Interactive Learning With The Complete Home Learning Suite - Review
My children just love using the computer and as they get older I find we are using online learning more often in their studies. With a family of strong right-brain learners, I find that the bright colors, sounds, and interactive style of computer programs really help my children to learn and remember more of their studies.
Disclosure: I received a free copy of this product for review, all opinions are 100% my own.
The Complete Home Learning Suite from Essential Skills Advantage (ESA) is a great addition to our online learning time.
The Complete Home Learning Suite offers online curriculum intended for grades K to 6. It includes over 14,000 lessons giving your family many options to choose from. These currently include:
Reading for grades K to 6
Language and Grammar for grades K to 6
Math for grades K to 6
Science for grades K to 3
Geography for grades 4 to 6
ESA is meant to be used as a supplementary learning program for Kindergarten through grade 6. The Complete Home Learning Suite is different from some online programs you may have used before.
It doesn't start a unit with an instructional lesson and then follow up with questions to see how much information was retained, rather ESA teaches through asking questions, many questions! These questions are to get children thinking to figure out the answers on their own.
Children have a chance to answer questions twice. If they answer a question correctly they get a star and a happy sound is played. At the bottom of the screen is a series of stars and this shows how many questions are left in the unit.
Logging in is really simple when you are on the login screen all you have to do is enter the email address that your account is under. This opens a dashboard where your children can click on their name and then they are automatically taken to their own dashboard. I love that there are no passwords that the kids have to remember!
Next they need to pick what subject the want to practice.
After the subject has been picked the available grade levels are shown and they just have to select the grade level they wish to work on. They can move up and down grades anytime.
After selecting the grade level the next menu shows what unit lessons are available in that course.
I've been using ESA with my 10 and 12-year-old daughters. Since we've used ESA before I chose to let them pick what they wanted to study.
They picked Canadian geography because they were surprised to see that Canada was included. There is a real lack of online learning for Canadians!
The Canadian Geography unit is made up of these categories.
Provinces and Territories
Provincial and Territorial Capital
Other Major Cities
Bodies of Water
Physical Regions
Biomes
Time Zones
Natural Landmarks
Human Landmarks
What Do I Love About ESA?
It's very easy to use
It's online
My children can use it independently
It keeps score for me
Children can move from grade level and subject easily
I first learned about ESA a few years ago when I had an opportunity to review it. I was very impressed with it at that time and our family has continued to use ESA as part of our homeschool lessons since then.
When I first started using ESA they had only the reading and grammar programs available. It quickly became a favourite of both my oldest and 3rd child for practicing spelling and grammar.
One of my biggest wishes was that they would expand on that content and they sure have! I love that they now offer math, science, and geography lessons.
For older children, I would use these as a great way to introduce a new topic or review a subject that we have already learned about. I would love to see ESA expand into more topics for grades higher than the 6th someday.
Although ESA is intended to be used as a learning supplement, for grades K to 3 it has complete language arts and math programs.
The lessons are short, interactive, and fun without being busy with silly animations that to many online programs seem to use these days.
I love that the lessons are simple and easy to use as independent study. They will provide great extra practice study throughout the summer! If you are looking for an easy-to-use online curriculum to supplement your children's learning ESA is a great resource!
