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I just found this last week based on something I read and I searched and saw that a couple of you here used it as well. I was thinking that this would be a good way for DS8 to keep busy when I'm busy. He enjoys it - especially since he gets play time after lessons.

Wondering what you think of the curriculum for an 8 yr. old and if you use it, what you use as your work/play ratio.

Looking forward to learning more about your experiences.

Thanks.

I am going to check this out because I'm always looking for productive things for him to do online. i'll let you know what I think.

We used it this summer. The biggest problem and reason we don't use it anymore is that you have to sit through every explination every time you start something. My girls quickly tired of this and would complain and beg not to have to do it anymore. On to something different...

Once you get to the upper level which starts at 4th grade, the explanations drop off. We've used it quite a bit. My DS2 and DS3 use the K format. My DS6 used several different grades. My DD14 used the math section 5-8 for remedial work. The nice thing about using it for a giftie is that it's self explanatory, so they can just go.....

Shari, Did you find that there is some repetition in the levels? I'm not sure where to start DS8. I read on their forum that if I sign him up for 3 on math and 4 on language arts, or vice vesra, I'll have access to both levels at once. (And I emailed them about that today).

DS really liked it (probably b/c it was easy and fun). Not sure if I should just let him whip through 3rd grade to reinforce his skills and cover anything he might not have had yet, or go to 4, 5 or whatever. Does it spiral?

Did you print out the worksheets?

And what have you used as a good mix of work/fun?

Thank you, everyone, for responding.

DS6 used it last year and quickly made it through 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th grade math. He also did some of the language art activities in the 2nd and 3rd grade. I loved that moving grade levels was so easy. I also loved the $20 a month price tag--very manageable. My son did get bored and we stopped our membership. Had we actually be homeschooling and not just fun afterschooling I might have continued to use the program since it as so cheap and flexible.

We also never printed out the worksheets since DS6 rarely needed the repetition.

We never used the worksheets. At the end of each math section there is a quiz. I started him out in 3rd grade and let him test out of any section he thought he knew. The deal we had was that he had to get 90% or 9/10 to pass. He leapfrog through much of the early material this way but there were some parts that he legitimately had to learn. No matter what method you use for teaching there will always be holes or gaps. T4L exposed a few of his. He worked on it about 1.5 hrs a day while we were homeschooling, covering all the core subjects. Surprisingly the Social Studies section is very extensive and as that was something we had pretty much ignored up until then he spent alot of time in that area.

We used both 3rd and 4th for my daughter this last summer and it didn't go well. They lost all her progress because they had to manually override to allow a student into both levels, lower and upper. I believe they solved this problem right as we were finishing with our subscription so you shouldn't have any problem with that now.

Thank you. I moved him up a level in math and they emailed me saying he'd have to sign in as upper or lower, accordingly, or they wouldn't show his progress. I noticed that if he's signed up for 4th, grades 3, 4 and 5 are available, so I emailed them back asking them to put him in 4th for both. Thanks for pointing that out. He really likes it, so we're going to give it a try.

Hey, I finally checked this out this morning with my son, and I liked it. I am confused by a lot of these sites, but this one seemed easy and totally worth $20... plus if they'll track what he's doing, great! I'm actually pretty excited because I've been at such a loss about how to motivate him.

I had him do the demo lessons this morning... he did grade 2/3 math (which he said was too easy, but there was no computation, which is what slows him down) and put him on grades 4/5 for science and language stuff... he did all those demos while I was showering and putting baby down for a nap, then he moved on and did all the grade 6-8 demos as well. He loved it!

For years I have been struggling to keep him off the computer completely, thinking it would be like poison to him or something.