6.10.2014

TOS Review - Learning Wrap-ups

What Is It:

Learning Wrap-Ups Review
Learning Wrap-ups is a company that was created by a teacher who felt that there had to be a better way to teach her students multiplication.  She made the first Learning Wrap-ups in her basement and the company has continued to grow and add more products.  Students basically match up the answer side of the wrap with the question side by wrapping a string from one to the other.  The tool is self correcting making it easy for kids to see how they did.

Learning Wrap-ups currently have products for students in kindergarten through 5th grade.

For this review, we were given a one year membership to their online program, LearningPalette.com.  This gave us access, for up to five users, to both the math and reading sections.  Each section has 12 lessons, with 12 questions equaling 660 lessons.  That's 7,980 questions!

How We Used It:

My kids are 7 and 4.  I originally planned to use this with just Josie, my 7 year old.  After checking it out, I decided to see how my 4 year old did with it.  I wasn't able to use it in the same way with him, but he did get a lot of information out of it and actually ended up enjoying it more than Josie did.

The first thing I did was create an account for Josie and Gabe.  From there, we were able to get started right away using the program.  Josie was just wrapping up her 1st grade math and reading so this review came at a great time for us.  I had her work on a palette in each subject, three times a week.

The kids don't use the computer a lot, but I'm wanting to start making learning games a regular part of our afternoons.  I decided to have this be our starting program and it went really well.  Not only did Josie and Gabe learn the material on the palettes, but they both learned how to use the mouse to move the discs into the correct spot on the palette.

I had to spend a bit of time sitting with them both for these at first.  Once Josie understood how to pick the right answer, she was good to go on her own.  I had her call me when she was finished to check her work.  For Gabe, I stayed with him for the whole computer time.  He picked the answers he thought we right and we worked together to get the disc to the right spot.  With Gabe, this was also more of a learning tool than a review tool.  He wasn't sure what the correct answers were for most questions, so I would tell him, then have him drag the disc to the correct answer.  He was super excited about getting the answers right and I was surprised at how much he retained from doing it this way.

My Opinion:

After using the program for a few weeks, Josie wasn't very excited about doing it.  I think it was a mix of Summer break and the repetitiveness of moving the discs.  Plus, she has never really liked computer games very much.  If there had been some toss ups with games and other activities on the site I think she would have been more interested.  To remedy this, I switched to having her do it once a week for a little longer of a stretch.

Gabe continued to enjoy it even though it was a bit over his head.  He is at the very, very beginning of his formal schooling, so there was a lot he had no clue how to answer.  I was impressed at what he was able to remember after I told him the correct answers.

I'm excited about how we can use these to reinforce topics we have covered throughout the year.  I'm planning to use the site as a review for topics we cover.  Doing these as more of a review right after we finish topics will be a quick, easy way to see what she is retaining.

I feel that the online subscription can be a great tool for supplementing what students have already learned.  As for actually teaching, I think the physical product would be more conducive.  Many Crew Members reviewed the physical products, so I encourage you to follow the link below to learn more about how they felt they worked.

Product Details:

www.LearningPalette.com
Year Membership (5 users): $59.99

Current Promotion: Learning Palette is offering a discount for y'all!  If you enter the code "HOMESCHOOL" in the promo box you will get 20% off AND a free month access to the site!

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