Math and language arts are such important parts of our homeschool that sometimes, they may be the only things we get to on a busy day.  Learning Wrap ups has an online program out for K-5th grade students called LearningPalette.com that allows students to practice skills they are learning in their main curriculum in a fun way.

Students are able to practice Math and Reading skills.  I like that they say “Level” instead of Grade within the program.  This way, a child could work on different concepts without the stigma or pressure of being on a certain grade level.  That said, I found the levels to be grade levels.  (Basic for Kindergarten, Levels 1-5 for 1-5 grades).

LearningPalette.com Student Experience

Math has Basic, Level 1, Level 2, Level 3, Level 4, and Level 5.  Reading has Basic, Level 1, Level 2, and Level 3.  There are 5-6 general skill categories for students to work on in each subject and level, and then 12 “cards” for each of those, for a total of at least 60 separate exercises per subject level.  As the student completes a card successfully, a little green circle lights up beside it so they can visually see their progress in the overall program.

Each card looks similar to the picture above.  Students answer the questions in a sort of multiple choice format, but they drag the matching color over to the correct answer.  My kids loved using the Check Answers feature.  They would usually use it once or twice while working on the card, especially if they were unsure about their answers.

This was especially true on the vocabulary cards my daughter worked on!  She didn’t want to spend a long time on a card, only to find out half of her answers were incorrect.  I would have to ask her not to check after every single answer or the card would take forever to complete, but we were thankful for the feature!

I had my daughter working on Level 3 for Math and Reading.  She is just now finishing up 3rd grade, so I thought this would be a good place to put her.  That said, many of the cards were a challenge to her, so I got to enjoy watching her stretch her knowledge further than even she thought she could!

I liked that on several of the cards, they would separate the questions and answers on the card into quarters, so it made it easier to answer them with just 3 or 4 questions and answers to tackle at a time (rather than the entire card’s questions and answers).  This helped my daughter to gain a lot more confidence while working through the problems.

My daughter chose to complete these cards during times when she was waiting for me to finish helping her brother with his schoolwork.  It’s an easy exercise to be completed independently and quickly, which is just right as a transitional activity and review all in one!

My son worked through Level 1 for Math and Reading.  He just finished his 1st grade curriculum a few weeks ago, so this level seemed to be a natural fit for him.  He is not used to testing, so I felt like this was a good way for him to practice this skill in a no-pressure, yet timed, situation.  He liked trying to beat his times spent on the cards to do his personal best!

At first, he didn’t want to do the cards at all.  He would pout when it was time to do them.  However, as he got more practice in answering the questions and realized that the exercises were fairly short and not very time consuming, he began completing the cards with no fuss.  He is also very organized and seeks to finish things one step at a time, so he went sequentially with the cards he completed.  It would drive him crazy to jump around!

I had my children complete 1-2 cards per school day.  Some days I would let them just pick whatever they wanted within their assigned levels.  Other times, I would look through the concepts on the cards and choose one or two that corresponded with the lessons they had learned that week in their main curriculum.

Either way, it didn’t take very long, and it reinforced skills.  They didn’t have the pressure of a limited amount of time, and there weren’t any flashy bells and whistles to distract them from actually answering questions and demonstrating their knowledge.  They still had fun, though!  Both showed such a boost in confidence when they finished a card!

Parent Account on LearningPalette.com

The parent account on LearningPalette.com is very comprehensive, though it can be easy to miss all of the great features.  Once logged in to the parent account, just go to Account Options and View Reports.

From there, you can click on your individual students to see what they’ve been working on, for how long, and how they did!  You can see that I’ve check on my daughter’s account recently.

Here is what her Progress Report looks like from my parent account:

As you can see, she has gotten a perfect score (12) on each of the 27 cards she has completed, with an average time of 5 minutes and 7 seconds per card.  Honestly, that time is inflated and her score is only that high because she did the Check Answers feature like crazy!  I’m telling you, I had to have a talk with her about that!

Final Thoughts on Learning Palette

We have enjoyed using this online program as a supplement.  I love that it is simple, fast, and has a great reporting system on the parent account.  For folks that have to keep detailed records for their school district or state, this feature will be a lifesaver!

I enjoyed watching the kids practice their test taking skills, as well as demonstrate knowledge in areas that they’ve already covered in their main curriculum.  Some of the cards were really easy to them, and some were very challenging.  Of course, this depended on the amount of exposure  they had previously had to the particular concept on the card.

LearningPalette.com is just $59.99 per year for up to 5 users, and they are currently offering a 20% discount by using the code HOMESCHOOL.  At this price, I definitely feel that the program is worth it!

In just a few minutes a day, your kids can use these activities to review important math and reading skills.  It would work really well as a beginning of the day activity to help get them focused for learning that day!