up this program.

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