TOS REVIEW: GoTrybe

In April I was asked to review GoTrybe through the TOS Homeschool Homeschool Crew. It looked really interesting and I've been trying to find ways to incorporate more activity in our days.

Age range: K-12

Cost: $19.95 per YEAR after using the free one day trial found on the homepage (regularly $39.95)

There is also a limited time special of $.99 a month by signing up from the Kids Fitness Blog (check the top banner)

It is fairly simple to get signed up. Either use the free trial as mentioned above OR on the homepage you click Sign Up. If you have a promo code you enter it on the next screen (hint: look at Kids Fitness Blog!), choose a username and password and then what Trybe you want to be in (or you want your kids in), at the bottom of the screen. They are separated into 3 different Trybes, k-5, 6-8, and 9-12.

Once activated your child can customize their avatar. My kids love avatars- change their clothes, hair, skin color, eyes, etc. 

After they've made themselves the way they want...then they can head to their page, where they enter information about themselves (not personal information), such as what is their favorite color, tv show, exercise, etc.

Now they are ready to make their exercise video. They can choose to go with one of the Trybe Workouts or to piece together an entire workout of their own. They can hover the mouse over the left and right arrows to go through the available videos. It is by default on the Warm Up section of the video to start with.

To see more about the video (such as length and what parts of the body will be used as well as how difficult it is...) hover the mouse over the video clip.

You can choose to fill each of the slots for Cardio...or not. Also you can choose to only do Warm up and Flexibility or Cardio and Strength...or the whole kit and kaboodle!

Here's a shot of the beginning of one of the workouts that my son pieced together. You can see in the upper left the parts of the workout: Warm Up (W), Cardio (C), Strength (S), Flexibility (F); as well as the time of the entire workout. In this particular one, he didn't choose a flexibility aspect to go with it. This one was neat because it helps with coordination as well.

A workout that my dd chose (the first part, the Warm Up, had a wee bit of information about Mexico- was interesting):

When watching the videos, you can pause them but you can't rewind (lol OR fast forward!). You also can make it full screen by clicking the the button at the right of the progress bar below the video. You press esc to exit full screen.

Each time that they load a workout (watch the videos), they earn points. Each time that they complete a Nutrition, Motivation or Wellness 'activity' (which is generally a short informational video followed by a multiple choice question), they earn points. The points then can be used in the Avatar Store.

There is also a forum for those in the Trybes as well as a Shout Out box on each users page. The forum works like any other forum; create a thread, people post replies. The Shout Out box is for friends to talk to you. It can be controlled, first by who you add as friends and also, if you don't want some of them to appear, you x them out- which hides/deletes them from the page. 

Badges can also be earned: Badge 1 at 11,500 points, Badge 2 at 45,000, Badge 3 at 75,000, Badge 4 at 125,000, Badge 5 at 175,000, and Badge 6 at 300,000.

How did we use this?

We have a small area where our internet is located... exercising in this area is difficult to say the least. I used a program to download the videos so that I could take the computer into the other room. I would like to be able to use it more frequently. With the program being online only, it made it somewhat difficult for us to be able to use the videos as much as I'd like.

We did not use the 'friends' feature- my two kids were friends with each other but generally they are leery of 'friends' with individuals online. That was their choice and I'm just fine with it. They did use the Shout Out box to say hi to each other occasionally. And the forum wasn't very active although we did have a look-see every so often.

Most of the activity though that my kids used this for was to earn points via the Motivation, Wellness and Nutrition questions. They like to shop for their avatars.

What did I think of the program itself? 

Good idea. It seems that kids in today's society tend to want to do nothing more often than not (my kids aren't the exception!). But I think that having connections with others that are using the program would be of help to get them motivated.

The videos, I thought, were done well and the fact that there are kids in them is good to see. I had hoped it would help my kids see that exercising wasn't something that was not for kids. One thing about the videos, however: I have extremely fast internet and they would still stutter. Generally it was at the beginning only ...but still. 

I like that the workout can be either designed by the individual or a prefab workout could be used. That would be something I thought my kiddos would have appreciated (they are always wanting to do things their way...) 

We weren't too thrilled with the avatars- some looked downright scary. But the focus wasn't on that! 

Bottomline

I'm not sure that this is something I would have found on my own but I do like the idea. At $19.95 a YEAR, it is a really good deal- if you use it. But honestly, I don't know if it is something that we would use in our homeschool. Perhaps a co-op setting would be great. I would recommend it to others who are looking for a program based on the ease of navigating the site, the price of the program, and the flexibility of the workout videos.

I would LOVE it if they had this available on DVD/CD. 

Interested to hear what others had to say about this? Hop over to the TOS Homeschool Crew blog and have a look!

**Disclaimer: I received a free trial from GoTrybe via TOS Homeschool Crew in exchange for an honest review. I was not required to write a positive review; all opinions stated are my own. See Disclosure/Policies.**