I have to admit that I struggled a bit with T4L at first.  Getting started was very easy.  Signing up….a breeze.  Teaching each child to log-on gave them a true feeling of independence.

Choosing the levels for each child was easy, yet a tad weird since I have a child in need of access to both the lower and upper levels.

My boys automatically wanted to follow the guiding arrow.  Such a great idea!  I was disappointed that I could not move the arrow when skipping or rearranging the activities to fit our other studies.  It would be great to have more control of this handy tool.  The boys could be truly self-starting if they could just follow that arrow.

Setting up a schedule was a struggle.  I really needed more guidance with the lesson plans.  Wondering if my daily plan was lacking or too much, I searched the parent forum for advice.  That left me just as confused.  No one seemed to know what equaled one lesson: a bubble, an icon,  __ number of activities??  

The new, improved lesson plans are very nice!  However, I still believe a sample lesson plan each for full homeschooling, supplementing, and after-schooling would be really helpful for the beginning user.

After a very short time with the program, we have totally embraced T4L, making all of these issues seem pretty trivial in light of what we’ve gained.

I’ve been thinking a lot over the past year about the concept of unschooling.

I know that unschooling means different things to different people.  To me it simply means self-directed education.

Even though I am quick to link myself to the unit study approach, I believe I’m an unschooler at heart.  I try my best to supply the resources for my children, but I give them a choice in the matter.

This is why we do not always have a unit study going.  Sometimes we’re busy learning about Stan Lee or Japanese anime’, or graphic arts. 

Time 4 Learning has beome a great tool in our unschooling toolbox.  It’s so easy to use and it’s so fun!

Hi, I’m Lisa! 

My husband, Tim and I have been married for 21 years and have five children.  We currently homeschool four of them.   They are 17g(next week), 13b, 10b, 6b and 2b years old.  

We are closing in on the end of our 10th year of homeschooling. The years have flown by!   It has been hard, easy, scary, fun, challenging, but always….real.

We chose to home educate mainly for Biblical reasons in the beginning.  Being Christians, we wanted to add Godly principles to our children’s education.

After a short while, we realized we were also dealing with dyslexia and dysgraphia in our oldest child.  So, our story and our reasoning changed a bit-still Christian, but more. 

Now our homeschool also covers a language/developmentally delayed fantasy/sci-fi fan , one “easy breezy” artistic child, a very bright, possibly ADHD computer freak and the baby-our medical miracle heart baby!  Whew….

Our 6 year old is currently using T4L and is doing great!  We hope to add our 1o year old soon and then our 13 year old will squeak in before he gets too old.  Oh, how I wish I had T4L back in 1998….

That’s our story.  I hope to get to know you all and chat about all those things that make us who we are; so different and yet, so very similar…

The web-home-school blog started a few months back so that  Time4Learning could get access to more detailed information on how Time4Learning gets used by it’s members.  While we have daily feedback on the forum and from phone calls and emails, we don’t get much insight into how Time4Learning fits into the overall education and daily routine of our members.  We started this blog and have invited a few members to write into it to give us more detailed information.

I am recruiting a few of members who are interested in writing about their Time4Learning experience in general and to answer any specific questions that we post.   If you are a Time4Learning member and wish to participate please contact me (I’m Jen at Time4Learning) for details.

Are you new to the homeschool world? Have a child with Aspergers, Autism, ADHD? How about using this as an afterschool program? Does it replace the need for a tutor? Or maybe you homeschool all five of your children. How do you do it? We are particularly interested in learning the specifics of different situations such as multi-children families, families with gifted children or children with special learning issues, how Time4Learning is used with other programs such as A Beka, Saxon, or K12, how Christian homeschooling families use Time4Learning,  how unschoolers use Time4Learning, or how Classical Homeschoolers use Time4Learning.

Homeschooling as a Christian can be a difficult choice. Finding quality curriculum that matches up with your belief system can be near impossible. I read an article by a Christian homeschooler that really says it well. I’ve pasted my favorite part below:

“You will be extremely happy to know that you have nothing in common with me. You glide along through life like a leaf down a crystal stream. You tend to steer in the direction everyone else is steering, and the road ahead of you is well lit and mapped out. Your children have been welcomed with open arms by everyone they’ve met, and your home is a bastion of peace, harmony, and good will. Best of all, your homeschooling experience has been the most rewarding and inspiring era of your life, and you’ve never doubted your calling for even a moment. See? I told you that you have nothing in common with me.”

She may be writing a bit tongue in cheek but I certainly relate to her leaf hitting every wet rock on the way down the stream. I probably wouldn’t appreciate the ride without a few bumps though.

Does your leaf keep sticking to the wet rocks too?