In May, I was offered the opportunity of trying out K5 Learning for a 6-week trial period. Now that our trial has concluded, I get to tell you my opinion.
K5 Learning is an online program designed to help kids with math, spelling, and reading. While it can be used after school or during the summer for kids who need extra practice, homeschoolers can benefit from this fun program as well.
I tried K5 Learning with my daughters, who are 6 and 9 (just finishing Kindergarten and 4th grade). To begin the process, we asked for and received placement tests. My older daughter took the one for math, and my youngest did the tests for both reading and math. While my oldest tested out at her grade level, she was a bit low on geometry; therefore, that’s where they started her math lessons.
Her opinion on the geometry lessons? She loved them so much that she begged to do extra lessons. In addition to the brilliant graphics, animation, and sound effects, the lessons are actually fun. To my daughter, each lesson was like playing a game. I observed that the instruction was very thorough and easy to understand. The site is very kid-friendly, by the way. Both my daughters were easily able to navigate it independently.
My youngest tested out within the early 1st grade level for both reading and math. She also begged constantly to do lessons on this program. They began her on the levels she tested for, but she quickly picked up the lessons and seemed to understand what she was doing. I heard her laughing a lot, so I’m pretty sure she had fun while learning.
Both girls also used the math facts section. They enjoyed making a character that shows up each time they do the math practice. They were able to choose hair, eyes, nose, mouth, clothing, and accessories. That was probably their favorite part! The math facts include addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. You can choose what facts your child needs practice in, and a chart at the end shows his or her progress. After completing a set of math facts and seeing their progress chart, children are allowed to choose a game from the game arcade.
Although the lessons were a lot like playing games for my children, I will emphasize that they DID learn. The program is an award-winning curricula.
We didn’t use the spelling program, but I played around with it a little. The spelling includes spelling by hearing the word and also spelling by learning vocabulary. With the vocabulary, you are given a clue and a sentence with a blank. In many cases, two clues are given if the word has more than one definition. While both were great, I do have one issue with the spelling by hearing section. The voices for each word are different, which is fine, but a few of the voices are very difficult to understand.
You can open up accounts for more than one student, each with his or her own user name and password. The parent has a separate user name and password to access the parent section. One key benefit of this program is that it tracks your child’s progress and provides reports for parents to view. Parents can also make their own assignments by choosing from any lesson, although the program itself can give your child assignments based on the assessment.
If you’d like to read more about K5 Learning, go to this link for an overview of the program: K5Learning. Here’s a link to a video tour of the program: K5 Intro Video. Better yet, you can sign up for a free 14-day trial! The website also has links to free sample lessons and thousands of free worksheets. Even if you can’t pay to use the program, the free worksheets are worth a visit to the K5 Learning site.
The only downside of this program for me is the price. You pay a subscription of $25/month or $199/year with discounts for extra children. While the program may be worth the cost, not everyone will be able to afford it. I certainly can’t. If money is not an issue for you, and your child needs a math and reading program for homeschool or just extra practice in those subjects, then I highly recommend K5Learning.
Disclaimer: I was allowed to try out this program for 6 weeks, free of charge, in return for my honest review. All opinions are my own.
I've never been asked to try out and review a program before, so this is a first for me. After receiving this invitation, I tried out a few sample games on the K5 Learning website, and my girls really enjoyed them, so I thought I'd give it a go.
Here's the announcement, and stay tuned for my future review!
K5 Learning has an online reading and math program for kindergarten to grade 5 students. I've been given a 6 week free trial to test and write a review of their program. If you are a blogger, you may want to check out their open invitation to write an online learning review of their program.
By unofficial review, I mean that I was NOT asked to review the product and I have NOT received ANYTHING AT ALL for reviewing it. I am simply reviewing a product because I LIKE IT and want to tell everyone about it! : ) All reviews contain my honest opinions of products I have actually used. For more details on my “unofficial reviews” clickHERE.
I haven’t written one of my unofficial reviews in a long time! Today I’m reviewing the program All About Spelling (AAS). One reason I chose it is because we’re on our third year using AAS, and we still love it!
I first read a review of AAS at Homeschool Creations. I was looking for a new spelling program because my son hated the one we were using. I was so impressed by what I read on that review and others, as well as on the All About Learning Press website, that I ordered the first two books. I began both of my older children (grades 1 and 4 at the time) in Level 1 because each level builds on the one before, and Level 1 contains the basics you need to know for the other levels. My son did progress fairly quickly through the first few books. He’s most of the way through Level 4 at the moment.
Level 4 materials:
There are several things I love about AAS. One is that it is hands-on. They supply you with magnetic phonogram tiles, syllable tiles, flashcards, and other helpful cards and booklets. Also, it is very easy to teach. Everything is laid out in an easy-to-follow way, and it doesn’t require any planning.
This is our spelling board:
(I’m not sure I have the tiles set up the right way, but it works for now. I got this magnetic board at IKEA, and I like it better hanging horizontally, but space prevented that.)
Another thing I like about AAS is that the method makes sense. The program is based on the Orton-Gillingham approach, which was designed for people with dyslexia; however, it is an approach that anyone can use (my children are not dyslexic). In Level 1, you learn the basic sounds/phonograms you need to do the whole program, though you do add harder phonograms as you progress. You also learn about syllables and syllable types in Level 1. This is very helpful in understanding the various rules that are learned later. I never have seen a spelling program that is so thorough and yet so simple to understand. The hands-on aspect brings a bit of fun to spelling, and my kids honestly enjoy their spelling lessons.
Let me add another plus. I’m convinced this spelling program helps with reading as well. In fact, All About Learning Press also has a reading program (All About Reading) that is designed to be used along with the spelling program. If I had to do it over again, I probably would have used their reading program; however, I have one I already have used with success, so I don’t see the point in spending money when I don’t really have to. Even without using their reading program, the spelling rules my daughter has learned have helped a lot in her reading skills.
All About Learning Press is determined that every child learn to read and spell well. For those who wish, the company sends out email newsletters with lots of helpful advice, and they have a blog, forum, and helpful articles on their website. They offer lifetime support and a 100% money-back guarantee. Those are all good things!
My only tiny concern is the levels. While each level may not necessarily correspond to an actual grade level (we go at our own pace—as we finish one book, we go right to the next, no matter what grade they’re in). As far as I can tell, the words in some of the higher levels (4-6) seem a lot easier than spelling words in public school grades 4-6. However, I often wonder if that’s why so many people still have trouble with spelling today—maybe it’s too rushed. I would much rather my children get the basic rules down at an easily-learned rate than to learn all the hard words for a test, only to forget them later and never understand the basic spelling rules.
The only other thing I can think of that might turn some people off is that it can’t really be done independently by the student. The parent/teacher must be involved the whole way through—each day. This is not a problem for me personally; in fact, I think it’s a good thing.
I recently read some comments on facebook comparing AAS to the spelling program we had used before. In that family, the son hated AAS and loved the one my son hated (the mother loved both programs). Hey, every child is different. AAS may not be the program for your family. We love it, though!
I am perfectly satisfied with this program and the way my children are retaining what they’ve learned. They don’t complain about spelling, and I have seen much improvement in their daily writing. I would highly recommend this program to anyone.
This has probably been one of my favorite curriculum “finds” of the year! If you followed my blog last school year, you’ll know we’ve done several lapbooks. I still love lapbooks, but I think after a year and a half of doing them, we were a bit tired of them. While reading another blog (if I happen to ever remember which one, I’ll tell you), I saw that this blogger’s family was going to be using History Pockets (Evan-Moor) to supplement their history curriculum. Out of curiosity, I looked it up and immediately liked what I saw. I didn’t order just one to supplement our American History…I ordered five!
After starting American History, we eventually got to a discussion of Colonial America. Enter our first History Pockets, the one on Colonial America of course. Each book includes several units of study for that topic. Each unit contains information and projects, usually enough to last a week. This one History Pockets book took us several weeks to finish. Because of this, we are NOT going to finish my American History plan this year! However, I don’t really care because Isaac is learning about each time period in more detail, and he’s enjoying it. Yes, he really likes History Pockets!
This is his completed “book” of pockets:
For American History this year, my main curriculum is The Light and the Glory for Children series, which is a set of 3 books covering American History up TO the Civil War. The history is told in a story format, rather than a textbook format. I supplement that with good historical fiction and some interesting nonfiction (such as the …If You series). I also have Isaac watch some Animated Hero Classics DVDs. We have the ones on Christopher Columbus, William Bradford, Pocohontas, Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, Harriet Tubman, and Abraham Lincoln. History Pockets, however, has taken up most of our time. They’re so good, though, that I’ve decided just to follow my planned schedule as far as I can (I only allowed 1-2 weeks for each History Pockets book, which is crazy. It takes more like 1-2 months per book) and then continue next year. We probably will not reach the Civil War this year, but so far Isaac has spent a lot of time learning about Colonial America. I mean he’s learned a LOT, not just a brief mention of that time period. The readings and the projects together have made history so much fun this year, so I’m not going to feel pressured to try to get to a particular point in history this year. We’re just going to enjoy it as we go…as far as we go.
I’ve always liked the idea of hands-on learning, especially for History. I mean, you could make American History come alive by making costumes, making your own real handicrafts like they did in those days, visiting actual historical locations. I’ve seen pictures of homeschoolers doing those sorts of things, and I think that is awesome for them. However, my family doesn’t have the money for those types of real-life projects, and we don’t live in America at the moment and couldn’t afford to travel to those places if we did. So for us, History Pockets is the next best thing. All you need is lots of construction paper (including 12x18 size), a copy machine, a stapler, a hole punch, and yarn. If you and your child like hands-on history without requiring a lot of money, materials and time, then I highly recommend History Pockets.
Here are some of Isaac’s finished pockets:
And here are a few individual projects that are stored in the pockets:
History Pockets has titles for Grades 1-3 and different ones for Grades 4-6. Most of ours are in the Grades 4-6 range, although I chose to get one on Native Americans, which is for Grades 1-3. They also have several books on Ancient History, one on the Pilgrims (which I didn’t get because they’re covered in the Colonial America book), and one on Explorers of North America.
I think these books also could be used for lapbooks or notebooks if you preferred to do that. We didn’t do every project in the book, and we didn’t always follow directions exactly, but we had great fun and used nearly every part of the book. If you have any questions about History Pockets, feel free to ask me.
As always, this has been an unofficial review. These reviews are neither requested, nor do I receive anything for doing them. I just like to share what we use in our homeschool for the benefit of interested readers.
By unofficial review, I mean that I was NOT asked to review the product and I have NOT received ANYTHING AT ALL for reviewing it. I am simply reviewing a product because I LIKE IT! : )
When my oldest (9-year-old Isaac) started Kindergarten, we used Singapore Math because it was recommended in the program we were using (Little Hearts for His Glory by Heart of Dakota). For 1st-3rd grades I had already purchased the entire Miquon Math set at a yard sale; therefore, I felt obligated to use it (for whatever reason). For reasons I won’t go into here, Miquon Math did not prove to be a good fit for us (although I still love the Cuisenaire Rods). We persevered until half-way through 3rd grade before I realized my son despised math and was not progressing very well in it…well, realized it enough to know we had to make a change.
I did my research and read lots of reviews on programs such as Singapore Math, Math-U-See, and Saxon Math. I was on the verge of trying out Singapore Math again, even though Isaac had not done well on the diagnostic tests they have on their website, when I read a review of Teaching Textbooks at Homeschool Creations. Jolanthe’s description sounded like the perfect fit for Isaac. The only downside was the price. After much consideration of the costs of other popular math programs and the need that Isaac had to improve in math and gain his confidence back, we decided it would be worth the money.
Now that Isaac is halfway through the 4th grade program, I feel I can give you an honest opinion of Teaching Textbooks. So here goes!
Teaching Textbooks is a program on CD-ROM. If you buy the entire kit, it comes with the CD-ROM set (4 disks), a textbook, and an answer key. I read on several reviews that at the 4th grade level, you don’t really need the textbook. Most of the reviewers hadn’t used it at all. The only place I could find that sold the CDs only (at, of course, a lower price) was Christianbook.com, and they were out of stock at the time. Because I needed the program soon, I went ahead and ordered the whole kit from a different company. The other reviewers were right…we really haven’t touched the textbook.
Some reviews I’ve read have made a point to say that Teaching Textbooks is NOT an advanced program or even that it’s NOT up to grade level. I have taught in public schools, and this program seems to be close enough to grade level in my opinion. While it may not be advanced, why should it have to be? If your child does exceptionally well at math and needs an advanced program, you can either get a higher grade level or choose a different program that is advanced. However, for a child who hates math, has no confidence in his or her ability to do math problems, and has struggled to understand math, I feel you certainly do NOT need an advanced program! In fact, an advanced program would only make matters worse. I believe children need to fully understand basic math concepts before they can advance to more difficult concepts. Advanced programs tend to speed quickly through concepts, which is great for children who comprehend math quickly and easily but disastrous for children who don’t. Teaching Textbooks has been a perfect fit for my son, and he’s progressing very well this year, so I’m well-pleased with it! It was so worth the money that I’m going to order the 5th grade level soon.
Another benefit of Teaching Textbooks is that the program does all the teaching. I don’t have to do anything really. The program has a gradebook and automatically figures up the scores. It also has tests and math fact bonus quizzes. After Isaac completes a lesson, he goes to the gradebook so I can see how he did. If he misses any problems, I can go back and see what he did wrong, and he can click on the problem again to have the solution explained. I suppose that I could assign extra work in the textbook if he was struggling with a concept, but so far we haven’t needed to do that.
Teaching Textbooks starts with 3rd grade, so Moriah (my 1st-grader) is using a different program (NOT Miquon). Since she also did Singapore Math in Kindergarten, I decided to continue with that program into 1st-2nd grade. If she does well with it, I’ll keep it for 3rd as well. For Isaac, Teaching Textbooks has been a life-saver.
I’m going to start reviewing some of the materials we use in our homeschool. This is something I’ve wanted to do for a long time just because I enjoy talking about homeschool materials. You might say it’s my favorite topic of discussion. I also enjoy reading what others have to say about different homeschool products. That’s what led to me starting this blog!
By unofficial reviews, I mean that I was NOT asked to review the product and I have NOT received ANYTHING AT ALL for reviewing it. I am simply reviewing a product because I LIKE IT! : ) In fact, the one and only product I’ve reviewed and received anything for was the Accountable Kids program (read my official review HERE). Even then, I was not asked to review it, and I did not receive the product to review. I purchased it, and then I reviewed it in order to receive a rebate on the purchase.
I wish I could be sent products to review, but I don’t for a few reasons. One reason is that I live in England, and most companies I would want to review for are in the US. Not that I have checked into it, but I seriously doubt those companies would ship their products for review to another country—shipping is ridiculously expensive, and then I would have to pay VAT if the item was worth more than a certain amount. Another reason is that I haven’t built up what I feel is a good enough following on my blog to make a company want me for a reviewer. For those reasons I don’t think anyone would accept my application to review products, so I don’t bother with it.
Because I do have products I use and really like, I want to talk about them. In future posts, I plan to review some of the products we use in homeschool simply because I want to share my opinion of them.
The day I receive in the mail a product to review, I will post a new disclosure on my blog to let everyone know that’s what I’m doing and all the details. Fair enough? Good! : )
Accountable Kids is one of best parenting tools I’ve ever run across. I purchased a kit for each of my kids while still in America, though I haven’t started using it with my 3-year-old yet. We’ve been using it for a little over a month now, and we are VERY happy with it.
Accountable Kids is a program that teaches children responsibility. Not only are they responsible to do certain chores each day, but they are also held accountable for their actions. So Accountable Kids can function both as a daily chores system and also a discipline tool. One thing I love about Accountable Kids is that you can customize it to fit your own family’s needs. The book has a lot of suggestions, but you can be creative and come up with your own ideas.
Each child has his or her own board. The boards have 5 pegs for hanging cards on, and you can decorate the boards anyway you like. If you look at the website and some of the reviews, you can get a lot of ideas on how to personalize the boards. I used letter stickers for my kids’ names, and then I let them add a few more stickers to make it more personal. The stickers are easy to peel off, and the kids enjoyed getting to choose from my stash.
There are 4 phases in introducing Accountable Kids to your children. The first phase is the Responsibility Reminder Cards and tickets. Depending on your family preferences, you can select which chores (and how many) you want each child to complete each day. We’ve introduced a certain number of chores based on the ages of our children, and we’ll add a few more as they get used to doing them. There are morning chores, day chores, and evening chores.
Chores can include certain things children should be responsible for anyway, such as brushing their teeth or putting away clothes. You can add in other chores you wish them to complete daily, such as taking out the trash or collecting the mail. The chores are printed on reminder cards, and there are even a few blank ones if you want to add some different ones.
Children can earn one ticket for each set of chores, making it possible to earn 3 tickets per day. Once the child understands what is expected for each task, it becomes his/her responsibility to complete chores neatly and promptly without having to be told.
What are tickets used for? The parents decide, but it should be a privilege they normally would enjoy doing. In our family each ticket is good for 30 minutes of computer time, Wii, or a movie. This has been a huge blessing, as we no longer have the kids constantly begging to do those things, and their time is limited by how many tickets they have. If they have no tickets, they don’t get to play or watch…period. For our kids, this is a good motivation for earning tickets.
Accountable Kids also works for discipline. We established some rules for the kids. Rule broken? The child loses a ticket. You still have to be consistent for this to work, and for me that’s the hardest part. I’ve told my children that I should only have to tell them once to do something (or not to do something), and I do make sure they hear and clearly understand what it expected. My 6-year-old has lost tickets a few times, but her behavior has already improved a lot.
Best Behavior cards are another way to work on a particular behavior or character trait. They are used more sparingly, but you can award them when your child exhibits a particular trait or good deed (such as helping a sibling without being asked to). The child is not allowed to request a Best Behavior card when he/she does something nice. It is awarded at the parents’ discretion.
Best Behavior cards can be used as tickets or used in a weekly drawing. Again, each family can come up with their own ideas, but we’ve decided to follow a suggestion in the book and have a weekly drawing for a prize that the whole family can enjoy. We’re still working on ideas, but it could include a family popcorn/movie night (not requiring tickets of course), a batch of home-baked cookies, a new game, etc. The winning child gets to choose the activity or prize for the family.
After so many days, we introduced the second phase. This includes Date cards and Privilege Passes. Date cards are sticker charts that, when filled, are good for a date with a parent. Children earn stickers for date cards by completing an entire day’s chores (morning, day, evening). A date is for that child only and is a wonderful opportunity for a child to have one-on-one time with a parent. Our kids are more excited about the date cards than anything else. They really do value personal time with us. We are currently thinking up a list of dates the kids could choose from. We won’t always be able to take them on date that costs money, so we’re making lists of free/low-cost dates. Some of our ideas include a fast-food meal, trip for ice cream, time at the playground, bowling, bike-riding, and visiting a nearby farm park. Dates can even be at home. Our kids love for us to play with them, so Daddy playing cars with Isaac or Mommy playing dollhouse with Moriah is just as exciting to them as a date.
Privilege passes are given when you’re working on correcting a specific bad behavior. They can be used to purchase special privileges that can’t be bought with regular tickets. The privilege should be an incentive your child is willing to work for. We haven’t used this yet.
The third phase involves adding in extra chores and Bonus Bucks. Parents can choose extra chores each child can do, and it’s up to the child to complete the chores and earn the bucks. Bonus Bucks can be traded in for money (or prizes if the child is too young to handle money). Parents can decide how much Bonus Bucks are worth. This part of the program opens up the door for learning different aspects of money management, which I feel is very important for my children.
The fourth phase involves the Family Forum and Quiet Time. The Family Forum is just a weekly time when the parents and kids can sit down and discuss Accountable Kids, trade in the Bonus Bucks, and just spend time together. I won’t go into Quiet Time in this post, but the book lists all kinds of benefits to having a time of rest and relaxing activity each day—for the whole family!
The book that comes with the Accountable Kids program is very well-written. It explains each step in detail, giving reasons behind each component and also lots of ideas and advice. At the end of the book, there is a question/answer section that addresses concerns or questions about the program, and there is also a very helpful appendix with several charts you can use.
Watch these videos to learn more:
When I purchased The Accountable Kids program, I went the cheapest route and bought the Basic Start Up Package which comes with the book, the Quick Start CD, and one child kit (board, cards, stickers). I also ordered 2 additional child kits. If I had it to do again, I’d probably pay extra to order the deluxe package, which includes a Family Forum Board for getting everyone involved in the family meeting and a Mini Board to hang all the unused cards on. I keep misplacing the tickets, so the Mini Board would have helped a lot.
Now I’m going to make a little admission to you. I realized after the first few weeks of using this program, that I need an Accountable Mom program. No, they don’t have such a program, but I just may make myself some responsibility reminder cards. Maybe I’m the only mom that feels this way, but I’m not as accountable and responsible as I’d like to be. I feel that if I’m going to ask my children to be responsible, then I need to model that in my own actions. I do take very good care of my kids, and I put a priority on homeschooling. However, after school is over and the kids are playing in their rooms, I end up spending way too much time on the internet. Not only are there other things I could be doing, but also it results in me sitting all day instead of getting any exercise.
I’ve decided to make cards of things I should be accomplishing each day (including devotion time, exercise, household work), and I will earn tickets same as the kids. Tickets will be used for internet time, of course! It means I will have to choose more carefully which websites I spend my time on. It also means I will have more time to read a book, watch a movie, play with my kids, get more done around the house, work on a hobby…in other words, GET A LIFE! It’s only fair that I do what I’m asking my kids to do…right?
NOTE: I am writing this review in order to receive a 50% rebate on my purchase, as stated on the Accountable Kids website (HERE). I did not receive any free products, and I will not be paid additional money for writing this review. I will only receive a 50% rebate on my purchase, which I paid full price for. This review contains my personal, honest opinion of this product. Even if this offer was not in effect, I would still give the same review. I definitely would recommend Accountable Kids to anyone raising children.
