This past year we have streamlined our homeschooling to mostly online programs (approx. 80%). It has helped tremendously since I have been working more. Recently we had the opportunity to try ABCmouse.com – Kids Ages 2-6 – Click here to get your First Month Free!, a subscription based site that allows for up to four children’s accounts on one parent account for about $7.95/month. I have to say that I am mostly impressed with ABCmouse.com. It is geared towards preschooler and kindergarten age children, but all my children under 10 have been very eager to help the younger children! It is not only educational, but fun too! A bonus since we want our children to love to learn.
The pull for the children is the fact that they can earn tickets for the school work they do and then use those tickets to buy things for their virtual bedroom or other rooms. They have so much fun decorating and shopping! This reward system does not cost anything extra, it is just a part of the ABCmouse.com – Over 3,000 Educational Activities – First Month Free – Click here!. Therefore, our younger children are learning about money too, even it it is with a materialistic slant.
The school work includes learning sounds, letters, colors, numbers and counting. There are different subjects (reading, math, the world around us, art & colors, music, library, puzzles, games) to choose from or the parent can assign lessons for each day. There are six levels on ABCmouse.com: Levels 1-6, which a couple of my children are starting over. Very good for my now 4 year old son in preparation for teaching him to read. (Updated 3-18-12)
The music and voices on ABCmouse.com are very uplifting and encouraging. There is no condescension in the instructors at all. There are a lot of the old nursery rhymes that I remember my grandmother singing to me on there that bring back fond memories.
Samples of songs, like the “A” song are available on iTunes.com if you would like to preview the music.
The So-Called Negatives
The only so-called negatives in our minds are the requirement of the children’s birth dates when you sign your child up, which my husband and I are very reluctant to provide and would rather not give at all. Then the children showed me a tiki in the fish tank, which they call a tiki god and I liken it to a totem pole. These are very minor things and do not affect the overall success of the learning my children have gained from ABCmouse.com. My four year old knows her abc’s much better than she did before she started the program and she knows how to count better too. She has consistently earned high marks on her work. (Update 3-18-12: I really believe this program fully prepared my daughter, now 5, how to read. I started her on our reading program in January 2012 and she is half way done. She is doing extremely well and I credit ABCMouse for the success we have achieved so far!)
My three year old still needs help with using the computer mouse, but I think he is just so easy going that it is second nature to him to let his older siblings do it for him while he tells them the answer. My four year old and seven year old both knew how to use a computer mouse at age 2!
Overall Grade
Our children simply love it and are eager to do “school” with ABCmouse.com and as I said, I am very impressed with the quality of the program as well as the content. We give this educational site a two thumbs up for an overall grade!
For more information about ABCmouse.com – Full Online Preschool-Kindergarten- First Month Free – Click here!
Faith and Family Reviews received the following product in exchange for writing a review. While we consider it a privilege to receive free products to review, our reviews are our honest opinion and thoughts of the product.
i really want my grand son to like this program and i would like an address to send the check for 7.95 a month.
Abc mouse
I am considering signing up my son for this… but he is 20m and on the slow end of his age. Do you think hes still a tad too young?
My youngest is 19 months old and while he cannot do many of the activities his older siblings do, he is watching and listening, enjoys the stories and the music. My philosophy is they are never too young. My oldest was advanced for her age and was learning her ABCs and sounds at 15-18 months, reading by the time she was 3. Every child is different and you won’t know if ABCMouse.com will work for your son unless you try. It is a nominal fee and you can always cancel. If in doubt, wait until he’s 2 to reconsider. Our other son was probably right around 2.5 when we started using online programs and while he wasn’t as adept at using the computer mouse as our older sons, he still loved ABCMouse.com.
Hope that helps!
for my sun he is 3
My boy is 3 he love to learn
We tried ABCmouse.com and my 6 year old daughter didn’t like it at all. So, we cancelled it the same day. However, they continued to bill us without notification. I called them to complain and they refused to refund us all of our money. Based on the operators response this is a common complaint for them and they ‘never’ refund people their money. These people are rip off artists and I would never recommend them. Beware. And do not give them your credit card number.
I’m very encouraged to see this review. May I ask how the availability of the site has been for you? I have been trying to sign up for it and so far the site has only worked once, and then only long enough for me to enter payment information at which point it timed out again. Have you find that, generally, the site works well and you have good connectivity? I’m a bit frustrated at this point and second guessing my decision to sign up.
My boy is 7 he need a program for school thanks
ABCmouse.com 30 day free trial is scam. They ask you to sign up free trial for 59.95. This charge is non refundable! Very bad company. I’m regret sign up for this. You can get free learning website at starfall.com. Hopefully this abcmouse website is down!
My cousin is 2 and I think she would love this program!!! The only thing is she can’t sit still for very long unless it is something very interactive and fun!!! Do u think it will work???
Yes, I think it probably would based on a couple of my children who never seem to be able to sit through other things, but put them in front of a fun, interactive and educational computer program and amazingly they do very well. Of course, every child is different, but I do think it’s worth a try.
As a grandmother, I feel like I’ve been blindsided with my grandaughter’s first few weeks in Kindergarten. (We are in the South where school starts in early August!) I went through raising my own children through the guinea-pig experimentation with Sight Words and Big Books. What a disaster!
I had thought that all schools realized the folly of getting away from phonics-based reading. Not so! Not so!
When my grandaughter came home a few days ago with her list of 25 “sight words” I became alarmed. Although we had been working with her all along on the sounds that letters made — and she “got it” — it seemed these words on her list have no rhyme or reason to them. Once I dug a little further, their kindergarten manual says that they do a “blended” form of phonics where they introduce this later — for now, they work on sight words. (I don’t have any clue what they mean by saying they will introduce phonics at a later date. This year?)
Is abc mouse truly a phonics-based reading program? I want to supplement her reading skills now that I realize they are not reinforcing phonics in the kindergarten class. (And she is in one of the highest-ranked elementary schools in the entire state!)
FWIW, I can remember being taken aside by my daughter’s teacher when my daughter was being taught “sight words” and I supplemented with phonics. (Remember those days when they had the “open classrooms”?) I was told I would only confuse her, so I dropped back, taking their word that THEIR reading program was better. What a mistake — my daughter hates to read and still struggles with being able to put together long, complicated words. We definitely don’t want her daughter having the same problems!
Ugh….I’m so discouraged!
Also, we only have laptops here at our house. Can the abc mouse program be used effectively with a mouse pad or does the extraneous mouse somehow have an integral part in these games?
Yes, ABCMouse.com is phonics based and yes it can be done on either a PC or a laptop, as long as your granddaughter knows how to work the mouse on the laptop it shouldn’t be a problem.
You might also want to check out ReadingEggs.com. This is a program we have graduated our children to now that they are getting older and have used all the levels of ABCMouse.com
One thing we do not like about ABCMouse.com is they give no notification when your subscription expires and ours expired for a couple of years cutting our children off completely. The last we knew they did not have an automatic renewal email sent out or notice that our subscription needed to be renewed. In this day of technology, that is seriously lacking on their part. Yes, we can use a calendar and our iPhone reminders to send us notification but those were the years I was neglected to set those things up and could never seem to remember when we signed up. I cannot remember if that is noted in our ABCMouse account or not.
Wishing you the best as you supplement your granddaughter’s education.
I have mixed feelings about Ancmouse. My 3 year old son is currently on level 5. He has learned quite a bit about social studies, science, colors, and shapes and letters. He is now ready to read due in part to ABCmouse.
However I thier are a few negatives with the program. It does not run well on Safari or Explorer so some of the games don’t show up or run properly. It gets annoying. In addtion abcmouse is a cookie cutter program that does not always meet the needs of each student. Any student that is super advanced or slow will not find this program interesting or fun. In addition my son is super celever with letters and horrible with numbers. He was ready for level 5 reading on ABCmouse after level 2, but still at level 1 on the math. So I went through each level with him stuggling with the math and bored with the English. If you have an average kid and are willing to put in a lot of time then Abcmouse is for you.
My granddaughter lives 800 miles away in a other state how would I get to her?
Buyer beware !!!! I paid one years subscription on 12/16/2014 he did use it and enjoy it but today 12/16/2015 I was charged without my consent $59.99 . There is no one to call and speak with only email , when you email they tell you you’d have had to have canceled before the end of the year . When I canceled today , the day my account was charged and asked for my money back I found out I was permitted to cancel my account but they refused to refund my account so I just paid $59.99 for a subscription I can not use . Watch out this is really a big fat scam . They could easily send a notice a month or week before your subscription is going to end to let you know you will be charged or have the option to cancel . That’s commom now to do w most companies ABC mouse however just wants our money .
I always thought $100 a yr. Was too expensive, but over the holidays abc mouse offered half off so I decided to try it and then found out that for most of the stuff u see on the commercials u have to pay about $40 more. The site didn’t hold any of my kids attention. Starfall is way better and a whole lot cheaper.
I personally thought the abcmouse.com purchase was not at all worth it! My kids lost interest immediately and and it was too much screen time for my personal preference for their age. Also, since I purchased the app 4 years ago, I just discovered that they charge you every year until you cancel the account. While I was raising 3 kids and losing 2 parents to cancer I missed the fact that the continued to charge my account. Therefore, for the minute amount of time my children used the app, altogether I was charged about $500! I was so upset when I saw the last charge and when I called they were terribly rude and said it was just like a Netflix account, you have to cancel at the end of use. I never received an e mail or anything notifying me that I still was being charged. I had to see it in my bank debits. I would NEVER recommend this application to anyone I know after seeing how sly and unscrupulous they operate.
As a faith based homeschooler, what are your thoughts on the fact that ABC Mouse is owned by Scientology?
I was not aware it was owned by Scientology. Interesting. Guess, I will be doing some more research.
It is an online subscription service.
Yes, that has been noted by many, but as with any subscription based online service, it has to be canceled before the charge goes through. Amazon, Netflix, cable or satellite channels are all very much the same or very similar. A note on the calendar or phone with a reminder notification helps solve the issue. It doesn’t mean that the company or service they are providing is bad.
We have not had any issues of late with the site. My children are older and now use AdventureAcademy.com, I would like my youngest to finish the last few things on ABCMouse.com but he prefers the Adventure Academy so I have to remember to cancel ABCMouse!
For those of you interested, ABCMouse seems to have made the process of canceling easier. Just go to the parents section (or FAQ) and under “Membership” follow the buttons to cancel your subscription. I just did so and it was easy to do. Adventure Academy is available for those of you finishing ABCMouse.