I was very frustrated when I first started t4l. As you may recall, my plan to do Sonlight for all of my children, plus the neighbor quickly soured.

So I was really seeking (immediate!)support and relief when I signed up for t4l. Thank GOODNESS someone on the forums mentioned that it takes about 2 weeks to feel comfortable.

I wanted to just give up and quit so many times while I was adjusting educational levels, figuring out how to exit the lesson correctly so that the lesson gets marked completed,etc.

I am so glad I stayed. Even though, I am still pretty far from “stress free”, using t4l is a huge improvement. Even if a lesson is hard one day, it does get easier.And because of the excellent explanations, I have learned to be a better teacher when I supplement t4l w/ something else.

As I go along, I realize that every lesson doesn’t have to be completed, that every question doesn’t have to have the “perfect” answer typed out.

We all have some sort of bump, don’t we?

We have to deal with a lot of medical-type interruptions in our house.

Our youngest is a CHD Warrior!  Eli was born with complex congenital heart disease.  He has a very rare defect, along with three very common heart defects.  We found out during the pregnancy and were encouraged to terminate the pregnancy-that week!    

We immediately chose life and had to re-plan our delivery hospital, OB, and even the pediatrician we planned to use.  We expected Eli to have surgery a couple of days after birth, then another at about 6 months, another possibly at a year or so.

Eli is 2 years, 4 months old and has not had any surgeries yet!   However, we are looking at a possible surgery later this spring/summer.  He is truly a miracle…..

He has many, many doctor appointments….in two other cities.  So, we attempt to work around them.  

I was sincerely concerned about my first grader’s schooling.  I felt he was getting lost in the shuffle.  Not anymore, thanks to T4L.

By the way, Eli is our second heart kid.  We lost our oldest son after heart surgery in 1993.  

I believe I first came across t4l a few years ago on the internet. At some point, we tried the demos, but my learning disabled(LD) son was so easily frustrated then, he didn’t like them.When I first saw it, I was deterred by the cost. T4l is reasonably priced, but it seemed like too much since I have 4 children.

As the kids get older(one is finishing 7th grade), and as we have discovered some special needs, we figured a raise in the school budget was warranted. It is worth it for our family( and everyone’s situation is different :) )to invest in whatever we need to school our children. At this point in my life, I do not have the time, energy and everything else that is necessary to seek out freebies on the internet, make frequent trips to the library,etc. And in the end, it is cheaper than private school.

It was very hard getting started w/ t4l. Thank goodness, I visited the forums frequently and already knew it would take about 2 weeks to feel comfortable. I would get discouraged and want to give up, but I kept going.

And now, I could do commercials for t4l!

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!

Wednesday I had my 3rd grader and 4th grader work from their Sonlight language arts and then do the other subjects on t4l. The newly revamped Sonlight LA program focuses on being a good writer. My special needs son prefers t4l learning LA because he doesn’t have to come up w/ the answer on his own, he gets to choose the answer. And he doesn’t have to write! He feels the same way about math!

I would like to have them do some Sonlight LA more regularly, but I love though that if things get hectic, I can depend again on t4l LA.

Also, I signed up for a free month of Pokemon learning league for my neighbor’s grandson(age 11, almost 12). My kids never watched the show, but this kid loves it. Everyday I let him do one lesson of t4l and then the other subjects on the Pokemon site. Anything to help the medicine go down, I say. He has some learning differences, too. I just love hearing the Pokemon characters teach what he has already been taught on t4l w/ a “Pokemon” spin to it. I hope it really reinforces the lessons for him.

My daughter who is a first grader is doing awesome. I tended to let her just listen in to lessons as she wanted to, many times skipping activities I had planned just for her. Sometimes she would just play in her room or maybe watch a movie or play on the computer while I tended to the other kids. Now she gets on t4l and does the most lessons and the most subjects of all my kids!  We were all telling my husband Wednesday night what a hard worker she is. I am so glad; and she is very proud of herself.