Time4Learning combines 1000+ animated lessons, printable worksheets and graded activities to teach math and language arts lessons correlated to state standards. Science, social studies and art are also provided as a bonus for most grades.
Key features of the program:
- Students get individual logins and work on their own schedule and pace
- Parents can set the grade level independently for each subject
- The grade above and below are available for review and additional study
- There are no CDs and nothing additional to purchase
- An online playground rewards and motivates
- Detailed lesson plans available for parents who wish to preview lessons
- An automated system grades the lessons and keeps printable reports
Time4Learning can be used with a broad array of student types, learning styles and homeschooling methods. It is entirely web based, so your kids will be able to access the program 24/7 from any computer with an internet connection.
It has a low monthly price, requires no contracts and offers a 14 day money-back guarantee.
Before investing in any homeschooling resources, please read "How to Choose the Best Homeschool Curriculum."
Reviews are solely the opinions of the contributor.
Cons: Simplistic and will need a bit of supplementing
Grades Used: 3/6
This program is just okay. I did appreciate it when I was super stressed with work at home and needed the scaffolding and grading done for me . It isn’t disparaging against Christians nor white people at all. It isn’t centered on only Christian and white perspectives, and some people may interpret that as being against them because they are so used to homeschool curriculums being from those perspective. I do agree that the history curriculum is washed down to black and white facts and it tries to cut down to the basics where as history is more complicated and complex in reality. I really needed to add more in this area so that there aren’t misconceptions for my kids. I was a 7th and 8th grade science teacher before homeschooling my children, and I like the science program. The labs are actually more simplistic than what I would use in a classroom, but that’s okay as it’s an at home program and it doesn’t need to be overly complicated to teach children the basics of what they need to know for the grades to come. Science was dumbed down for many of us growing up, and that’s no longer the case in most districts. This program does a good job of bridging that gap between what was and what is now considered grade level.
Cons: Seems to skip topics, not all topics explained well, expects students to complete work they haven't covered yet
Grades Used: 3, 4, 5
We signed up for this in the hope that we could use it to help our son catch up in different areas of math and language arts because of the ability to access multiple grades and switch between them. In the end we decided that it would be easier (and cheaper) to stick with Khan Academy for math and various other resources for language arts.
Pros:
- From the backend you can view all of the lessons in the same order that your child is taking them and you can print and download any worksheets that go with them. You can also preview all of the lessons from there without impacting your child's progress or scores.
- The ability to set the grade for each subject - you can choose from K-8 and put them in a different grade for each subject.
- Your child can access the grades before and after their set grade. So for example, I had my son set to grade 4 for math but he was struggling still with the multiplication, so he just clicked on grade 3 at the top and was able to go into the grade 3 lessons and start at an earlier stage in the multiplication lessons to catch up.
- If you want to change your child's grade for a subject it is easy to do.
- It's not too expensive (for us in Canada it came to $25 a month for the elementary/middle school subscription).
- They did refund us our payment for canceling within the first 14 days as described on their website.
Cons:
- Although you can set up an activity plan for your child to follow, you have to redo it if you want to switch grades so that wasn't an option for us for how we wanted to use the program (switching between grades for areas he needed more/less help in).
- The lessons didn't always teach what they expected him to suddenly know. So for division he hadn't learned about long division yet and after a very short video that didn't go into enough detail he suddenly had worksheets for me to print that expected him to be able to do it! Same with language arts. A grade 2 worksheet is expecting him to write a short opinion piece, yet the first lesson I can find on how to use commas in sentences is in grade 5!
- Because of the above I find myself spending a lot of time looking for supplemental resources on various topics. I found him division videos on Khan Academy and grammar and sentence writing worksheets online. I was hoping to not have to do that. If I have to piece it all together myself anyway I could just as well stick to free resources.
- The biggest complaint from my son was the reading speed in the videos. He would finish reading the text in the video long before the next line of text would appear and they couldn't be fast forwarded so what would only take him a few minutes to read on his own would be dragged out into a 12 minute long video that he had to sit through.
Cons: Everything
Grades Used: 7th
I used this homeschool program 2 years ago (7th grade). It is absolutely terrible. Yeah it's affordable but it doesn't teach you anything. They just give you a pile of work to do but the lessons are so outdated and very stressful. For example, some lessons there are worksheets you need to print out and these worksheet packets had like 10 pages of questions with 2 essay you had to write in each one. Keep in mind I got multiple packets a week. It was VERY stressful doing online lessons plus big packets of worksheets in almost every subject. To add on the lessons have long videos with terrible audio. Very outdated information and teaches you things you probably learned like 2 years ago. I fell behind so much I had to go back to public school. I'm trying homeschooling again this coming up year so all I know is that i'm NOT going thru time4learning again. Literal torture.
Cons: Grossly inaccurate and bigotry filled history course, Science is needlessly difficult, Reports do not reflect grade changes by parent, Not easily customized
Grades Used: 7th
I am a homeschooling mom of 8 years. I have a BS in Communication Disorders. I say this because it is relevant to how terrible this program is overall. When an honors graduate from college cannot do a program because they test over information not covered, the fault is the program. My husband, who loved organic and microbiology in college, found a lot of the science to be unnecessarily complex and confusing.
Do not let your kids sit through the history program. Good thing I taughty my child to be an independent thinker. He immediately came to me to ask why this program was saying some things. So then I sat through every lesson. Not only is it anti-Christian, it is also inflammatory to other religions. Basically the Muslim religion is the only one praised in this curriculum. Not only is the information false but it is inflammatory. For instance, today she said that the Shinto religion wasn't really a religion but just ceremonies (SS1104). Some of inflammatory things she said about Jews and Christians were the worst I have ever heard in my life. I went to secular school and took 3 semesters of college humanities. That doesn't include college class on world religions. I've never witnessed any teaching so grossly inaccurate and clearly hate filled as this program. This doesn't address how badly she mispronounces almost everything. She shouldn't be teaching at all. I come from an entire family full of teachers, multiple generations. This lady is horrible at teaching. She is extremely opinionated about the value and "good" of things certain society's have contributed. I was appalled by her discussion on the Taj Mahal. It was entirely disrespectful to that culture and the people. It was so bad I had to re-teach this subject. I cannot believe anyone approved such a bigotry filled history program. We've used Christian and secular curriculums. The Christian curriculums were far more fact oriented and less opinionated. The secular programs avoided a lot of these subjects.
The science portion of 7th grade is significantly better than the history. However it is unnecessarily difficult in some places. Some parts of this program, especially the labs, are not needed. These lab reports are not age appropriate. I recommend skipping them. The labs are fine but the reports are not. Those reports are best suited for beginning college level or upper high school. This science course is very heavy handed with evolution. I don't mind this but I know some homeschooling families do. I want my child to learn all religions and all scientific theories.
We had tried Time4Learning for part of a year when our son was younger. I found it to be far too long, over kill. The 7th grade is also like this in many ways. Don't have your child do it all. It will most definitely cause a serious hatred towards schooling. Please be very cautious in letting your child learn the history portion of this program, regardless of your religion. It is grossly inaccurate for several religions. It also doesn't embrace cultural achievements or look positively at many cultures. As I stated, even something as celebrated as the Taj Mahal was discussed very negatively.
As far as ease of use for this curriculum, it isn't as easy as they claim. I've used 2 other online curriculums that did better than this. Grades changed by the adult because of bad test questions (horrible wording or not discussed at all in the classes) are not reflected in the reports you try to generate. You cannot customize the program easily if you want to change which lessons are covered. For instance I wanted to cut out quizzes entirely for some section, but it would make me go into each lesson individually and add it or take it away. There are over 300 activities for History alone. I don't have time to go into over 300 activities to select or deselect. Why couldn't they allow you to do things in section? For instance, divide up the program by chapters and allow each chapter to be customizable. Every single lesson has a quiz. It's ridiculous.
Cons: I already said it above...
Grades Used: 9th grade. (I am not sure what to type here I think i am doing the right think i don't know.
I started this program after being in a long term facility in March 2021. IT IS WAYY TOO MUCH STRESS.!!!!!! 100 assignments per class LITERALLY I COUNTED, LONG FREAKING VIDEOS THAT I CAN'T EVEN SKIP THROUGH AND THE MAJORITY OF THE LESSONS ARE HARD FOR A NEURO TEEN LIKE ME. Please do something I can't take this anymore including i can't even skip the videos and this program is screwed and not the one that I need. It's too late to go to another one or in person school plus I don't want to be doing this in the middle of summer neither does my mom. We are out of options at this point and this stressful program does NOT help AT ALL. Please, for the sake of everyone on earth when someone starts this program late and they're out of options, CUT OFF SOME WORK AND HELP A KID OUT ESPECIALLY ONES LIKE ME. As you can see by my typing, I am fed up. Please do something and fix this take some stress off of people who are late and out of options considering their abilities and recent events taking them away from home and a life changing thing for 5 months in a facility please. It would be a MIRACLE FROM HEAVEN. With all due respect.
Cons: Everything
Grades Used: 5th, kindergarten
Time Four learning is a bad learning program. It had evolution theories all over, and the science curriculum changed in the middle of the year. My fifth grade kids are doing seventh grade science. The classes are long and somewhat boring. It takes forever to complete one thing. Also, it is all about how blacks should be treated better than whites. I feel that all people should be treated the same way. It also leaves out very important things. I give this a one star rating. DO NOT USE.
Cons: It glitchy
Grades Used: 2,4,6
this app/website [is] super glitchy my son will do something and it dont show up he has screenshots showing proof he completed it
Cons: Everything.
Grades Used: 7th.
Time4Learning. Except, all they do is waste time, and make you learn nothing.
On History, it's 10-20 minute videos that you have to sit through, and none of what is said appears in the questions. Bad customer service, i emailed them about a major problem that caused my T4L to stop working, and even still while writing this, no reply, i found my own fix.
Math, just like History but not as long, except for the questions. Theres always like 21 questions.
Science, just like on History.
Language Arts, the start was kinda fun, it atleast wasn't boring. Then the style changed right when i started liking it kinda atleast.
Cons: EVERYTHING
Grades Used: 5th and 4th
Time4learning social studies is SUPER TRAUMATIZING when i saw what my child was learning in
time4learning social studies I went to the activity and i saw that she was learning about the Braille
Code so I thought ok cool, but i was just about to click out of it the character who was teaching about the braille said "He accidentally poked himself." and so when i figured out what he was talking about
he was saying that he stabed himself with a kife
so parents go check out the activity code number; 56017 and 506
Cons: Need end of semester tests that kids can work towards to review what they learned for each grade. Hope the teaching style varies between grades so kids can stay engaged.
Grades Used: 4th
This program offers great teaching and lessons. My daughter enjoys. A kid who has attention issues can use a parents guidance. I actually don't think its for a kid to use without a teacher or parent. But it is a good curriculum. I guess older kids who can focus on stay on task on their own can use on their own. But the truth is that all kids need teachers so this curriculum requires it. My daughter who is 9 has focus and concentration issues has learned alot but I am always pushing her along. There are times when she works ahead of me and listens to the lesson/teaching on her own and completes test/assignment.
Cons: Everything
Grades Used: 1st and 8th
I am a 8th grade student and all I can say is that this program is absolutely terrible. I have nothing positive to say about this because I learned nothing and it is VERY boring and its just torture have to sit there for more than four hours trying to finish one subject.
ENGLISH- I have always loved this class but on this it feels like torture. The questions make no sense and the animations make me feel like i'm in kindergarten again. They are supposed to be funny but they are just terrible and insulting. Like I said about the questions making no sense these are things we learned in second grade and they aren't hard. I had to sit through lessons learning about Idioms, homophones, antonyms, and synonyms and none of it made sense even though all of those things are very simple to me.
MATH- For math they never make any sense. They make you do the most confusing things and they won't explain anything. I've had videos that took up to around 20 minutes and they did so questions but never actually explained anything to where I knew what to do. Then after that you have to do it about 17 more times and then even more!
HISTORY- History takes way to long and I learn nothing. The woman in the videos can never say anything to where it makes sense and they are very boring. I am forced to do the transcrips and just those can take me up to four to five hours to take all the stuff that might be important out and write them down. Even after hours of that the questions are not about the information they gave you and they are very confusing. They also count answers that I have proof that are correct and they count it wrong.
SCIENCE- For science it is the same thing for history. They are absolutely the hardest thing to sit though.
LANGUAGE ELECTIVE (ROOSETA STONE)- I take spanish for this topic and it is way harder than just apps you can find on your phone to help you learn a new language. All they do is give you picture to match with a set of word in the language you are trying to learn then they have you say it. They don't go over what the actual words mean. That's all I really have to say about that but lets just say it is not worth on how much money they want you to pay.
My little sister is in second grade and is doing this program too and half the time nobody can ever help her because even they don't understand and we have 6 people that are older than me and 5 of them have graduated. That just on how confusing these questions are. It is so hard to try and get her to do her work and to keep her focused because both of us are the same way when sitting still for long... WE CAN'T! When I have to sit for more than an hour it triggers stress, anxiety, panick attacks, etc. This is our only option for now though until things get back to normal due to covid. My main fear is after this i am going to be very far behind. I'm trying my hardest but I can't learn a thing from this! So i do not recommend this program at all!!
Cons: Some errors, some major errors, terrible customer service
Grades Used: Pre-K, K, 1
We’re using this as our primary curriculum during the pandemic. Full disclosure: I am not a typical homeschool mom. My kids will return to school when it’s safe to do so. That said, I have a love/hate relationship with this company and program. Social studies at the elementary level should not be used and be completely redone by time4learning. It’s erroneous and riddled with grammar and spelling mistakes. For example - they showed a compass with East on the West and vice versa in one slide. I could go on and on with this subject.
The other subjects are pretty good. They go at a pace that is suitable for our young children and usually explain things fairly clearly. I’ve had to sit and work through some concepts, but that’s to be expected in any learning environment. At the end of the day, the kids are learning. We’ve supplemented with ABCMouse and a few others.
What I cannot stand, however, is the customer service. They have been absolutely useless and take no responsibility for mistakes in content or technical issues. The customer isn’t always right, but a little compassion or active listening goes a long way.
Cons: Student can't skip lessons---the homeschool teacher has to do it. It's difficult to match projects with the lessons
Grades Used: 9, 12
MS Earth Science, HS Physics, Art 1. These are SO boring. As a teacher, they do exactly what I try to AVOID in my classes. They read their lectures, These have terrible and boring graphics and have few to no actual interactive activities. The note taking app is buggy, and when the teacher resets a quiz for the student, it erases all of the progress they've done on later lessons. For some reason, the automatic retake feature is not working. Science projects that are done using media not supported need to be graded by the homeschool teacher. My kids, who love science and art, have been completely turned off doing either with this program, so now, I am stuck creating my own curriculum and teaching the classes despite having paid for 2 months of the program. It is very hard to teach 2 completely different science classes. The art class has no way to easily incorporate a hands-on experience if you are not trained in art.
Cons: Wrong answers, wrong teaching, or boring lessons.
Grades Used: 7th and 8th
Time4learning is affordable, and overall a good curriculum.
However, I have had some problems.
As many people are saying, it does not work on a tablet, which is inconvenient.
On certain lessons, I've noticed that they either taught you wrong, or marked the answer as wrong when it was right, mainly on math.
Several times, I had to resort to YouTube videos to teach me correctly.
On one lesson, it taught you to divide when you are supposed to subtract, and it confused me.
I was getting all the answers wrong, until I saw a YouTube video, and then I got all the answers right.
On several quizzes, it asked me questions of a topic it hadn't taught me yet.
Social Studies and History are so boring, that I now hate both subjects.
Language Arts can be very enjoyable, and so can Science when you have the characters, even for older grades.
In Science, the characters made school enjoyable.
They are not patronizing as people are saying, and I was disappointed when they stopped using the characters in 8th grade.
Cons: Video Glitches
Grades Used: Kindergarten and 1st Grade
Time4Learning was recommended to us by my brother and his family. They use this as their sole curriculum and have loved it so far so we figured we would give it a try as this is our first year homeschooling our children ourselves.
So far the program has been wonderful in that it takes care of grading, attendance, etc. However, I do not like how much the program freezes during lessons making us have to redo work repeatedly. This is a glitch they definitely need to address as its very time consuming. The lessons in itself is good but I do think that they may be a bit childish for anyone over the age of 8. Though, Im going off of this part because my nephew who uses this is in 8th grade and complains of the videos being childish. Our kids however are kindergarten and 1st grade and absolutely love this program.
They have learned so much and I keep referring people to using their site just because of how much our kids have absorbed just in the 3 months of use.
We do supplement ABC Mouse for social studies and science as they dont offer this for kindergarten and the science in the 1st grade curriculum is all in celcius and metric so we opted to not go with that section on time4learning.
If you can get past the technical glitches the site is well worth the investment.
Cons: Lots of glitches using this on an Ipad. Some minor issues on the Laptop
Grades Used: 2nd Grade
Content is basic, it is fun for kids, lots of issues using it on an Ipad (lots of glitches and hard to use on Ipads, some minor issues on Laptops), some mispellings/mistakes. If you do not have spare laptops and only have Ipads, please do not use this program as it is not going to work and it will result in a lot of time wasted.
When selecting a grade please make sure to ask for confirmation if the subject conforms to State standards.
Our Social Studies curriculum didn't conform with State standards so we got material from another source. The activities are still fun to do and there were only 4 chapters so it is good practice.
The program is good as a basic guideline but I would not suggest using it as the sole curriculum for homeschooling. Pricing is accessible but in the end it is about functionality and what you can get from it. As it becomes more difficult to use, this program would not be useful even if it is free.
For 2nd graders, this is a fun program since it has good graphics. There is a playground section but it is not fun to use as it is not optimized for using on Ipads either.
Cons: Some instructions could be more clear
Grades Used: 5&7
We started using this program to ensure our children are getting an education through the pandemic. Time for learning has made our transition really easy. My oldest daughter is in 7th grade and at first I signed her up for physical science...it wasn't for her. Changing her classes wasn't a hassle online and I was able to do it in 5 min. My children are pushing themselves to do better and have told me they really like being homeschooled. Such a great experience so far!