If your children like to use technology but you prefer that whatever they do online is educational and fun at the same time, then you might be interested in this supplemental online curriculum for homeschoolers and school children. I am talking about a program we are reviewing called Complete Home Learning Suite by Essential Skills Advantage.
Supplemental Online Curriculum for Homeschoolers and School Children
Click here to watch an introductory video to the Complete Home Learning Suite. It is for children from K-6th. It is online only and it is on-demand. All you need is a smart phone, a tablet or a computer and internet/wifi connection to use. ESA offers over 14,000 online lessons in a variety of subjects like Geography, Science, Reading, Spelling, Language, Grammar and Math. You can see the list here.
This is definitely a great supplemental online curriculum for homeschoolers and school children. Why? Because Essential Skills Advantage (ESA) offers a very complete program. It is a supplemental curriculum, though, and they make it clear on their website. It is a great way to review lessons or to introduce subjects or topics before teaching a lesson in your homeschool. The activities are definitely engaging, interactive, encouraging and educational.
There is a small fee to access the Complete Home Learning Suite. The cool thing is that you can may month-by-month, every 6 months or once a year. You obviously save the most when you pay for the entire year. Since this curriculum is for K-6, it will progress and “grow” with your children. The prices are affordable, considering that your children are having fun while learning.
Here are some questions that I had before accepting to review ESA.
Is ESA Common Core aligned? Essential Skills Advantage created this curriculum before Common Core, so it isn’t aligned with its objectives and since it is a private initiative, it feels no pressure to do so (a big plus in my book, if you ask me).
Can ESA help children to brush up on past lessons, be introduced to new skills and be a good tutoring outlet for special needs children? The answer is “yes” to all. ESA developed a very versatile program. Children of all levels can access all lessons, from K-6, so they can advance in order, by specific lessons, by specific grade or by personal preference.
Can the Complete Home Learning Suite be done independently or do my children need me during the lessons? My son is 6 and is an excellent reader. He can do all the lessons independently. I simply give him a time limit of 15 minutes and let him run wild there. Every other week, I assign one of the subjects per day, to make sure he does all of them at some point. I will let him choose what to do within that subject, though.
My daughter is another story. She is 4.5 years old and even though she is starting to read, she is not able to read most of what is in the K lessons. I have to read it to her. So yes, she needs me with her during the entire lesson. I suggest that ESA develop a way to have the child touch the text and the curriculum read it out loud, like other programs we use. She loves this program, nonetheless.
So, all in all, would we recommend ESA to parents? Yes, we would. My children and I like it, we enjoy the variety and the fact that parents can see progress, keep track of lessons completed and even print certificates for the children.
Thank you for visiting our Supplemental Online Curriculum for Homeschoolers and School Children post! To read more reviews on ESA, click on the image below!
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