Review: Time4Learning

Okay, so here is my promised Time4Learning review.

Pros: I have to say that my daughter absolutely loved this program. It was a lot of fun for her with the games and activities. It has several areas for preschoolers such as colors, shapes, numbers but also other things like 'at the farm' where she got to do learning games based on farm items.

It also showed her HOW to use the computer, such as the mouse and keyboard, and it asked her if she wanted to proceed in ways she could understand such as using a green nodding smiley face for yes and a red frowning face for no.

Time4Learning did help my daughter with her numbers, shapes, and colors. It is remarkable how well she now knows her colors, and it helped to reinforce her number skills so she can count to 15 without skipping any numbers now. She especially enjoyed the paint program where she could actually mix secondary and tertiary colors. Time4Learning kept her attention for hours at a time and gave me the opportunity to work with my son on his schoolwork or to actually get some housework done.

Cons: My son wasn't too keen on the program. He only logged in once to try it. My son is older, 9, so maybe it's better for younger kids.

We had a lot of technical difficulties trying to get the program online and actually working. I had to jump through several hoops on my browser, but Time4Learning gave me step-by-step instructions online and I didn't have to call anyone to get the issue fixed so that made me very happy.

I also think that the program should have rewarded my daughter with a virtual blue ribbon only if she actually did a good job instead of when she also did poorly. It could have encouraged her to try again for the blue ribbon and made the blue ribbon a real badge of merit instead of something given no matter what. This is one of the reasons we've decided not to do Upward Basketball again this year with my son because they give prizes to everyone, no matter what, and I heartily disagree with that mentality.

As it stands, though, it's a small thing and could easily be overlooked provided you discuss the values of true merit with your children, or even set up a special rewards program just for them to use so they can understand your values.

My main problem with this company has stemmed from the fact that they seem to be a little dodgy in their wording. Since I was part of their review program and had a 30 day free trial, I received an email that said the following: As a thank you for posting your review, we want to offer you an additional free month if you decide to continue your membership.  After your review has been posted, simply log into your parent administration page and select “Convert Membership into an Automated Monthly Billing”. You will receive your second month with Time4Learning absolutely free.

So I went online and signed in to reactivate my membership and ran into an error. It said that my card was declined. I checked my bank and everything was fine. I assumed that they were going to authorize for a dollar and then drop the charge until next month when the full amount would go through. When I called, I was advised (just before she ran the card) that she was going to charge me the full price for this month. When I told her I was supposed to have my second month free, she told me that I had to pay for a month before I received one for free with the review program. When I looked back at the email, I saw that it could be taken to mean that, but it isn't what it actually said. If I hadn't run into an error online, my card would have been charged $35 when I wasn't expecting it because the page said $0.00 to be charged.

I've therefore decided that Time4Learning really isn't for our family, but maybe it will be for yours.  If there is information here that has not yet made itself known to me, I will surely post it here.

Mrs. Yoder

How to write an elementary/early middle school level research paper

So I discovered that I'm really not pleased with any of the history curriculum I have tried to date. Either they are too, I hate to say 'fundamental' but that is the word that comes to mind, or they are too secular. We consider ourselves pretty conservative, too conservative if you ask our church, but some things just bother me because they don't make sense. I can't teach things that don't make sense. Nothing really had that happy medium I was looking for and all of them seemed to have some type of agenda. I did find Story of the World, but it seems to be missing so much so I use it to supplement what we do. I have made my own curriculum pulling from SotW, MrDonn.org, AEP Complete Book of World History, and Evan-Moor History Pockets combined with research on Encyclopedia Britannica, Brainpop, and various documentaries I've rented from the library.

How do you bring all of this together, though? Well, we do research reports at the end of every subject to ensure that Joshua really understands what we've gone over.  I spend 1-6 weeks on each subject of world history. Our shortest was the first people and our longest will probably be Greece and Rome. This method, which I discovered on a forum and tweaked for our own use, will work for ANY subject. You can do this with science, writing, reading, ANYTHING. It just happens to be eminently well-suited for history.

How to get started:

Take your main subject and divide it with them into several sub-topics. We recently did a research report on Mesopotamia. So we had 'Mesopotamia' as the main topic and there were 8 sub-topics since we worked on this for a couple of weeks. We had geography, agriculture, tools, inventions, daily life, religion, cuneiform, and achievements.

We kept some of the whiteboard that was left when my husband made our wall sized whiteboard and cut it into 12'x12' squares we call 'lapboards'. These are used instead of scratch paper for math and other small projects that usually waste paper. You can use anything, though. A piece of spare poster board, construction paper, anything!

Take the lapboard or whatever you're using and divide it into columns based on how many sub-topics you have. We had 8 with this so there were 8 columns with the sub-topic at the top of each one. Give them a stack of post-it notes or scratch paper squares and tape. Guide them to the research materials, show them the basics, and then let loose.

I advised my son to write 1 fact on each post-it note and each sub-topic needed 4-5 facts. I told him to write complete sentences on each note (not just 'hard work' or 'they farmed') and on the back to write his source (eb.com, Story of the World, etc.). It took him a week to get it all together from various places, about 3 days of actually researching the topic.

We worked together during this time to write a lead sentence and put it on the back of the board so we wouldn't lose it. Then came time to put things together on paper. Work with them to put it all together into one paper. I have a paper template I printed up, and a place to put their sources at the end. You can see it copied below so feel free to use it. I took the lines out for each paragraph because they didn't translate well to this page, but feel free to copy into notepad or word and add them yourself.

Hope this helps everyone!

Mrs. Yoder


Elementary Research Report

Title: ______________________
Author: ____________________
Subject: ____________________
Date: _________

Lead Sentence:

1st Paragraph:


2nd  Paragraph:


3rd  Paragraph:

4th  Paragraph:

5th  Paragraph:


6th  Paragraph:



7th  Paragraph:


8th  Paragraph:


Closing sentence:

Sources:

Homeschool Minute: rebellious children & the school bucks reward coupons program

I have a very rebellious, headstrong child to homeschool. My son's attention wanders and flits like a butterfly from thing to thing. He has problems sitting still and doing his lessons. He can take up to 3 hours to complete one lesson. He often mouths off to me or his father and often treats his little sister like a plague.

Does any of this sound familiar?

Through hard work, struggles, and tears, we have finally made some headway. The lying and mouthing off we have cured with old fashioned soap. He bites down on the bar for 30 seconds the first time and it increases by 30 second intervals each time he lies to us. I told him at 5 minutes we'd change it to chewing slivers of soap starting at 30 seconds and going up from there. In three weeks we've gone up to 3 minutes of holding the soap in his mouth. Joshua is like a new child with the lying and disrespecting. :)

As for the rest, one of the things that has really helped me to understand my son is the e-book Homeschooling The Rebel by Deborah Wuehler available here. There is also a second part where she has her child speak out directly about how they felt. The book is free, you just have to go through a shopping cart process to get it.

Now, I don't believe in indulging bad behaviour. In her book, she speaks about letting her child cover herself with a blanket and stay that way to do her work because she wanted to have a blanket on her head. I'm the parent, my son is the child and I believe that teaching a child to listen to what you say is more important than indulging them in bad behaviour just to get them to do their work. Children have to learn how to get along in society, as bad as that society is. Children will never get anywhere in the world if they do not learn self-discipline.

With that said, I really loved the book! I had few other problems and it was so terribly informative for me. I talked to my son about it and read some of the passages from the second book to him. Joshua said that he felt the same way that child did.

We've used some of the methods from the book, and they've worked so far. The biggest one is to give breaks between lessons so Joshua can stretch and burn off some energy.

And on a tangent, I don't believe in ADD or ADHD. I think it's utter nonsense. I believe in 'little boy-itis' and I believe that I also am a bit dreamy and distracted. It happens. My personal opinion is that it has to do with a combination of diet, possibly subluxations in the spine, and a build up of heavy metals/chemicals in the body. Just so everyone knows where I stand on that. It's possible to heal yourself of this problem, but it's also possible to deal with it. Labelling someone as 'ADD' gives it power over you. It gives you an excuse. 'Sorry, can't help being distracted, I've got ADD.' Instead you could say: 'I'm sorry, I get distracted sometimes. Let me do that over.' You take personal responsibility for yourself and what you have or have not done.

Tangent completed, moving back to the subject at hand. My son has done wonderfully with taking breaks between lessons. It helps him to focus when he comes back to his school work. Then I thought of an idea that has proved to be even more successful: school bucks.

The school bucks system I created works like a charm. For each lesson Joshua completes in a timely manner (I determine how much time he needs for a lesson and set the timer so he can see it) he gets a school buck. He earns extra bucks for good grades on tests, showing kindness to his sister during school hours, and sometimes if I do a pop verbal quiz or give him bonus questions on a test worth a buck each.

Joshua spends his school bucks on things he wants. I made a list of things, with his help, and each was assigned a price in school bucks. Since the 'annoying little sister' is with us all the time, I also added some things I wouldn't ordinarily add on like '20 minutes of undivided attention' or 'a night out with dad'. That way, he earns some special one on one time with us and we can make a point to give it to him when he needs it.

It has also proved to be an invaluble lesson in handling money and saving up for things he wants.

Below is a copy of our price list:

=======SCHOOL BUCK REWARDS========

(Rewards with * next to them can be used during school hours)

15 minutes on computer = 1 school buck*

20 minutes of undivided attention = 1 school buck*

15 minutes to play across the street = 1 school buck*

30 minute delay of bedtime = 2 school bucks

1 hour of bike riding = 2 school bucks

30 minutes for fossil hunting = 2 school bucks*

Choose dinner menu one night = 4 school bucks*

Have a friend over to play = 5 school bucks

Watch a movie on the computer = 5 school bucks

One cooking lesson = 5 school bucks*

One lesson about blacksmithing

or woodworking = 5 school bucks*

Night out with Mom = 10 school bucks

Night out with Dad = 10 school bucks

Friend over for dinner = 10 school bucks

One book (worth $5.00 or under) = 15 school bucks

Go out for ice cream = 15 school bucks

Have a friend over for the night = 15 school bucks

Sleep over at a friend's house = 15 school bucks

A dinner with grandma = 15 school bucks

Go to Gatti Town = 25 school bucks

Go to Explorium = 25 school bucks

Go to Cincinnati or Louisville for bookstore and museum = 100 school bucks

Payouts:

One lesson completed in the time given = 1 school buck

100% on a test = 2 school bucks

A on a test = 1 school buck

==========================================

And here is what the school bucks look like.

Please feel free to use this system for your very own if you also have a hard-headed child. Please let me know how it works for you! If you'd like a full size page full of school bucks to use for yourself, send me an email or leave a comment here with your email address and I'll send you the file. Or copy the image above.

I hope this helps some of you out there dealing with the same problem we are having. It's hard, and frustrating, when one of your children is continuously disruptive or disrespectful. Anyone with stories or tips, please feel free to share for everyone's benefit.

Introduction

Hello out there! This is my first post here and I just wanted to talk a little about myself and what this blog will be all about.

I'm Mrs. Yoder, a 28 year old mother of two R.O.U's named Joshua and Kathryne. We homeschool, and let me tell you, that's so much fun with an 8 year old and a 3 year old. Especially considering they are both Leos. ::shuddercrywail::

Anyway, I'm an herbalist who likes to also sew, knit, cook, uncook, garden, and read. There are other things that I like to do as well, but they come and go. This blog is mostly going to cover my herbs, but I will also be adding other assorted tiddly-bits about other things. If you like an eclectic blog, then this is the place for you!

I lost my job in September 2009, and my husband found a better job at the same time so I am now living my dream as a stay at home mom for the first time. I love it and I struggle with it at the same time. I love that I now have the TIME to do all the things that I wanted to do when I was working 12 hour days like help out at church, putter around in my garden, work on my herbal studies, and homeschool our children. But I also get cabin fever a bit and find that I sometimes miss the morning commute to work, if only for the peace of honking cars and morning radio.

So I'm setting up my first real post now. I'll be doing an Herb of the Week here at my blog, in addition to various other postings about other random herby/lifey/crafty things.

Peas (peace),
Mrs Yoder