Favorite "pay" educational web sites?

[tammyw]

I'm trying to spice things up a little in our house. DD is 7.5 YO and avid reader. DS is 4.5 and WANTING to learn stuff. We're getting kind of tired of the free sites (but I'm open to more and new ones).

We've tried Time4Learning.com in the past - we cancelled it when it didn't get enough use. I'd consider trying that again if it's considered the best. Part of the reason it wasn't used was busy life at the time.

Any advice?

[onlygirls]

http://tumblebooks.com/

Tumblebooks is a website you have to pay for unless you have access to it through your library.

With our library, you can access it from home and can use the Tumblebooks website for free!

http://pl.beecavetexas.com/Scroll down to the right hand side and look for the blue Tumble Books logo

[annettemarie]

My seven-year-old is really loving readingeggs.com.

I would second the idea of seeing what your library provides for free.

[JavaFinch]

onlygirls, thanks for sharing that link!

We like Brainpop. I found a site for spelling called BigIQKids.com that is kind of cool for spelling - it's a free version or you can upgrade for more features.

[elizawill]

we love discovery united streaming. it is free in some states (mine included), but i also think it would be worth a subscription.

we have also paid for brainpopjr.com for K-2 ...or brainpop.com is excellent too...i just didn't pay for that when we used it...it's for grades 3 & up. anyway, it was worth the money imho.

lastly, we did pay for time 4 learning for about 6 months. it's $20 month, and although i wouldn't categorize it as a comprehensive curriculum, it was a lot of fun for my daughter. they give you access to the grade you register with, plus a grade below and above (so for my daughter, she could do anything in K,1, or 2). i thought that was pretty cool. we stopped using it simply because it wasn't our main curriculum & money was tight...so i cut it out.

there are many free resources on the web too. i've listed ones i like at my blog under fav. resources. it's a bit to sift through & it's not organized in the best manner.... i made the list to help me find things...*maybe* there will be something you like too? good luck

hth.

[amis2girls]

We like http://www.cosmeo.com/ It's $10 a month.

[tammyw]

I'm very curious about cosmeo.com - can you tell me what you like about it? What age ranges does it target? Thanks!

[amis2girls]

It's for grades K-12. They're very good at tagging things with the right grade level so you get just what you're looking for. You can search "Abraham Lincoln" for grades 3-5 and come up with several videos, games, and articles, for example. You can search by math concepts, too. If you just want to browse you can choose from six different subject headings.
They have lots of games from iknowthat.com, so we're not paying for two separate memberships. I have two kids signed up with Cosmeo and only pay the $10.

[tammyw]

Thank you! I think I'm going to try it!

[elizawill]

another fun site is www.zoodles.com

it's not as good as cosmeo (thanks for sharing that!!), but it is free. some of the games aren't that educational, but others are wonderful. either way, all of them are fun!

[wwisdomskr]

I just discovered that Tumblebooks is available for free through MilitaryOneSource. So, if you are active duty military or dependents, make sure you take advantage!

[tammyw]

I'll have to check that out. My husband is active duty. Thanks!

[muchpeace]

  Thank you all for the ideas!  We are homeschooling now (started the kids officially in August) & I'm looking ahead to the colder months thinking it might help to have some additional helps in my toolbox.

[Aeress]

We also have ixl, which is a math program. While it isn't fancy, it is nice for doing assessment- Once the children have covered an area, we log onto ixl and have them do the problems there to see if they transfer learning and see what their understanding of the content was.

We love brainpopjr and use it several times a week.

[phathui5]

My friend was telling me yesterday about how much she loves using the Easytech site for her children (who are 10 and 7). I think I'm going to give it a try for my older kids.

http://www.learning.com/easytech/

[Burntcaramel]

Trying the free trial of dream box. It seems good. We are only two days into it.
I want it too work,lol.
Caramel.

[zebrachick83]

Thanks for these resources ladies! I was on the verge of enrolling DD in school today and I completely forgot about online lessons! That's why you can't make decisions emotionally....

[natashaccat]

dreambox is totally awesome and worth every $$$...Just resist the urge to help, tell your kiddo to guess if he/she is totally stuck or the lessons will get to hard to quickly. Also don't let him/her leave a game unfinished for the same reason.

We also really got a lot out of headsprout.

[Reebekah]

i see a lot of people talking about enchanted learning and kid soup websites....each is only a few dollars and full of good info

[desertmom]

Just fyi, there's a coupon code for Brainpop that's valid now for 20 percent off _ I used it yesterday to reduce an $80 Brainpop Jr. subscription to $64.

It is: holiday10