Learning.com Review

After I had to give up on Time4Learning, I started desperately searching for something to replace it.  Someone else has to have done something similar, right?  I found the name Aha! Science mentioned on a forum and looked it up.  Thus, I stumbled upon Learning.com.  This is going to be long, because there's a lot to cover.  If you're interested, get a steamy mug of tea and get settled.

This site is not made for homeschoolers.  It is made for schools and school districts.  This presents both some drawbacks and some interesting perks for us homeschoolers - more on those later.  I think it gets overlooked by the homeschool community because it's not marketed to us and, if you stumble across it, it can be hard to see what it can do for you.

Learning.com is basically two different things rolled into one: a market for content and an assignment tracking system.  Both of these functions are built to be used by at least a class, and up to an entire school district.  The assignment tracking system allows you to set up all your classes, enter all the students, make assignments and track their completion and grade.  This is, I'm sure, very useful to classroom teachers, but it is a bit cumbersome for homeschoolers.  I set up a separate class for each of the Boys in each subject.  Then I could assign lessons from curriculum that I had purchased to each one.  Each Boy has a login and can get on and see what his assignments are and then their work is tracked in my (the teacher's) account.

After doing all this, I had some approximation of the "working independently" part of T4L that I liked.  It takes a little more work than T4L to load in the lessons, but it does allow them to get some of their work done on their own.  A lot of the time, however, especially when we are working on a lesson that both Boys are doing together, I just load up the lesson and we all sit around and do it together.  For some subjects, like science, that we do together, it's just easier.

Now to the content.  Once you sign up for a Learning.com account, which is free, go to the Marketplace and start browsing content.  It is worth getting an account to get Aha!Science and Aha!Math alone.  Lots of the curriculum is free; much of it is available elsewhere on the web.  But Learning.com does give you an interface to pull it all together and assign it to your kids.  Quality and pricing on content varies wildly, depending on how it is marketed.  Some programs, which are meant to be used for entire classes (and schools) at a time are $800 per year.  Luckily, there aren't many of those.  But programs like Aha!Science and Math run $15 per child per year.  Yes, that's right - an entire online, interactive science curriculum, including games, experiments and quizzes that grade themselves for $15 a year!

Some specifics on the Aha! curriculum, which is produced by Learning.com.  The Aha!Science covers grades 3-8.  The Marketplace lists two different program, Grades 3-5 and Grades 6-8, which are the same, as far as I can tell.  I think this is a marketing thing.  In my experience, the content is spot on for Middle School and could be useful for advanced elementary science lovers.  There are 33 different topics, including Biology, Physics, Chemistry, Geology and Astronomy.  Each topic contains animated lessons, interactive instruction, experiments, games and a quiz.  What I love about it:  the animations are extremely well done and very informative without being silly or gimmicky at all.  Click on this link to watch several examples.  One warning:  this is not a complete, step-by-step curriculum that tells you what to do on what day in which grade.  You get the 33 modules of content and you decide how and when to use them.  Like everything else we do, I supplement with lots of other stuff:  library books, documentaries, activities and field trips.

The Aha!Math is also divided into grades 3-5 and 6-8.  There are far fewer modules in the Math and it makes a good supplement to whatever curriculum you are using.  Remember that it is only $15/year.  If your child is getting stuck on a concept or needs some extra practice, these are a great supplement.  Click here for some samples.

The third offering from Learning.com is EasyTech.  It is an integrated Language Arts/computer software curriculum that covers word processing, spreadsheets, graphics and a really good keyboarding module.  I haven't used much of this stuff yet, but I plan to next year.  Here's a link to some samples.

Learning.com can be a bit cumbersome to get set up because it is made for school districts, but, in the end, I feel that it is worth it.  The content is excellent, much better than Time4Learning.  And the price - wow!  It is definitely a good supplement for kids who do better with visual and interactive learning.  The Aha!Science is enough content to be a complete Middle School science curriculum, if you don't need a step-by-step plan.  Stay tuned for more reviews of other Learning.com curriculum.