The last time I sent something through media mail, the post office opened it to check the inside's contents and I'm assuming didn't fasten it back up the way it had left. I had sold something on the boards here and they it was Notgrass for highschool with all the readers. The post office sent me a paper in the mail letting me know my books had been lost. I filled out the paperwork and sent it back (even went to the post office to speak to someone) and never heard anything back from them again. After my experience, I won't ever send anything out media mail again or have someone ship that way to me. I had no idea the post office was allowed to open the boxes and reseal them.

The "no" at the end of the email? Which email would that be? They haven't sent me an email stating not all my items are in stock if that's what you mean.

You will usually save on shipping and only some of the companies will have books there for you to purchase. I believe Teaching Textbooks will still have to be ordered and they will just waive the shipping fees.

This is exactly it! I still do order from them maybe once a month or so and my things have all come pretty quick. They have NEVER held anything for any length of time. They are usually pretty persistent in getting my things out even though I don't pay for Prime. Their customer service has always been amazing, but today I am not happy. :tongue_smilie:

I didn't mean to sound like I thought it was personal against me particularly because I never renewed my Prime membership. I just meant I wondered if they had changed things so that the general public would consider paying the $79/year so they didn't have to wait so long for their shipments.

I ordered about 25 books from Amazon last Friday. I don't have a Prime membership any longer. It ran out and I never felt I wanted to spend the $79/year since then. I feel as though, in a way, it enables me to spend more money with Amazon since I get my things so quickly. Anyway, I ordered these books on Friday. Usually, even without having Prime, I get my things pretty quickly. They have already taken the funds from my debit card and the books are still sitting and haven't been shipped yet. I even have the button where I can request to cancel. I have ordered plenty of things since I haven't had Prime and this has never happened. I decided to contact Amazon today and question this. I was told that my debit card had not been charged yet and only an authorization had been sent through (my bank shows otherwise). There are actually two charges (one being the authorization for $1 and the other being the full charge for the 25 books). I was told by the representative that on the super saver free shipping, they hold the books for four days. :confused: They have NEVER held my books before. Is this a new policy or something that has been recently changed? My thinking is it is their way of getting consumers to spend the $79/year so they can receive their books in two business days. :mad: Oh, and to top it off, I was told that where it states on my order, "Estimated Delivery Date March 22-March 27", actually means a SHIPPING DATE??? :confused:

I am curious as to what benefit you get from NL to praise the program so much. I researched NL Science last year and decided against it even though it does look fantastic. I am really only asking out of curiosity because I noticed every time a NL Science post comes up you are right there to jump in and praise the program so. I'm not saying there is anything wrong with that at all. We all have a homeschool curriculum that we completely love and praise it as well. I am just curious as to whether you work for the publisher in any way. I know when I had written to the company asking for information, you were also the "homeschool mom" that I was referred to who had sent me an email. Again, I am honestly just very curious and I have wondered this for some time now (ever since I was researching NL Science extensively). The price was really what threw me off and caused me to not purchase it. I ended up going with Apologia Botany and just purchased the box of supplies from RR to go along with it since my whole thinking on going with NL to begin with is that it came with absolutely everything. I also wanted my DC to do more experiment type activities and NL didn't look very experiment driven, but more activity driven (if that makes sense). It also seemed much more comprehensive in that you have vocabulary words, but I just had my DC pull our vocabulary words from the Apologia text and define them.

I have been there. I actually just got out of this recently. I am trying to change the way I do things and make things more fun just so I want to continue homeschooling. I feel the same way you do. I can never send my children to the public school. I am sure your DD will be fine if you just TAKE A BREAK! :D Why don't you just take a long break starting NOW? I've been homeschooling for 11 years and I have had to do take a break several times for my own sanity.

I actually already purchased Bigger at the convention last week. I have read living books to them before. Actually a lot! They LOVE it. It's really that they just are only interested in parts of SOTW (the parts where the stories are more like myths). If it's told like a story, they seem to enjoy it, but the more factual information they are turning their noses up to.

I'm as excited for you as I am for us! Hmmm... I'm probably MORE EXCITED for you since you get to start next week and I can't! :D

We have already finished FLL2 about 2/3 of the way through. I dropped it because it became a hassle trying to complete 2 grammar programs and, again, I was slacking off because I was getting burnt out. My children really loved it though so I probably should had stuck with FLL and ditched the GWG. It was just that the FLL took more time from me (again ...slacking :glare:), whereas the GWG could be done independently.

Thank you for this post! It was so encouraging! That is so awesome that your daughter found HOD so rewarding and still remembered it years later. I am struggling with using R&S for English because of the fact that we are leaving R&S Spelling. I'm sure I'll figure that out soon. I think I have every other choice in place for the most part. I just need to figure out what to add on for a composer/artist study. My main reason for feeling as though I need to have boxes to check is because I will be adding a K'r in the Fall. I am so nervous as I am struggling teaching two children. I can't imagine having to be accountable to three children. He has already started with OPGTR, but I'm thinking of switching to The Reading Lesson because he argues with me about doing the chants. He hates it and can never repeat them back. I want something more simplified for him, but have never used The Reading Lesson. I ordered it just to look at it. I know thats just horrible!

We are almost at the end of SOTW Ancients. I have pushed ahead with it even though my DS complains whenever I say, "it's time for History!". I hear, "Ugh! Again? Can't we just do the fun stuff?" or "I'm not doing the coloring page mom!" Yes, I get that I can take away the coloring pages and they aren't required, but my DC don't listen closely enough to answer the questions most of the time. There have been a few parts they are very interested in and will listen. It seems as though they are both interested in the story parts of it....like when the book is retelling a myth from Ancient Times. This is the only time they can answer the questions and do the narration. They would rather, if they had a choice, just skip ahead and do the projects in the activity guide. I really want them to pay more attention then they have this past year. I want them to enjoy, not just the story parts of SOTW, but the realistic aspects of it as well. I have really started rethinking the way I have been doing things. I went and purchased HOD Bigger for this coming year and still trying to piece together some of the books for it. We aren't ready to start it yet. I really wanted to wait to finish this year out and complete SOTW (hence I don't want to teach them that it's okay to give up something just because your not happy with all of it). I have spent a lot of money on HOD already and I don't want them to think that if they don't enjoy it then they can just make the decision to put that aside either. I'm willing to work with them on it, but not make it completely their decision. Anyways, I decided I wanted to add in more living books. I also decided I don't want to plan anything myself. I want everything done for me so that we get more done throughout the day. I feel as though, lately, I have been a bit slackish (which I doubt is even a word, but you get the point).:lol: I feel as though the checking off of boxes will hold me more accountable. We are using GWG for grammar and I feel as though we are just filling in blanks constantly and its getting to the point where (with my DS only) it's not really being retained. It's more like a pattern my DS is looking for when underlining, etc. I want him to REALLY understand it, not just find a systematic way of filling in blanks. I also want him to start diagramming sentences next year for 3rd grade. I am stuck between R&S and FLL3. I am hesitant to go with R&S as we plan to switch from their spelling program which we have been doing for the past 2 years. This is another area where I feel like my children really aren't getting enough out of it because my DS, again, just fills in the blanks systematically, groans when it's time to study his spelling words and gets horrible grades on his spelling tests all of a sudden. We are using Apologia Botany for Science and both of them LOVE this curriculum. I love it too! I am not sure I'll add another Apologia Science on for the Fall. I will probably try HOD Science first since what my children love about Apologia is the notebeooking. They also pay all kinds of attention while I'm reading to them unlike SOTW. Have any of you gone through this? I am not so much worried about my DD9, but I honestly think my DS8 is getting extremely bored with our school day. This is not what I envisioned for my children and one of the reasons I chose to homeschool was because I wanted my children to enjoy school. I am so glad I found CLE math and will never again leave for another math program. It has helped my DD9 who struggles and she is catching up and getting back on grade level. My DS8 doesn't so much care for it because he really doesn't need the 4 pages of math, but he has learned so much! They both have! Have any of you done this? I am sitting here looking through the HOD guide and thinking, "Why didn't I find this a long time ago?" At first, my idea was just to switch to HOD for the living books and fun activities that correlate together, but now I am deciding to switch most everything we use except for math in the hopes of making our school day run smoother and allow my children to enjoy school. Maybe I'm just burnt out after homeschooling for 10 years. :glare:

Thank you for this post. I'm going to their site to take a closer look at it. I guess it's between FLL3 and R&S now. Hopefully, I can decide soon.

http://www.welltrainedmind.com/forums/showthread.php?t=348064

:iagree:

It could be both? Maybe she did start her period, but also has a UTI?

:lurk5:

I honestly didn't like the looks of R&S English, but have never used it so I figured I'd ask here. I knew I'd get some informative responses. My DS is finishing all 3 days of GWG2 in one day. That's how easy grammar is coming along for him. I looked at the table of contents of the R&S English and it looked as though he has already gone past that with GWG and the bit of FLL2 we did before I gave it up half way through (only because it became too much for me with 2 kids doing 2 grammar curriculums. I had thought about going back to FLL for 3rd grade because both kids really do like it. I'm glad I didn't purchase te R&S English.

I just purchased HOD Bigger yesterday. I am very excited to start it in the next 6 weeks or so. We have always used R&S Spelling and I love it because it gets done quick and my dc are retaining it. They get 100% on every spelling test. They are not so much liking it anymore though because it is extremely repetitive every week and they have asked me to switch. I looked at R&S Grammar yesterday at the homeschool convention while at the HOD table. It looked okay, but we have used GWG for the last 2 years which we do like. Is R&S really that much better? My DS would probably love it since HOD suggests doing a lot of it orally (or at least that's what was suggested to me yesterday if I had purchased it). If you use R&S English, do you do a lot of it orally for the lower levels? How long does a lesson take you? Is it repetitive like their spelling curriculum? Also, as far as HOD goes, they suggested using Level 2 for my DS who will be in 3rd grade. Aren't they grade levels? I was told it was very advanced, but advanced as comparing to what? The public school? If my children were in the public school in 2nd grade, they probably wouldn't had learned what an adverb or direct object was and they surely wouldn't already know how to diagram sentences in 3rd grade. My DD going into 4th has been diagramming this year. My DS would be learning it next year if I stuck with GWG. They don't teach it in R&S English 2. Help me out here? I know I am to the point of rambling now, but I am not sure if I should go with R&S Grammar at grade level or start with level 2 as suggested (if I choose to use this program). If I don't and I choose to go with something else other than GWG next year, then what other programs teach diagramming sentences and are complete and full grammar programs?

I just got home from the convention and purchased the Bigger guide, DITHOR, and the science addon. I was told I needed to add on the girl interest/boy interest/classic package. I'm do confused as to how this works. There already seems to be so much literature. I didn't end up purchasing the extra read alouds because I was at my spending limit and already have so much else to buy as well as still needing the Level 2 readers for my DD. I got to the car and realized in the catalog it says these additional books are optional. I was told at the convention that they are used fur storytime boxes. If they are needed to complete the boxes, then how are they optional? Can someone please explain this to me? I'm trying to finish my book order tonight and I'm stuck as to whether to order these or not.

That I'm going to drive 2 hours to go to the homeschool convention just for the vendor hall (and maybe just one speaker). I won't get there until about 1:30 because I can't leave until 11 a.m., but the don't close until 9. Am I crazy? I had planned to go tomorrow but Saturdays are the only day I get to see my oldest DD and I would rather spend the day with her and my grandson then have her babysit my little ones all day. Hopefully my kids can behave! :tongue_smilie:

Don't these fall on the same weekend? I'm going this weekend to Spartenburg, SC. I went to Greenville last year and want to try a different one this year.

Those of you that have done family trees/genealogy studies, what is the best website to use? Is Ancestry.com the best one? I am hesitant to spend the $77/year. Is there another site that would be free to use to find the same information?

Thank you for all your replies. It sounds like I would be doing pretty much what I'm doing now to try and fit everything into a 4 day week when I decided I want a day off. It looks like I'll be looking further into HOD. My only dilemma now is to decide whether or not to travel 2.5 hours to a homeschool convention to look before buying or just spend the $75 or so and order it just to check it out further.