ABCmouse.com: Preschool Learning at Home – A Review

My daughters are now almost 4.5 and 3 years old.  My older daughter, especially, is interested in learning.  Because she won’t go to Japanese school until we have the money saved, I felt it necessary to do something I hadn’t thought about doing before–homeschooling.

However, I didn’t know where to start, and I didn’t want to spend a lot of money on materials because hopefully both girls will be attending Japanese school in the fall.

I happened upon ABCmouse.com, and I decided to try it for free for 30 days.

Let me tell you, we are hooked!  I love this program and plan to continue my subscription when the free trial period runs out.

Features We Love

You Can Register Multiple Children.

You can register up to 3 children, so registering both of my girls was no trouble.  Once in the program, I can easily switch between both girls.  Typically, we sit down, and I let one girl do two activities in her level, then I switch and let the other one do two activities.

You Choose the Level of Learning for Your Child

ABCmouse.com offers 6 different learning levels in addition to Toddler Time.  Currently I have my nearly 3 year old in Toddler Time, and my 4.5 year old in Level 3.

• Toddler Time is perfect for two year olds.
• Levels One and Two are for three year olds and are at the preschool level.
• Levels Three and Four are for four year olds and are at the pre-k level.
• Levels Five and Six are for five year olds and are at the kindergarten level.

You Choose Which Activities to Do

I wanted to have a set path to follow, so the girls are following a learning path.  We simply go to their path, and they have lessons to follow.  For instance, my 4.5 year old has 9 different “environments” to complete, and within each environment, there are lessons to complete.  At the pre-k level, there are 5 to 6 lessons in each environment and each lesson has about 6 activities to complete.  At the toddler time level, there are 4 activities to complete and about 4 lessons in each environment.

While I like following the set path, parents can also choose to have their child focus on particular skills or skip around to the activities.

There Are Plenty of Activities to Choose From

We follow the learning path, and each lesson has a variety of activities.  Typically, there is a story, a puzzle, coloring, matching and a song.  The girls love the songs, stories and coloring especially.

Each level has literally hundreds of activities, so you don’t have to worry about your child outgrowing this program any time soon.  Level One has the fewest activities with “only” 479 activities, while Level Five has 809 activities!

There Are Fun Rewards for Kids

Each time your child completes an activity, he earns between 1 and 3 tickets.  When he completes a lesson, he gets bonus tickets and gets to pick a prize.  The prizes range from things to furnish their cyber room to tubes for their hamster.

Each child gets his own room where he can arrange his avatar, furniture, and other prizes such as toys.  He also has a hamster and can create a hamster maze that the hamster goes through by choosing different tubing as prizes.  Kids can also use their accrued tickets to “buy” items for their cyber room and hamster.

We spend most of our time on learning activities, but once or twice a week, we spend some time adding to their hamster maze and arranging the new prizes in their room.  The girls love it.

After nearly three weeks of using this program, there is honestly nothing I dislike about it.  I especially see my 4.5 year old’s skills improving.  Now she recognizes more letters and has taken to writing down the names of books on paper by writing the letters she sees on the cover.

How Much Is ABCmouse.com

I think ABCmouse.com is very affordable, especially considering how much you can spend on homeschooling materials.  I truly think this is an all-in-one program.

The monthly subscription fee is $7.95.  However, there are also deals.  For instance, you can choose to register for 12 months at once, and your cost is $79, which equals $6.58 a month.  There is no extra fee for an additional child.

While I wish we had the money to send the girls to Japanese school right now, ABCmouse.com is a happy compromise.  I can see that the girls are learning, and I feel good that we are taking steps to prepare them for school.

Have you tried ABCmouse.com?  Would you recommend it?

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