TheHomeSchoolMom may earn affiliate commissions from purchases made using links on curriculum reviews pages. Read our full disclosure.
Time4Learning.com is an online education program that teaches preschool through twelfth-grade curriculum in an interactive, online environment.
Time4Learning combines 1000+ animated lessons, printable worksheets and graded activities to teach math and language arts lessons correlated to state standards. Science, social studies, and art are also provided as bonuses for most grades.
Website: Time4Learning
Post Your Review »
(92 Reviews)
Before investing in any homeschooling resources, please read "How to Choose the Best Homeschool Curriculum."
Contributor Reviews
Reviews are solely the opinions of the contributor.
Cons: Not all assignments are online, no teachers to help with questions or grade written assignments, cartoons can be patronizing, not accredited,
Grades Used: 7th
We have just finished our first year of homeschool with 7th grade T4L program. Overall I think it helped us to make the leap to homeschooling so it was very valuable. It provided organized content and lesson planners for easy scheduling. According to what I have read it meets state standards but I do not know how well or if it exceeds them. The English, Social Studies and Science courses are easy to understand. Oddly there isn't a separate 8th grade SS class so I simply cut the 7th grade U.S. History in half and we are picking up at the Civil War for 8th and then looking for a Civics program for the 2nd semester.
That said, there were issues. The system went down fairly frequently and it times students out if they walk away from lessons too long or take too long to complete them. That does not really meet the "go at your own pace" philosophy. The animation and relentlessly cheerful voices were off-putting for a 13-year-old who found them patronizing as well as creepy at times. However, animation may have kept him more engaged and hate does provide adrenaline so...
There are no teachers when you run into problems with the content. Math was a particular challenge with this issue as word problems were deliberately confusing and many explanations fell flat without attempts to show how the answers were derived. I would find myself pulling up Khan Academy, asking friends, and watching outside videos just in an attempt to understand the subject before trying to explain problems to my son. I am looking for another source for Math this year as we ended up spending an extra two months trying to complete all the lessons in that class. I find that I am perfectly happy with a role as a facilitator, coach, and tutor, but I do not want the primary teaching role. T4L does not quite bridge that gap. If you do worksheets or written English assignments then you are the teacher and have to do all the grading. The Odyssey Writer assignments slowed us down a lot. Worksheets did too. I'm unsure how many people actually do all of these assignments when they brag about only having to work 4 hours a day. We found it was more like 8-10 if we did every worksheet and included weekends.
Given that my son has ADHD, being able to work on the computer and then step away and run on a treadmill or do something else and come back is important. T4L does fill that requirement for us. As a way to get our feet wet with the homeschool concept it was a good choice. For 8th we are looking at programs with teachers for both writing and Math. We did not like Time4Writing, we gave it a shot but the website was horribly designed and the instructions were frustrating. The T4L website as a whole is fairly easy to use and the user interfaces are fine but you may have to go through the site clicking every button at first to find everything. The site does not work with many browsers-Chrome and Firefox are the only ones they really support. We did try Rosetta Stone for German and my son liked it, we just found we did not have time for it.
My son also complained about retention. He felt like he understood well enough for the quizzes and tests but he was not sure how much he would retain in the future. He took the CAT when we started this and is going to take the CAT before we start 8th grade so we will see.
Cons: Social Studies is dry, dry, dry. Errors don’t get fixed in a timely manner even when reported to tech support.
Grades Used: 4, 5, 6, 7, 8
Time 4 Learning is a great program to get you started quickly in homeschooling. I feel the material (when used correctly) is a complete curriculum with very little supplementation needed.
After a couple of year of using this program and feeling more confident in homeschooling, it’s easier to branch out and use what works within the program and leave out what doesn’t. Social studies is very boring. Neither of my children found it interesting.
All in all, I’ve been very happy with the program and will continue to use it for as long as it works for our family.
Once they have your credit card number they will continue to charge long after you have stopped using their product. I would not recommend giving them access to your credit card.
Cons: Absolutely Everything.
Grades Used: 8th
I am a student for 8th grade and it is legit the worst thing I have ever seen.
I have read many college-level books in science and language arts and I find the lessons to be extremely slow, the fact that its hard to fast forward just makes itn that bad.
Oh, not to mention VERYTHING about the animations is just... off, uncanny valley and also for anyone under the age of 8 to enjoy. Everything is childish and stupid, answers that ARE correct are marked as incorrect, etc.
Cons: It's childish and stupid
Grades Used: 8th
I'm not a parent i'm a student and let me tell you, do not use this program it is EXTREMELY outdated, like early 2000's type. The animation they use is on the verge of terrifying. The curriculum sucks. You can't save your writing assignments, so if you don't finish writing something one day, you can't pick up where you left off, you have to restart. it's just overall really irritating and not worth even 20 dollars a month. Do not use this curriculum, your children will hate you and the dumb animation characters.
Cons: Video presentations can not be paused
Grades Used: middle and senior
Time4learning has a nice presentation, reporting, parent reports, etc, and looks like it will be a great program for learning. The fatal flaw is that the video pesentations CAN NOT BE PAUSED, or REWOUND 10 SECONDS to allow notetaking.
My student ends up playing the videos over and over, trying to take notes, which ends taking so much time that the courses take forever.
According to our support resource, this is just the way that it is, and can't be addressed.
We are cancelling our subscription, and looking for a delivery that utilizes the technology.
Cons: Practically everything
Grades Used: 3, 5, 6, 8
This site is entirely awful. My mother and I chose it in between grades for mental health problems but it hardly helped due to the fact that it is horribly downgrading and ridiculous. An eighth grader shouldn't be trying to get an education by going to a site where in literature you have talking cartoony characters that make bad jokes about antonyms and word definitions.
I haven't learned a single thing new inside this program since we began. Let's go over what each subject has been teaching me lately...
Language arts: In this we have two absolutely ridiculous cartoons talking about things that I learned in second grade. The "Word Herd" and "The Old Time Word Show". It has been attempting to teach me about idioms, synonyms, antonyms and suffixes. What kind of eighth grader doesn't know what these are?
Science: There is always just one stupid video you have to watch. It's called "The Mind Keepers" and it has a sci-fi kind of theme I guess? But it's extremely cheesy just as all the other lessons are and again, never teaches me ANTHING. So far it has tried to teach me that wow who would've guessed? Rocks aren't living things. Wow. So teaching me basics on what are living creatures + it's just now teaching me about the theory of evolution.
Note: In this you have a character who goes on missions to see teachers in a world that society has broken down and collapsed and education no longer exists. It usually brings you to one specific man (who I forgot the name of) and he tells stories about random things he went through in the past that are totally unrelated. And of course, he's kind of really creepy soo. Yeah.
Okay so now we have math: It's just one woman or one man talking about math that I will never use in my entire life. They explain it in very confusing ways that are really hard to grasp and every time that I enter in a question wrong it doesn't try to help me, it says something along the lines of "You need to get this number first and then make the equation!" which makes zero sense for the problems that I've been working on and how they're being asked. It's been attempting to teach me about basic fractions, exponents, roman numerals and basic algebra.
Social Studies: God, I don't even know how to explain this to the extent that it needs to be. It gives false information on cultures and religions, calls Native Americans indians, and it's just... In really awful quality? They teach lessons in a square box with really sloppy vector "animations" that make horrible jokes in awful quality. I'm not even going to say anything more, just ask another kid past fourth grade what they think of it and they will most likely say the same thing or give you more information on it.
Please do not school your kid here whatsoever. Being treated like this for months has been bad on my mental state and a big waste of my time.
Cons: EVERYTHING.
Grades Used: 10th
I don't even know where to start with this. I'm a sophomore who's been homeschooled my entire life and switched to Time4Learning a year ago. I am so very, very less than thrilled. And by less than thrilled, I mean that if I rubbed a magic lamp and a genie appeared, I would wish this program out of existence. Nothing, repeat, nothing, was challenging for me. As a very gifted student used to an amazing homeschool program, this feels like a Lego hut in comparison to the Taj Mahal.
The lessons were long, boring, and positively degrading. During one science lesson, a pink unicorn suddenly blasted onto the screen for no reason. Two minutes later a badly-animated Cyclops showed up, and I checked out. This is high school, not kindergarten. I am thoroughly disgusted with the cheesy, kiddish, stupid, moronic, idiotic nonsense being shoved down my throat with this program. It is absolutely sickening. At one point, when discussing my religious beliefs, the program offered false and extremely offensive information.
The companion program, Time4Writing, is only marginally better. While it feels more like a high school program (with the exception of comparing paragraphs to cheeseburgers) students who do not struggle chronically with writing will learn NOTHING. I myself am an avid reader and aspiring novelist, and this program was basic. Any writing curriculum could give the same information- in 6th or 7th grade. Not 10th. Run from this entire program.
Cons: Cheesy, insulting material, extremely difficult courses, hard-to-understand format, general stupidness
Grades Used: 10th
I am a high school sophomore doing this program for the first time, and I do NOT recommend it!
Math was WAY too challenging- my mom, who is a Director of Education and in an honor society, couldn't understand it. Everything else was just plain stupid. Animation and cheesy characters may be great for kindergarteners and maybe up to fourth grade, but for high schoolers, it actually feels insulting. I learned nothing except how to zone out during boring, too-long lessons.
The type of math that they use is stuff you will never need to use again, unless you become a math teacher for extremely gifted clones of Albert Einstein. Yes, that is how hard it is. Also, I have lost count of the times when the teacher tells you that you need to do something with a problem and then skips right to the answer, without showing you how to DO the problem. Questions asked on quizzes didn't match up with information learned (read "pounded into my head with the sledgehammer of repetitive facts and the gigantic mallet of boredom".)
The English program was lame at the very best. It taught me absolutely nothing that I had not learned four or five grades ago, and most of the stories and books they had us read was material I had already gone through. The corny animations (especially the "After Class", "Class Notes", and "What the Class Thinks" segments) did nothing to hold my attention and were actually demeaning in a sense. There is no worse feeling than to know you're better than something and yet be forced to sit through it anyway because an online program doesn't think you're smart enough to be taught in another way.
The Earth/Space Science course was a little better, but not much. They focused more on Earth than space, when space was what I wanted to learn about. The characters in this course were actually worse than the ones in the English course (such as a lesson involving "space monkeys".) This is too dumb even for first-graders, and they pass it off as a high school program.
The World Geography section was by far the worst. During one lesson, the program claimed that Christianity, Judaism, and Islam all worship the same God, which is NOT true. More brain-numbingly boring characters added themselves to the list: the Duke of Duck, Gee-Oh Tours (let us take you around the world!), and Glurg, a vomiting camel. Yes, you read that right. A. Vomiting. Camel. In high school!
I cannot recommend this program to anyone. It is a waste of time, money, and brain cells. The only thing I learned was that some homsechool programs should be outlawed for stupidity- and this is the one that needs to be run out of town on a rail.
Cons: A bit spendy for 3 kids, needs to supplement
Grades Used: K,1,3,4,5,6
This is our second year using this homeschooling program. I really enjoy how easy it is, no prep on my part. I can log in under the parent's account and see exactly what my child did that day. It may not be a full curriculum, but its pretty close. The only subjects missing from this program, that our state requires, is art and music appreciation.
I recommend to any parent looking into this program, is to first see what your state requires. Yes, this program is not accredited, because it is a homeschool program, not a private school. If accreditation is what you are after, this program is not for you. The only downside is my kids don't get enough time actually writing, so I have them use a writing journal.
I had my older children tested last year, and they scored over a grade level ahead. If it works for us, it can for your family as well.
awful. maybe you can use it to supplement but this absolutely cannot be a student's main source of education
Cons: social studies and science are read only, math lessons need more explanation so you do have to supplement.
Grades Used: 3,4,5
While you do need to supplement some lessons, the program uses Compass Learning which is also used by the school system in my area.
The lessons are engaging and are aligned with common core requirements.
Cons: everything
Grades Used: 2-3
lessons were way to kiddish and long teaches me nothing makes me answer questions before knowing anything
Cons: Unauthorized charges, mediocre lessons
Grades Used: 1
I am not happy with this program at all; I don't think the lessons are very effective and I was overcharged for an add-on that I didn't order. After some research, I am not the only person this has happened to.
Cons: doesn't work with Mac opt in parental controls
Grades Used: 4,7
I am canceling before the 14 day grace period. I could not get the program to work with Mac opt in parental controls. I spent hours working myself and with tech support from both time4 and mac. With opt in controls you add the sites you allow the user to go to. The trouble lies in the fact that there are either hundreds of redirects that you have to add in, or for some reason the websites will not stay added to the list.
Also when my kids used the site on my user, they complained of many of the same things mentioned in other reviews.
Cons: Doesn't qualify as a full homeschooling program, lacks engagement, is ruthlessly irritating and barely learned anything.
Grades Used: 4th, 6th and 7th
I am a student using this program and am deeply unsatisfied with what I've received. I was a pretty smart kid in public elementary school, I had straight A's and didn't cause any trouble. I thoroughly enjoyed school.
However, I had to be removed due to health issues among other things, and my first year was with Time4Learning. I remember not liking it very much, so my parents switched me to something else, which also wasn't doing well, so we switched back a year later as my parents had read that it was better in the middle to high school grades.
I immediately disliked it. I assumed it was going to lack in challenge a little bit as I experienced that in school, but after two more years, I can confidently say I learned less then 10 major things in my entire time schooling with this program. I also was unaware that it didn't actually qualify as a full school, so I guess my hope of going back to public school in the right grade is crushed. Anyway, I often could browse the internet or various social media while doing school'work' and could still get every answer right. Most of the time any questions I got wrong were me not quite understanding the question or feeling so unengaged that I just wanted to get it over with so I guessed. I know a small part of this is my problem as I've been suffering with a lack of motivation, but this is just ridiculous. I'm most unsatisfied with the science, as I used to adore it and now I just feel the lessons are unbearably long and the characters are WAY too animated.
Cons: No teacher help, not accredited
Grades Used: 6th through 10th
I am a Time4Learning student of 4 years and now entering my 5th year of homeschooling with this program. I cannot imagine how my homeschooling years would have gone by without this program. I will go over the pros and cons of this program, and while there were definitely some complications, I'm overall pleased with my experience.
The best way I can describe Time4Learning is calling it a "tool." Time4Learning is NOT a school; therefore it's not accredited. However, to dismiss the quality of education due to lack of accreditation would be a mistake. Time4Learning gets their curriculum through a large company called CompassLearning. According to the Time4Learning website, the curriculum was designed for over a decade by CompassLearning and then offered to schools across the nation. Time4Learning offers the same content to homeschooling families; therefore it is accurate to say that accredited schools use "Time4Learning's curriculum." If used appropriately and responsibly, Time4Learning can become a great fit. Here's how Time4Learning worked with me.
My case was what many would call an "accidental homeschooler." Everything was fine in elementary school, but when I went to middle school, complications arose from day 1. Suddenly, my parents and I found ourselves in a fix where we were obliged to homeschool but incredibly unwilling to do so. I am one of those students who do just fine in a brick-and-mortar school. By the time I was enrolled in Time4Learning, I missed my school and its structured environment. My parents, while having a good education themselves, weren't that great as teachers. That prospected intimidated the 6th-grader me. How can one possibly get good grades without dreading school if your "teachers" weren't good at teaching?
Luckily, my mom found Time4Learning. She told me that it had all the subjects, and the content was taught in an engaging, interesting manner -- the only major drawback was that it wasn't accredited. The prospect of being in an "unaccredited" method of schooling unnerved me, but at the same time, Time4Learning solved my biggest issue. Time4Learning lessons did the teaching for my parents, for which I was very grateful. I can confirm Time4Learning's claim that it teaches in a way "kids will love." The engaging and interactive content will teach for parents, keep students busy, and enable kids to become independent learners.
The issues I had with this program stemmed from the fact that I was an independent learner and didn't have professional teacher support. I struggled writing essays and felt as if grammar lessons required more reinforcement. This highlights the importance that parents do need to take an active part of their children's education, even when the grading and teaching are done for them. For example, it is the parent's responsibility to grade written projects, adhere to state homeschooling laws, and determine whether their child will be accepted into an accredited school/college after Time4Learning.
Here are some of the pros:
1) Animated lessons. I cannot stress enough how useful this is when homeschooling. It keeps students' interest peaked, especially with younger learners, and makes learning enjoyable.
2) Engaging and interactive content. This goes side-by-side with animated lessons; engaging and interactive content includes immediate feedback and problems.
3) Good education. When I finally returned to public school in ninth grade, I was able to tackle Honors courses after Time4Learning. Time4Learning provides a detailed scope-and-sequence of each subject available, so you, as a parent and educator, can decide on the quality of the curriculum.
4) Affordable. The cost is $19.95 per month for elementary and middle school students, $14.95 per month for each additional elementary or middle school student, and $30 per month for high school students (covers 4 courses; each additional course costs an extra $5 per month).
Cons:
1) Lack of accreditation. Time4Learning is an unaccredited curriculum provider rather than a school and, therefore, cannot issue a diploma or formal transcripts to students.
Cons: Not accredited, English papers cannot be corrected electronically and send back to child to correct
This is NOT an accredited school. If you think you will transfer your child to a PUBLIC school at ANY point in their middle or high school courses, this is NOT the curriculum for you. Public schools in some states are now requiring ACCREDITED courses to be counted towards graduation. If they are not accredited, they are NOT counted. Be careful! It's just another way to get rid of the choice to home-school and if you are not committed through the end of their 12th grade year, your child will not graduate.
Cons: Beware when contacting the staff for assistance. In the couple times I've needed to contact their staff, they have been fairly rude. T4L is not comprehensive. It does NOT include explanations, such as how to work out practice math problems, meaning that my student and I have to spend lots of time searching online for other explanations or demonstrations...why pay for their service when I still have to do so much work on my own? I might as well not use them and just teach the course myself.
Grades Used: 4, 10, 11
Unforunately, I cannot recommend Time4Learning as an overall source for supplementing homeschool. It's a mediocre resource.
Cons: It doesn't work well on a tablet even when you use the Puffin app. The Kindergarten lessons are too long and not engaging.
Grades Used: K & 1st
I have tried this curriculum twice. It is well rated, includes multiple subjects that can be tailored to fit the child's needs and it's affordable. I really liked that it is self-paced and I could adjust each subject by grade level and skills. Several programs I looked at can't do this including ABCmouse. So I could choose Math at a 1st-grade level and Language at a K level. We have been using ABCmouse (which I love for under 1st grade), but I decided to try Time-4-Learning because my son has learned to guess through the ABC mouse lessons. I wanted something that graded and checked his knowledge and understanding at the end of the lesson. The first time we tried Time4learning was at the beginning of Kindergarten. His tablet skills were still new and the program was not friendly to selecting incorrect items on the screen, so he would easily get kicked out of the program and I would have to monitor what he was doing. My goal is to facilitate learning and not have to do every lesson with him. When I tried it again this year at the beginning of 1st grade, he did much better with the app and understanding what it wanted him to do, but not all the activities worked on the tablet. He would lose momentum and interest when an activity didn't work. I would have to stop my work to set up the computer and log him back in. And he could no longer complete learning on the couch, in his room, or on the go. Flexibility is key for us and I believe it facilitates learning. Most children aren't meant to sit still in a chair all day. Next time we try Time-4-Learning, we will have to make sure he has his own computer (with a touch screen), which is not financially feasible right now. Yes, we will try Time-4-learning again becuause it is self-paced, flexible, can be tailer to the student, an all-in-one curriculum, and affordable. Did I say affordable! All-in-all I will try Time-4-learning again when he gets older. I could see the 1st grade curriculum was much more engaging and age-appropriate than the Kindergarten curriculum. But with only using a tablet, Time-4-Learning is not feasible for us.
Cons: Not complete, must be supplemented
Grades Used: 2-5
We first started using Time4Learning when I began our family journey in nonpublic education. The lessons are succinct and engaging for my young girls. I love the report features and the fact that the curriculum matches my state standards. We do supplement the curriculum with creative spirit and art classes as well as my own writing modules for the girls. In addition, for supplementing science and history we visit many museums, complete local homeschool STEM events and watch more formal documentaries online.
As a faith filled family, I love how this program can be used in conjunction with our biblical, Greek and Hebrew studies. I wanted to explore secular modules to introduce my kids to a balanced world view and allow them to learn about other ideologies. It is important to teach them to be critical thinkers who are open minded and not isolated from more traditional thought.
Overall, I would recommend the program for affordability to most families who are able to develop their own program of study and need a strong framework for the classical subjects. The reporting also makes me confident for record keeping purposes on site.
Cons: not recognized, waste of money and time
Grades Used: 11th
My state does not accept this program's credits. My daughter is a year behind now and unable to graduate as a senior should.She must attend adult high school to retake courses and finish. Wasted my money. The curriculum was engaging.
Grades Used: K-10th
We are a homeschool family with 6 children, and we've used Time4Learning in various ways since 2009. Sometimes we use it as a supplement, sometimes we use certain subjects; this year it was our primary curriculum. I know that others have commented on the testing... I have to disagree. I felt that the quizzes and tests were frequent and gave me a good idea of whether or not my children were mastering the concepts. In our homeschool, if the child doesn't receive an 80 or higher we have them retake the test. I believe this also helps assure mastery. I feel that the high school levels were especially comprehensive.
Cons: Doesn't always explain everything
Grades Used: 7th
I am a homeschooled student, and I think that the lesson doesn't have much practice and almost never really explain things which causes me to search all over youtube and Khan Acadamy just so I can answer the question which could have taken 3 minutes, takes 15 instead.
Cons: not much practice to master the lesson, no over all testing
Grades Used: K, 1, 2
I have worked with time4learning for 3 years and the only complaint I have is that I feel like my daughter is not retaining the information she is learning because it lacks mastery testing. I have no idea if she is getting all the information she needs to succeed in each subject. The program does have some testing but it is not extensive.