I really didn’t have too many problems with T4L. The hardest part for me has been that I can only get it to work in troubleshooting mode, and that’s a hassle, and I have to turn off my security to access the site at all. I DON’T like that part. But so far, that’s the only thing I had to get help with. I like that I have choices in how to access each subject and lesson, and that I’m able to cover a wide range of grade levels on each subject. 

Has anyone else had problems with the lessons, where it’ll go all the way to the end, and it tells you to click on ‘go forward’, and it won’t let you? He’ll click on it, but it just keeps telling him to click on it, but he is! Often, the only way we can get out of the screen is to go back to the beginning, then the work he’s just done has to be done all over again. He hates repetition, so I go through and answer it for him again instead of making him do it all over. It’s frustrating, and I don’t know why it does this. It’s not all the time, but often enough to be a pain.

This week Tim’s learning about fractions, but really it’s just review. We covered these before Christmas break and he understood them, but I wasn’t using T4L yet. This site is great for those of us that write our own curriculum, because it neatly ties it all in together. I put him on the Equal/Not Equal section and turned to help my friend’s son with his workbook, and next thing I know Tim’s telling me he’s ready for the quiz! He’s doing more and more on his own now, and that is SUCH a boost to his self-confidence. Up until recently, he’s wanted me right next to him in case he needed help.

I first came across T4L one year ago, when Tim was 4. We were only a year into knowing that he had autism, and still had some serious problems at that time. I found out about T4L from other parents on a special needs homeschooling group,and decided to try it. He liked the site, but I just couldn’t afford it, to be honest. Not that it’s expensive, but when you don’t have money, even $5 is too much. It really wasn’t helping him at that time, either. He was really struggling with letter recognition at that time, and I was trying to find anything to help, but nothing was. So, I quit, reluctantly. I LOVED the graphics, and how well everything was explained. But, it’s not exactly ‘preschool’ level, and that’s where he was then.

We started kindergarten on August 6th, but I still didn’t have the money to add another monthly bill, so I still didn’t sign up. About two months ago I tried another free trial, and he was finally ready to handle it. He’s all over the place in terms of what grade he’s working on, but it’s so helpful in explaining things to him. So, it looks like we’re staying with it now. I like knowing that I have something else to add to our every day curriculum that helps cement things I’m trying to teach him. He’s breezing through the phonics, not even needing my help, and I just love seeing that.

I never bothered to research them. The way I think and act is that I put more emphasis on what parents are actually using and liking rather than what reports say, so as long as something has been referred to me by people I trust, that’s good enough for me. I trusted my own instincts to know if this was going to be right for MY kids, and it is! The only problem I do have, is that from 3rd grade on, it’s not as animated and isn’t as interesting. For a lot of kids on the autism spectrum, this can cause them to lose interest, I’ve seen this happen with my neighbor’s son. At the very least, I wish there was some way of having the text read to him without having to download the parrot that’ll do it. It would be nice if there was a simple button that parents could click on that would read what is there. My son’s reading level is nowhere near as high as his comprehension, so this leaves me doing A LOT of reading to him, not just on T4L but with anything else we’re using. But, that’s only a minor problem compared to the many benefits they receive. There is nothing more exciting than to have your kids begging to ‘play their school games’!

It felt SO GOOD to get back into school this week! Even though Tim gave me a really hard time for giving him a break, it was obvious today he needed it. He did SO WELL today. I found a book at the 99 cent store that introduces word problems for math, and he did a page in that. I am horrible with these and always was, so I want to introduce it early to him. He got it, it was just simple pictures where they showed four cats, showed two walking away, and he had to write how many was left.

For science, I am so excited this week! We are learning about birds, and we’re going to be doing a lot of observations. We started today by just looking at the different types of birds we see, and trying to identify them online. I had him try to tell me how many different birds he heard, and whether he thought they sounded angry or happy. I had read a book to him about why birds sing, too. Tomorrow, he’s going to gather things in the yard and try to make his own bird nest, the lesson being on how awesome it is that birds can do this without any hands.  We are also learning about California, and in the process, he’s learning a little about researching online, and copying and pasting to make worksheets.

On T4L, he learned today how to count by two’s and five’s. I don’t believe I could have explained this to him in a way he would have understood it, but he really got it by using T4L. I was really impressed! The two’s were easier for him than the five’s, until I showed him the relationship between the numbers when going by fives, that the last number alternates between 5 and 0. Then, that was easier for him if he’s looking at a number line.

We took our spring break this week instead of next, so we could focus on Easter crafts and learning about Easter. Taking breaks with an autistic child is usually harder than if we just don’t take them, because change is something that usually isn’t tolerated well. I proved myself right again, by Tuesday Tim was making life REALLY hard. He just wasn’t coping with the change in routine, and was getting into so much trouble. So I had to revise my ‘break’ by having him use Time4Learning and we watched some educational videos online, just so he felt like he was on some kind of a schedule. This is why I love T4L, because he’s learning but doesn’t realize it! It’s just fun to him.

Before we joined T4L he wasn’t getting as much of the visual learning that he needed, it was mostly my reading from sites or books that we found on our topics. I do use brainpop and that is visual, but there’s not a big selection on movies for his grade, so it was still lacking. Using a site that is so visual and interactive REALLY helps him connect with what he’s learning, and that is crucial with a visual learner. I never would have expected him to be so far ahead in grade levels as he is since we started using T4L. I’m seeing that it’s helping make connections in other areas, too, as if the visual stimulation is getting him thinking about other things, too. The other day he asked me if Z-O-O spelled zoo, and I said it did, but asked him how he knew that. He had seen it on something two days before, it was on a sign above a zoo on some show, and he put the pieces together that it spelled zoo. But the amazing thing is, he retained it. That’s been his toughest area, is retaining what he’s learned, and he’s making so much progress now in that area.

Until very recently, I had no idea that gifted and autism could go together, but I’m learning real quickly that they can! Tim is very scattered in his abilities, but mostly ahead of his peers. I know a lot of this is due to the therapy I’ve given him myself over the last two years, he’s passed so many milestones that I didn’t think were possible when he was three and moderately autistic. But, he just has amazed me since starting kindergarten in August.

This week he has been working on 1st grade math on T4L, and he’s working on place values. I wasn’t even going to touch this yet, I thought it would be too confusing for him and the last thing I wanted to do was confuse him! But, I’m a little bit OCD when it comes to him having to move from one lesson into the other and not skip around, so I had him do it just to experience it. Once again, he just blew me away! He understood what it was about, without any help from me. And, this is the funny part. The whole ‘place value’ thing never really made sense to me, and just seemed to be more confusing than just flat out counting. But, I understand it now myself, and why it makes sense to look at numbers that way! Ha! That’s what I love about homeschooling, is if we don’t understand something we get to learn it right along with them, and it just really helps our bond as he sees that you never stop learning, and there’s nothing wrong with admitting that you don’t know something. It builds his confidence, which is a big issue with him.

I babysit an 8 yr old that I help homeschool after his mom goes to work, and he uses T4L as well. He has Asperger’s, and is behind academically. T4L has really helped him connect to what we’re trying to teach him in ways that are just wonderful to see. He’s JUST understanding multiplication, and the online school he’s using is expecting him to start in division, which is crazy to me. I’ve been working with him this week on memorizing his times tables, we’re working on his threes. She had an especially hard time with him yesterday, he just wasn’t understanding what he was supposed to do, and was frustrated. I reminded her to check on T4L to see if there was a lesson on it, which of course, there was. He did the lessons, and that helped a lot, but still didn’t quite sink in. He came over here and I showed him the relationship between the numbers when you multiply and when you divide, and he got it! I truly did not feel he was ready for this, but T4L really helped pave the way for him to be receptive to what I showed him. He’s still going to work on memorizing his times tables, but while using a multiplication chart in the meantime, he can now do the work his school is wanting him to do and not fall further behind.