Have you heard of Starfall Education Foundation? (Starfall for short) I'm betting that you have. I'm also betting that, like me, you thought it was just some free online learning program that wasn't all that great.
I have friends that have told me that they used Starfall for their young ones. I've looked at it online, but it just honestly didn't seem that great, or interesting, so I haven't really looked into it very deeply.
As part of the Homeschool Review Crew, I was given a one year subscription to The Starfall Home Membership to use and review.
My first thought, probably like most of yall's was, I thought Starfall was free...
Starfall does offer a free online learning program, which I think is great, but they do also offer a paid program which offers hundreds of activities that you do not get with the free version, including the math section, which is probably the biggest advantage of the paid membership. My review today is for the paid version.
I want to go ahead and say that there is way more to Starfall than I thought! This review is going to be picture heavy. I'm sorry, but there is just so much to show you, and pictures are the best way to do that.
The main part of the program is the ABC section. Kids can click on any letter to learn the name and sound.
Once the kids pick a letter they will learn the name of the letter and the sound that it makes through activities.
The kids click on the letter B to hear the sound and move on to the next activity.
In this activity the child matches the upper and lowercase B's to the correct ones on the flower.
Once they have learned the letters and their sounds they can move on to other activities.
The word machines are great for helping the children actually learn to read. It helps teach the child how to put the sounds together to make a word.
It will switch out the beginning and ending sounds to help the children see how just changing one letter makes a whole new word.
There is a section called Short Vowel Pals that gives extra reinforcement of the vowel sounds through stories.
The More phonics section is similar. It tells certain stories that really help to enforce the phonics sounds the child is learning.
I like that early on in the stories it gives picture help for some of the harder words.
Another place they do this is in the Bear's Backpack books section. The kids drag the word puzzle pieces to the matching spot to form a sentence. I think this helps the kids to feel like they are reading whole sentences.
There are really way too many sections for me to show pictures of and talk about.
From learning the letters and their sounds to learning to read complete sentences and books, you will find all of this and more on this site.
To be completely honest, I didn't learn a whole lot about this program until I really sat down to look over everything offered myself because I had my 6 year old niece and my 3 year old son using this. I got a lot of flack from my niece because she didn't want to just learn her letters. She got tired of doing the letter blocks, and thought that was all there was to the program.
She did really like the songs section though!
My 3 year old, on the other hand loves the ABC Blocks. I think that if your child is a little older and just learning their letters, this part may be a little boring for them, but the rest of the site is not boring.
There is a LOT that your kids can do once they have mastered their letters and their sounds.
You've really got to look it all over for yourself, because there is really too much on this site for me to be able to talk about it all.
I will talk about a few other non reading sections though. The paid membership includes the math sections. In my opinion this is one of the best parts of Starfall, and therefore worth the price of the membership.
There is a very similar section to the ABC Blocks for your child to learn their numbers and how to count.
There is so much to the math program....
As you can see from this picture above there is a lot of extra "mathy" stuff you can learn as well as the basic math.
Your child can learn time, measurement, fractions, etc...
And these are all FUN ways to learn.
And don't worry, there is plenty of basic math too.
The only thing that I did not care for in the math program was that it says it is aligned with common core, which I, personally, do not care for. However, it is not that bad in this program since it is for the early years. You may or may not be concerned with this, but I thought I would throw it out there. I don't think it is something that you would even really notice if I hadn't have read it.
There is a Parent/Teacher Center that is SO full of resources and information.
Again, there is SO much in this section that I can not possibly tell you about it all.
I found out that they had Teacher's Guides, and I think that this would make a big difference for me. I think I could follow a guide and have a lesson plan, and not feel lost, or like we are just randomly picking what we want to learn that day. I did not use these guides during the review period, but I think I will give these a try and see how that goes. I think I will really like it.
And there are SOOO many printable's! Just the printable's are worth the price of admission!
There are printable's for everything.
I hope you have stayed with me through all of this. I know it is long, but I need to tell you about one more aspect of this program. THE APPS
The apps are the best part. You don't have to let your kids on your computer all of the time and you can take it on the go!
I know these pictures are not that great and my son goes back and forth too fast to get a good shot of what he is doing.
Here are a couple of videos of my son using the app. They are not the best. I'm sorry, my house is so dark. But they do show him using it and learning and having fun with it.
As you can see, even though my son is only 3, he likes the games and he loves learning!
I do recommend that you check out this program. There is a lot more to it than I thought, and the price is unbelievable. It's practically free at $35 a year! Get The Starfall Home Membership here.
Here are all of the social media links for Starfall Education Foundation so that you can find them online!
And be sure to click on the Crew Banner below to read the other members reviews!
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/starfall.education/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/starfalledu
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/starfalleducation/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/starfalleducation/
No comments:
Post a Comment