We all want a homeschool curriculum that helps our children learn. Each homeschooling family defines educational success in its own way. Most would say teaching to their child’s learning style is key. For my family, an excellent educational foundation in reading, writing,  and arithmetic is essential.

There are the visual learners (pictures, what they see), the auditory (listening, talking) learners, and the kinesthetic (physical, hands on) learners. Most of our kids don’t learn solely via one learning style. Many learn from a combination of two, or maybe even all three learning styles. Homeschool curriculum is expensive and most of us don’t have a ton of money to spend on it; buying a homeschool program like a “school in a box” curriculum for a certain grade level and finding out it doesn’t work is a major disappointment and a huge financial loss.

Interactive homeschool curriculum is one that many kids take to quickly, and it has elements in it that teach to all three learning styles; it fits in with the interactive games today’s kids play and is part of learning in the 21st century. My son, David, has benefited greatly from an online homeschool curriculum; it brought the visual, auditory, and kinesthetic learning methods under one umbrella which is perfect for him, since he learns all three ways.

Even better, you can usually get a trial period for these curricula; if it doesn’t work out for your child, you’re under no obligation. That’s good news during these economic times.

It didn’t take me long to get used to the idea of online homeschooling, because I began teaching my son at home via a home-based virtual public school that used online resources. They recommended that younger children do about fifteen to twenty percent of their work on the computer. I only used this home-based school for about six weeks, because I saw their curriculum wasn’t working for my son.

After this, I tried a labor intensive free curriculum that required me to print lots of books, keep lots of records, and spend lots of time preparing lessons. I did this for awhile, and for all my effort, I received an emphatic “boring” from my then 6-year-old son. So, I continued to search for an affordable curriculum. Homeschooling was becoming pure drudgery, and each day, I pieced together school work for my son, as I continued to search for excellent, affordable homeschool materials. I finally happened upon an online homeschooling curriculum that sounded too good to be true. I tried it out before I ever allowed my precocious 6-year-old to try it, and after reviewing a few Language Arts and Math lessons, I knew he would love it. I was right, and three and a half years later, he’s still loving it.

Online homeschooling resources can be helpful to your child and to you too. If your child is a visual, auditory, or kinesthetic learner, the online interactive lessons will keep her engaged. The online homeschool resources will help you too, because as your child matures, she will do her lessons independently, while you tend to your younger children or get things done around the house.

Once you begin using the online homeschooling materials, you won’t abandon your books, your unit studies, your hands-on projects, or your field trips; online resources will only be part of your home school, and your child will look forward to the lessons. You can even use those lessons to reward him for doing well with his other homeschool work.

You may have toyed with the idea of homeschool online but thought better of it, because you felt like the computer would be teaching your child instead of you. However, most homeschoolers use online homeschooling in combination with more traditional methods.

Homeschooling is all about freedom of educational choice and options. If online homeschooling materials work for your child, then don’t be afraid to use them. You may be a homeschooling mom who works from home and need some free time to check emails, answer phones, or search the internet. Online homeschooling materials will free you to do those things during the day and will also free your child to learn independent study and work skills.

My strong recommendation for those homeschooling and using the web is to check out the following.

 Time4Learning’s web-based online curriculum.  They have great interactive lessons for middle school, elementary school, and even preschool.  It’s highly interactive and full of animation and multimedia. Whereas some curriculum are just lots of text with an occassional video or animation, Time4Learning is an interactive experience.  All those tough math concepts seem simple when they’re explained in such alight-hearted manner.  Who says fractions has to be hard? Their great multimedia lays it out so simply.  Give it a try.  Time4Learning is a great homeschool partner. They let you sign up month to month and start and quit at any time. Start by looking at their lesson demos.
 

 Number 2 choice – Time4Writing.  If you are like me, you find some subjects hard to teach.  One of the hardest is writing skills, especially when the kids get into middle and high school.  Expectations are so high. And my kids just don’t react well to my correcting their writing. Want help?  This isn’t a “how to”, it’s an online tutoring course where they work directly with your student teaching writing skills every week and giving one-on-one feedback.  You get the same tutor for the whole eight week course which the kids really like. It’s definitely worth taking Time4Writing’s writing classes. They have sentence writing, paragraph writing, essay writing (these are for writing tests and college essays), and research paper writing.
 
 
Number 3 choice – Fun Building Vocabulary. This is not really a curriculum choice but a fun collection of vocabulary games. Vocabulary is Fun is a leading vocabulary website worldwide with the best flash online word games.  The vocabulary games include an online word search, an online crossword puzzle, and hangman online (their version is called HangMouse).  Users choose the vocabulary list that the online word game will use in the word game. So have some Fun Building Vocabulary.  
 
 
Number 4 Choice – Spelling City. This spelling program should be used by everyone. I would have put it first but I’m not a huge believer in the importance of spelling skills.  Despite that, now that I’m using this site, I’ve returned to having spelling as part of our weekly routine.  You know what’s really cool, check out how the vocabulary site’s science songs have put their vocabulary/spellinglist on SpellingCity.
 
 
Number 5 choice – This learning games website is really what it sounds like.  But they have the best collections.  For instance, they have keyboarding games, memory games,  science songs (also integrated with vocabulary lists), and math learning games.

I haven’t posted anything for awhile! We’ve been doing a lot of hands-on activities and little field trips here and there, so I haven’t been on the computer too much. It was really nice, because Tim hadn’t been on T4L for about two weeks, and we hadn’t really done a lot of ‘school’ work, which includes reading. He went on today, and one of the sections he did on language arts was where he had to read a story. I wasn’t sure if he’d be able to, usually is memory doesn’t hold anything unless we hammer it EVERY day. But he was able to read along and only needed a little help! It feels so good to see his accomplishments, the little ways in which he’s progressed, and see him really enjoy learning!

I honestly could not ever see sending him to school, and missing out on all of this! I’m very selfish in that area, I want to watch every step of his development and have a part in his reaching his milestones. It would really be depressing for me for him to bring something home that he did, and know that someone else taught him to do it and not me! The day will come soon enough where he will go out into the world and I won’t be as big a part of his life, but I’m not going to allow that to come any sooner by sending him to school now. Somedays, it is VERY tempting, but when I wake up the next morning I’m ready to do it all over again.

I just realized today that it’s been quite awhile since any of the activities have frozen up on us, warranting going back through them. Has anyone else noticed this? I’m wondering if whatever was causing it, has been fixed.  Oh! I came up with an idea for using the social studies that is too advanced for Tim! I couldn’t stand the idea of just using T4L for the language arts and math, it seemed like such a waste of what is offered. So, I go on the social studies, read it myself, and make a lesson on it breaking it down where he can understand it. Then, it gives me a point of reference to look up other sites that gears it down a little more to his level.

What do you all do when a child has gone beyond what T4L has for their level? Tim is almost done with 2nd grade science, and he finished 2nd grade social studies a few months ago. Third grade social studies was just out of league, it wasn’t interactive enough to hold his attention, and I’m pretty sure science would probably be the same way. The LA extensions aren’t really helpful, either. They need a science extensions!
The LA extensions is good for the first section of it, but after that it loses his attention too much. We use other sites as well, so I’m not worried about his not getting the material he needs, but after today he’s only going to be on T4L for language arts and math. Now, Josh is just getting started with T4L, so I’ll still be using it for him. But, only the math and language arts, again, because the science is too hard for a preschooler.