Savor The Days: K5 Learning Review

Nicholas is old enough to do a lot of independent learning in our homeschool so he takes a few online courses. But Rachel has been jealous about big brother's classes and she had just asked me to find her an online class when I learned that K5 Learning was available for review to the Homeschool Review Crew.

K5 Learning provides online work for math, reading, vocabulary, and spelling for students in K through 5th grade. It is intended to be a supplement and not a stand alone curriculum which was just what I was looking for.

I researched the program before signing up to review it. I wanted to be sure the activities were actually at her knowledge level and not just based on an age or grade. K5 Learning provides math and reading assessments to determine which level you child so work on. Rachel is in 2nd grade but after completing her assessments, K5 Learning put her at an upper 3rd grade level. So far it has been a little on the easy side for her so we have talked about moving her up. It is no problem to do that. I'll just make the request and K5 Learning will take care of it.

In my research, I also wanted to make sure that my daughter couldn't just choose to sit and play games and avoid the actual learning activities like she has done with another online educational program. K5 Learning is structured to provide educational activities in a particular sequence and the student doesn't have other options available to just play games.

The educational activities are a lot like games though. In this graphic below, you solve the multiplication problem by clicking on the hot air balloon with the correct answer. The balloon then floats away and you get a little fireworks show.

It makes math fun and therefore Rachel is more likely to want to continue to the next lesson. I like that it gives the student immediate feedback with positive response or a gentle comment to try again.

There are also printable worksheets that students can use to reinforce learning with pencil and paper. You can choose the grade level as well as the activity topic such as multiplication, roman numerals, counting money, etc.

Rachel used K5 Learning mostly for math but she also did some reading and spelling work. For spelling, the program has a pre-defined list for each grade but parents can also add their own spelling word lists. I think that's pretty cool! When the student first pulls up the spelling page, the top line is blank. That is where the student will type the spelling word. They can click to hear the word pronounced as well as read the definition and see an example of how the word could be used in a sentence. In this case below, Rachel did these activities then typed "people" in the space at the top of the page.

It is nice that K5 Learning is set up in such a way that even young children can use it independently in our homeschool. It is just what Rachel was wanting and it helps me keep her learning while I'm spending one on one time with her older brother.

As the parent, I have a separate log in and I can pull up reports that tell me how my daughter is doing with the lessons. So far she has only covered numbers and operations in math but you can see the number of lessons completed, mastered, as well as her score in certain areas.