Ok, true confession time. 
I don’t use the lesson plans. I just don’t get it. I printed a whole bunch out, started highlighting lessons completed and just fizzled out. I don’t see the point. Since my husband’s injury, I am hardly able to even print off records, so maybe it isn’t all my fault, but I still don’t think I would have kept up w/ printing off all those plans for 5 kids!
This next confession probably means I am a bad homeschool mom, a bad t4l homeschool mom! I don’t use the playground! Which is ironic because it is something that drew me to the program. The games are great and the kids loved the idea of it.
But I dropped that thing like a hot potato pretty quickly after we started.
The timer for the lessons was a distraction. Maybe if it let you go to the playground after so many lessons, it would have worked better for us? So I set the timer to zero and they could have playground time after their lessons. However, letting all 5 kids do lessons and playground time was hard. 15 min of playground time wasn’t enough(according to the kids) so we tried 30 min and that was too long.
They do sometimes do the playground after everyone is finished for the day.
I wonder if you can still do the playground when your account is on hold?
It’s something I would like to work on(letting them have their playground time), but sometimes you just have to get it done!
Jennifer
May 20, 2008 | 8:33 pm1
Someone totally blessed me by explaining to me that I could set my printer to “grayscale” or “fast printing’. It prints it out a little lighter, you can hardly tell. I like to use it for worksheets and things that dont’ really matter…
I am very tickled to see John comment on my post.
I am actually surprised to hear that most parents don’t use the login and view the reports. I love to see what “grade” my kids get and see if they are mastering/passing the lessons.
I have viewed some threads about lesson planning and most parents,at least in my understanding, use them as record keeping. As in, they mark the lessons completed. But I am not saying that I fully understand. lol So I could be wrong. I cannot imagine using the plans to mark them on the calendar…
Angie
May 13, 2008 | 1:18 am2
I don’t use the lesson plans or the playground, either! I don’t see the need for the lesson plans when you can just click on each section and do it that way. I rarely print out anything from T4L because I feel the lessons are complete enough on their own. And, I am picky about what I use my ink on! If he’s doing something online, why do a printout as well? The playground? I don’t have something (don’t know if it’s activeX or what) that I need to have to be on a lot of those game sites, so a lot of them don’t work. And the ones that do work, I’d already found and we use without having to be logged onto T4L, and he goes on them when he can and wants to. So, you’re not alone!
john edelson
May 12, 2008 | 1:03 pm3
Jennifer - I’ve been reading your stuff. I like it. Thanks. FYI. Very few parents, probably just 10%, ever login and look at the reports. Probably a larger percent, maybe 20%, use the lesson plans. Mostly, there’s no reason to since the programming is self-running. Some parents use it for planning and put each lesson on a calender. Others seem to use it coordinate different lesson plans. I’m wondering if this question “How do you use the lesson plans” might be good one for our parents forum.
Lisa
May 7, 2008 | 10:39 am4
Okay, I’ll confess along with you! LOL
I don’t use the lesson plans or the playground, either!
I did both at first, but soon dropped the paperwork and the playground.
For us, I find that just going through the lessons works. Even if we jump around, it is so easy to just click into a lesson and out to see where we need to be.
I love the playground and we used it a lot in the beginning. I really think it’s an issue of time and using one computer for the entire household-not just T4L.
However, both of these are great additions to the program. I have no doubt that we will use them again in the future.