Give Yourself Another Chance!

Benjamin, Samantha, and a neighborhood friend were playing war (the card game) the other day.  At some point, it was apparent (and by apparent, I mean that I could hear how upset he was from downstairs) that Benjamin had lost, but the girls were going to keep playing to see who wins.  Needless to say, Benjamin was not happy about this and at some point I had to intervene and ask him to come downstairs.  I asked him what was going on and here is how the conversation went:

Benjamin: They won’t let me play!

Me: Well, honey did you run out of cards?

Benjamin: Yes

Me: Okay, that means you lost this game, but the girls want to keep playing to see who wins.

Benjamin: BUT I WAS GOING TO GIVE MYSELF ANOTHER CHANCE!

It was the sweetest, most innocent thing.  He meant it, too.  He didn’t understand why he couldn’t just have another chance.

Can’t we all learn something from that, though?  How many times do we, as adults, NOT give ourselves another chance at things?  We fail once (or do something we perceive as failure) and then we don’t try again.

It’s different for all of us.  Maybe you need another chance to make a business successful, another chance to eat right, another chance to be the kind of mom or dad you want to be. 

Whatever it is, with the new year upon us, I beg of you to take my sweet 6 year old’s lesson and give yourself another chance!

Time 4 Learning Review

You may remember I posted at the beginning of November that I was given the opportunity to review the Time 4 Learning website.  Let me tell you, I was impressed!  I really just thought it would be a fun site the kids could go to when they wanted to play on the computer.  I didn’t expect them to learn a lot.  This site was great!  I was especially impressed with the science section.  My kids learned a lot about bees and spiders (and other things)!

There are lots of things I love about this site, but my favorite part is that you are not stuck with just one grade level.  If you place your child in 2^nd grade, they will be able to do activities in 1^st, 2^nd, and 3^rd grade.  I think that is wonderful!  Most children have varying degrees of mastery in the subjects they study.  They may excel in math, while having trouble in language arts, while at the same time is right on target (according to their grade level standards) with science.  AND… you can change their grade level at any time if you see that he/she is not in the right level for a particular subject.

I actually placed both of my children a grade level below where they are currently.  I really just did this as a test to see if I was heading them in the right direction. (Apparently I don’t have a lot of faith in myself… maybe I should look into that) 

Well, my daughter was upset with me about that when it came to language arts because she is a very good reader (no thanks to me… that’s just the way she is).  And, it really was too easy for her.  It was nice that I could just change the grade level and give her something more challenging.

My son had a blast!  He didn’t care what level I put him at as long as he got to play on the computer!  A couple days after we started using the program, he asked me, “Mommy, can I play on that fun website today?” and once at dinner he told his daddy that we didn’t do school that day.  We did school, we just did it on the computer with Time 4 Learning.  He loves it so much he didn’t realize he was learning!

For the sake of reviewing the product, we used Time 4 Learning as our only schooling for an entire month.  It was great.  I was still able to be hands on and watch and hear what they were learning and they had fun!  I was also able to do other things while they were on the computer if I knew it was something they wouldn’t need a lot of assistance with.

You don’t have to be a homeschooling family to get a benefit from this site.  It is also perfect for children to use as a fun site to go to after school to better their skills in subjects in which they need extra help or just have fun.

Some other fun facts from the Time 4 Learning website:

• Online Curriculum for
  PreK to 8th Grades
• Access to 3 Grade Levels of Lessons
• 1,000+ Student-Paced Multimedia Activities
• Language Arts, Math, Science & Social Studies
• Interactive, Project-Based Activities
• Detailed Reporting for
  Easy Record-Keeping
• Lesson Plans & Teaching Tools for Parents
• Lessons Correlated to State Standards

All in all, I think the system is wonderful!  The only drawback for our family is that I don’t want all their learning to be on the computer.  I just don’t want them staring at a screen for that long every day.  That being said, you don’t have to use it as your sole curriculum.  You can just use it as extra learning and it is perfect for that!  You can check out their site by clicking on the picture below. 

If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment below.  Or if you have already used this site and want to add to the review, I welcome that as well.