Educo Learning Center - TOS Review

Disclosure: I received this complimentary product through the Homeschool Review Crew.

 

If you ask any homeschool mom which subject she worries over the most, she will more than likely tell you, "Math!" When offered the chance to review Educo Learning Center from Educo International Inc, I eagerly took it! I chose to use this online math curriculum with my 9 year old son, Titus, who is in the 4th grade. We received a one-year online subscription and a physical workbook.

WHAT IS EDUCO LEARNING CENTER?

Educo Learning Center is a complete online math program for Kindergarten through 8th grade. This program has tutorials, practice problems, quizzes, and tests for each lesson. The lessons are online, but you have the option of printing worksheets for your child. You can also purchase the physcial workbook which contains the tutorials and practice pages.

HOW DOES EDUCO LEARNING CENTER WORK?

When you log in to your child's account, you will be taken to the main page. For Math 4, there are eight different sections listed for the course. The sections are:

• Number Sense
• Addition and Subtraction of Whole Numbers
• Multiplication, Division, Multiples, and Factors
• Fractions
• Decimal Fractions
• Sequences and Patterns
• Measurement
• Geometry 

Each section has subsections and individual lessons. There are tutorials to watch for each section. These tutorials are not videos, but animated screens that your child will watch and read. You can speed up or slow down the animation, which would be very helpful if your child needs more time to read the writing or if they want to speed it up if they're a fast reader.

After the tutorials, your child can do the practice pages. There are 10 problems in each set, and your child will receive instant feedback on the problems. You can try again or see the solution if you're stuck. 

Then your child can take a quiz. These quizzes are similar to the practice pages, but your child will not receive instant feedback. After they submit their answers, they will receive the feedback and the percentage they got right. You can view the problems to see which, if any, were incorrect.

After the practice pages and quizzes, there are Section Review and Section Tests. These usually have more than 10 problems because it covers the entire subsection and not just an individual lesson. There are also Chapter Pre-Tests and Post-Tests covering the entire section.

There is also a progress report for your child, showing how much time has been spent on each activity - tutorials, quizzes, practice pages, and tests. Your child can also earn badges based on how much time is spent on the program and for completing chapter tests with a 100%. Titus has not earned any badges yet, but he is hoping he will soon.

There are also extra activities your child can do for each section. These are puzzles and games, but Titus found them very confusing and difficult so we skipped them. If your child likes or needs a challenge, these would be perfect.

HOW DID WE USE EDUCO LEARNING CENTER?

Titus used this program two or three days a week as a supplement to his math curriculum. He would watch the tutorial if he felt like he needed it and move on to the practice pages and quizzes. I sat with him while he worked through the program for a few reasons.

First of all, I wanted to see how it worked. The best way to see how a program works is to use it! Secondly, some of the problems are worded in a difficult to understand way. I would usually read the problem to Titus, and often I would have to reword it so he knew what it was asking. 

Titus also worked in the physical workbook a few times, but we both found the pages to be too busy with too many problems and too much information. I found a few worksheets that reviewed just some multiplication problems, and he worked through those pages.

Titus probably spent around 10 minutes on the program each time he used it. The lessons are pretty quick and short, which is a good thing for elementary math. He would usually complete a practice page and/or a quiz each time he logged in to the program. We finished the first section, skipped part of the second, and have started on the third section.

WHAT DO WE THINK OF EDUCO LEARNING CENTER?

I think Educo Learning Center is a pretty solid online math curriculum for homeschoolers. I am not sure if I would use it as a complete program, though. There doesn't seem to be much review built in, and I think elementary kids especially need a spiral review throughout their math program.

Some of the questions are worded in a way that many 9-year olds would have a difficult time understanding. Here are a few examples:

Like I mentioned earlier, I had to sit with Titus and help decode some of the wording. This leads me to believe it would not work as an independent math program. I do like to sit with my kids for their math lessons, so this may not be a problem for you either. I did find some of the questions to be quite difficult for fourth-grade, and I ended up giving Titus some of the answers on problems that I found were not grade-appropriate for him. 

We did enjoy many parts of this math curriculum, and I plan to continue to use this as a supplement for Titus a few days a week. Check out Educo Learning Center for your child, and click the banner below to see what other Crew members thought!