LightSail for Homeschoolers: A Language Arts Curriculum Review

I received this complimentary product through the Homeschool Review Crew. 

Being part of the Homeschool Review Crew, my daughter and I had the privilege to use Lightsail for Homeschoolers. 

Lightsail for Homeschoolers is an online, Language Arts curriculum for grades 3-12. LightSail breaks their curriculum into four parts:

• Reading
• Writing
• Vocabulary
• Fluency

LightSail for Homeschoolers offers two different subscription plans. The first is the Standard Plan and the second is Premium. Lightsail offers payment either monthly or annually, for up to five children. 

For this review, my daughter and I used the Premium plan. I did not have any problems creating my parent account or the student account for Abby. 

I was really impressed with the amount of resources that LightSail offers for homeschoolers. As you can see in the image below they give:

• 10,000 Books from top publishers
• 1,500 Audiobooks
• 20,000 Educational videos
• 40,000 Comprehension questions
• 50,000 World Book Encyclopedia articles
• 1,000’s of multimedia resources

LightSail’s Parent Dashboard

The Parent Dashboard is the first place to start. LightSail provides detailed video instruction on how to use their site. This is a great place to start.

Also on the Parent Dashboard, you can navigate to the media library, the four pillars of their Language Arts curriculum (reading, writing, vocabulary, fluency), and then a chat feature.

From this dashboard, you’ll have to set up your child’s account, information, and reading goals.

LightSail makes it very easy to see your child’s statistics for the day, week, month or year. It includes the total amount of:

LightSail for Homeschoolers: Library Section

• Books
• Audiobooks
• World Book Encyclopedia
• Biography Center
• Unit Studies
• Sports Encyclopedia
• 360 Degree Images
• Videos
• Augmented Reality
• Livestreams

LightSail’s Library of Books

Below are some images from inside LightSail’s Library of Books

LightSail for Homeschooler’s Library of Audiobooks

When you access LightSail’s audiobook section, you have six choices:

• Listen and Follow Word for Word Books
• Listen and Follow by Sentence Books
• Search
• Audio Only Books
• Interactive Books
• Audio Classics

LightSail for Homeschoolers: World Book Encyclopedia

LightSail breaks down their World Book section into four parts:

1. Encyclopedia
2. Behind the Headlines
3. Timelines
4. Maps

LightSail’s Encyclopedia section is divided into four parts:

Behind the Headlines

Behind the Headlines gives you and your child the opportunity to read current event news articles. They can play a current event game and there is also an option to click on lesson plans here. 

Timelines

The Timeline page allows you to search for already made timelines on a broad range of topics. You can then save them in “my timeline” for later. 

Also, if you want your child to create a timeline, they can do that too!

Maps

The Maps section gives you three choices.

1. Interactive Maps
2. World Book Atlas 
3. Compare Places

LightSail for Homeschoolers: 360 Degree Images

The list of 360 Degree Images are very impressive. They include:

LightSail for Homeschoolers Library of Biographies

The biography section is interesting. You can search for a particular person and you can even see who’s birthday is today, this week, or this month. 

LightSail for Homeschoolers Library of Unit Studies

I was very pleased to see LightSail’s Unit Study section.

With all of the material that LightSail has to offer, it would take a parent a good deal of time to put books, videos, audiobooks, augmented reality books, livestreams, 360 degree images, etc. all together to form a unit study. 

LightSail has done that for you on a myriad of topics. You don’t have to do LightSail’s unit studies though, you can create your own, and the planning pages are right there for you to use. 

You can assign the materials and give deadlines for when items need to be done. It’s very convenient. 

LightSail for Homeschoolers: Sports

The sports section gives your child all the cool stats to know on their favorite athlete. 

They can search easily in the search bar for their athlete of choice, or browse by sport activity. 

LightSail breaks down the athlete’s information into bite-size chunks: Fast facts, birthdate, professional highlights, personal highlights, awards, statistics, and articles that were written. There is plenty of pictures which are sure to impress your budding athlete.

LightSail for Homeschoolers Library of Videos

LightSail’s Video section is divided into four categories.

1. Videos
2. Ted Ed
3. Action Clips
4. Search

There is a wide range of videos on every topic imaginable. From a 1936 action clip of inside The Red Room of The White House to a ten minute media study that was done on modern day anti-vaxxers and conspiracy theorists. 

Using the search feature helps a great deal when trying to find any of this type of  supplemental material. 

LightSail for Homeschoolers Library of Augmented Reality

Augmented Reality books make the topic come to life so that your child can see the topic in action.

The directions at the beginning of the book instruct the child to have an adult download the Lerner AR app onto a digital device. As your child reads the book and they see a certain symbol, they are to scan that symbol and see the topic come to life. 

Within the text are highlighted words, that will take your child to short video clips to see that object in motion. 

Also, there is a fill in the blank word to really get your child using and thinking about vocabulary words. Multiple choices are given to make this easy and fun. 

LightSail for Homeschoolers Library of Livestreams

My daughter and I love the livestreams. They include:

All of the above information and choices are all found under the Library tab on your Parent Dashboard.  Now we’re going to go back there again and click on the other buttons for Reading, Writing, Vocabulary and Fluency.

LightSail for Homeschoolers: Reading, Writing, Vocabulary and Fluency Section

Reading

The Reading Section gives you, the parent, the ability to see specific data about your child’s assignments.

These choices will fill up and the content will be there, the more your child reads.

The options you have are:

• Reading Goals
• Reading Milestones
• Unit Studies
• Booklists
• Book Clubs
• Open Content
• Reading History
• Reading Badges
• My Children’s Data
• Reading Gradebook

Writing

The writing section will be awesome, when it is completely set up by LightSail. They have it in their plans to have these options for you:

Vocabulary

The Vocabulary section isn’t quite finished either, but it will be soon. The options that will be available are:

Fluency

The Fluency section will have a lot of great information collected on your child once it is completed as well.

The options you will have are:

LightSail for Homeschoolers: Content Controls

LightSail gives you three choices in your child’s account settings that help you know what content your child is allowed to see and choose from.

These settings can only be changed by the parent, and they can be changed at any time.

You have three choices for your child.

1. Allow: Books will be visible and openable
2. Block: Books will not be visible at all in your child’s library of choices
3. Require Approval: These books are visible in your child’s library, but a parent must approve the title so that it can be opened by the child. 

LightSail wants to make this extremely easy for you to do. As you peruse the library of titles, you will see that the book cover images have colored borders around them. 

These colors tell you if your child is able to see/open this book. 

You can adjust settings on these topics:

• Ableism (Negative Stereotypes, Disabilities, Mental Illness, etc.)
• Creationism/Young Earth
• Criminal Behaviors
• Death
• Divorce
• Eating Disords/Body Image
• Evolution/Evolution Theory
• Injuries/Medical Issues
• Language (Profanity, Slang, Verbal Abuse, Blasphemy, etc.)
• Magic/Fantasy/Horoscopes
• New Religions
• Non-Traditional Family Units
• Nudity
• Of A Mature Nature
• Other (Vandalism, Bullying, Gambling, Bathroom Humor, etc.)
• Outdated Cultural Depictions
• Racism
• Religious
• Religious Components
• Romantic Relationships
• Scary Imagery
• Self-Harm
• Sex/Reproduction
• Sexism/Gender Roles/Gender Identity
• Social Activism
• Substances
• Suicide
• Suspnese/Peril/Hardships
• Violence
• Woen’s Health/ Reproductive

How We Used LightSail for Homeschoolers

There are a lot of benefits to be found inside of LightSail for Homeschoolers.

The Reading, Writing, Vocabulary and Fluency sections are still being completed so we didn’t do anything with these sections.

Abby did the Power Text readings when they were due, and met the reading goals that I had set for her. 

I searched for supplemental materials on her Biology lab topics and was able to find some information to assign to her to read from the World Book Encyclopedia section. 

There were also some videos about proteins that were interesting to watch. 

I did not have any trouble finding more information on her biographical studies. When I used the search bar at the top of the site, it searched all the different types of content at once. This was way easier than going into the book section, and then into the audiobook section, and then into the video section etc.  It just searched all of it at once.

I was glad to see some extra resources in the form of videos and audiobooks about C.S. Lewis, George Washington Carver, Amy Carmichael, John Wesley, Martin Luther, etc. 

Abby does enjoy reading stories about horses so I assigned some to her to read, which she’ll get to eventually.

We also spent some time with the interactive content such as the Augmented Reality books, 360 degree images, and the livestream videos. 

The Easiest Way to Get Started in LightSail for Homeschoolers

Since there is so much information and so many different resources, just know ahead of time that there is going to be a learning curve to the platform. 

That’s not a bad thing though, it just takes some time. 

In the meantime though, I would suggest that you get your parent and student accounts created, have your child take the reading placement test, and then go to the Unit Study section. 

Since LightSail already has unit studies already compiled, I would choose one of these. 

While your child does this unit study and learns his way around the platform, you can be watching all the tutorial videos on how to use the site and all of its different features. 

It’s just a suggestion……..

Would I Recommend LightSail for Homeschoolers?

Yes. Once LightSail for Homeschoolers finishes the Reading, Writing, Vocabulary and Fluency sections this will be a wonderful Language Arts curriculum for not a lot of money. 

Word of caution: This is not a phonics program. This curriculum is geared for grades 3-12. 

A Few Words From LightSail

LightSail for Homeschoolers wants to answer any of your questions and provide you with the best Language Arts curriculum. From their website, you can read their Why LightSail page here.

Follow LightSail for Homeschoolers on Social Media

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LightSailEd
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lightsailed/

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