I will tell you the one big thing drawing me to WPD is the kid's log-in and can view their assignments. It is a big draw for our supplemental materials and schedule b/c my kids are so used to logging onto k12 with their own log in and going through it and checking it done. I gave up last year on it, but I hope when they roll out the new interface that it will be what we need. None of the other homeschool digital planners seem to offer this type of child's log-in where you don't have to go print the assignment list.

If you go to their facebook page and scroll back to February 14, it does say all current subscribers will be gifted a year. "Our Valentine Gift to You: We are excited about our new programming team and the interface they are working on. We appreciate you hanging in there with us as we worked through the many issues of the original programmers. To show our appreciation, we are gifting a free year to current subscribers! We look forward to showing you throughout 2013 the amazing things this product has in store. No need to do anything. We will automatically extend subscriptions with the launch of the new interface coming this summer!"

I paid for it last year and never got to use it as it was a mess. I also have not changed my email and did not find out until poking around and questioning if anyone stuck out their promises of updates....that lo and behold...I should get this year free. I have logged on and fiddled around with it some. I don't want to play with it too much since a new interface is coming. I was able to set up log ins for each of my 4 kids last night. I set up curriculum, literature, and some very bare bones lesson plans. It seemed to work fine. I added events to the calendar with ease. If I am getting an extra free year then I am going to see what it will do.

K12 would not be any easier or do the work for you besides scheduling it out on your OLS. It is very much written where you (the adult) read the history to the child from the computer at this age. I personally like it, but I get it for free through our virtual. A 1st grader would need you to complete the k12 history. I have SOTW 1 as well and if I were having to purchase k12 on my own, then I would use SOTW1. I don't think k12 would be minimal. It is a lot of work for both the learning coach and the student. Plus the history is only 2x a week in 1st grade to draw it out through the whole year with k12. That is a lot of money to spend on 2x a week lessons. I am sorry about your loss.

Well, I am not sure how true it is, but someone on another thread said if you bought it early last year that you got this year free. My subscription should have been up in June I think. Now my subscription start and end date are blank but I can do everything on it. Someone said they sent out an email in March that those that bought early last year would get it free this year. I am going to use it as long as it allows me. With what I did last night, I would say it is finally where it should have been last year in Beta. It still has some kinks like not being able to create a custom school year so if I click 2013 it creates 2013-2014 but it is 1/1/2013 to 12/31/2013??? So not the typical school year and if I click 2014 it comes up with 01/01/2014-something....anyway, there are still kinks but the add curriculum, literature, and lesson plan features were all pretty smooth last night. I am not relying on it as my only planner as I can't put the right school year in right now. Someone said a new interface is supposed to be coming out soon. I honestly didn't touch it much last year after fiddling with it over the summer and it not being ready by the beginning of school. But if I have it for free this year, I will try it out.

Has anyone seen this? I have been toying with it today and for free it is pretty cool. Has anyone set up their school year with it yet? http://homeschool.mardel.com/Intro

Well, on a whim...I logged in last night and started playing around with it. You can create curriculum, literature, and lesson plans fairly easy and it was intuitive. I don't think it is their new interface though. I think we are still waiting on the new interface. I am going to play with it since apparently I get it free this year. I am also going to use homeschool helper just in case as a backup. I need something mobile that will pull up on a tablet. The one feature that I like about the WPD online was that my kids could have their own log in and password to look at their assignments. I did create each kid a username and password and tested it out last night and it all worked fine. So I am giong to give it a good go.

Okay, I was curious b/c I can still log in and do everything but my subscription start and end date are blank. :) This is great to know. I might just not have read the email. I am going to use both homeschool helper and Well Planned Day online this year at first to compare. :) I did log back in and lesson planning is easy now and they have a database of books. It is easier to put in the isbn # than it is to get the words right to search for books. I am going to give it a real go this year and see how it works out for us.

We haven't started back yet. I did a summer catch-up and getting ready for back to school post. I also updated all the kids' pictures so that they aren't pics from 2 years ago. I am determined to keep blogging weekly this year. :) http://ourtidbitsoflearning.blogspot.com/2013/07/its-that-time-of-year-again-back-to.html

I realize this is a very old topic, but I bought early and then just forgot about it around September last year when it wasn't ready for use yet to plan the year properly. I logged back on recently and they have made a lot of changes and it is pretty functional now. Did anyone stick with it and how did you like it if you did last year? I remember the promise of a $40 subscription this year to those that bought early last year, but I think my subscription is up and I haven't heard anything from them about the $40 deal. I think I could actually use it this year now that they have it much more user-friendly and the kids can have their own log ins. Any new feedback or review? Any one know if they are honoring the $40 earlybird deal this 2nd year?

I actually liked Wordly Wise in the elementary years 3,4,5 and Voc. from classical roots for middle school 6,7, and 8. We have done/are doing VCR A, B, And C. We have not done the levels lower than the middle school levels. We also haven't done latin and now my oldest is taking German for high school credit so I do sort of see VCR as our last ditch effort to get a bit of latin in there. My kids did really enjoy Wordly Wise and no matter which grade that I started it with them I bought the 3 book set from Seton"s 3 books set with Wordly Wise A, B, and C to complete. It is sold geared to be for 3rd grade, but my one child who came home in 4th started with it and she continued with WW1 and 2 from Seton (think it may be older versions) before transitioning to VCR in 7th. Since we switched in 7th to a virtual school VCR B was provided for her. Anyway, I don't think you can wrong vocabulary wise, but if the younger VCR is the same style....I know my kids would have gotten down on completing vocabulary whereas starting with the 3 books set with Wordly Wise they started off enjoying vocabulary. I went back and looked at your ages of your students and personally I would go with Wordly Wise for the elementary age and VCR for the Middle School age.

It shifts in 4th grade to Word Study which has a lot of different things and explores it more. There is more writing exercises. It does review the phonics rules but adds other things in as well. It would depend on if your child really needed it whether it is a waste. It is good for my child who needs that reinforcement.

MCP changes in 4th to Word Study and has lots more to it as well. I haven't seen Seton's 4th grade and we did use MCP 1-3. Fourth grade is very different from 1-3 MCP Phonics. I didn't think you were putting MCP Phonics down just that you weren't comparing the same level of MCP to the same level of Seton. There are lots of writing exercises in MCP Word Study D as well. It just seemed you were comparing phonics to Seton's 4th grade when MCP's 4th grade is actually Word Study D and it is much different than MCP Phonics A,B, or C. :)

I like MCP phonics here and find it to be plenty. It helped my dyslexic son learn to read and keeps his phonics skills handy to help with spelling. We plan to go through all the word study books as supplements until he ages out of them. MCP in 4th grade is word study and it is a lot more than putting str in front of words. I have the 4th grade here and I think it is the 1998 version. It has a wealth of activities.

We did Voc. from Classical Roots A & B with our 6th and 7th graders respectively last year. We had used Wordly Wise previously. I have no idea about EFTRU, but Voc. from Classical Roots was a very hard course for both my children. I wouldn't want to use it alongside anything else. It was plenty all by itself.

The amount of time you have away from the computer depends on a lot of factors-the virtual school you use, your children, you, classes your children are taking, and age/grades of the children. I have a mix of kids in the k12 system. We did a lot of extras b/c we used k12 as a buffet. I did not make them do every little thing if they had mastered material and could take the assessment. Science is all online. There is no textbooks for science. You do have some extra books to read as well as the student/teacher pages. History is a mix. It is all online until middle school and then you receive texts as well as student/teacher pages. Math is online/offilne mix. Up to 3rd grade, the kids have consumable math texts and you have a hardback teacher's text. Language arts for the most part is offline in elementary school. Art is offline/online. My middle schoolers worked independently. My 4th grader was independent for a lot of things. My 1st grader needs me for his work. We were on the computer a lot, but it was such a mix of online/offline that I did not feel chained to it nor did my kids. Science is very experiment driven so lots of hands on learning with science. We did a co-op 1x a week, drama classes separate (my dd was in a big production of Esther), 4H, scouts, and more. Whether it was just b/c I was unwilling to lose those things or not, we weren't giving up the freedom of homeschooling. My kids work at their own pace and have been up and down in the curricula. Our school is very communicative and we can do school when we want (weekends and holidays) and those hours count towards our weekly quota. Some schools are not that flexible. Some schools have to switch out k12 materials for state based materials. Ours has not except for state history. We are getting what someone purchasing k12 individually would receive. We do have to state test and complete Study Island assignments as well as turn in work samples. 4th is a very writing intensive year. There will be essays throughout the courses. It was a good year but a rough year to jump in with my 4th grade ds. If I wouldn't have seen how 6th and 7th looked, I would have felt overwhelmed. We were able to adjust and do more orally and just do the written work samples that had to be turned in to the teacher. Not all schools will be that flexible. I try to set a schedule for the kids where they rotate from a more online subject to an online/offline or completely offline subject so they don't stay at the computer for long periods. Our teachers were great and I could just kmail when we had extracurriculars and field trips and use supplemental hours to cover our attendance. My best advice is to find someone in your state using the virtual school and get the lowdown on your virtual school. I was able to do that the year before we started and see the materials and the person that helped me out gave me the good and the bad.

My upcoming 8th grader was like this the entire time we traditionally homeschooled. I 2nd the idea of putting her in correspondence classes or online classes where someone else grades their work and lectures them. It has saved my relationship with my daughter. I was to the point that I did not like schooling her at all and ready to put her back in the mediocre school system where we live. Online school was the compromise and we went into it telling her that if it didn't work that she would be back in brick and mortar. Basically, my husband told me that I was miserable and it was regular school or online school but traditional homeschooling was not working for the relationship between my daughter and I. It has really made my life easier too. My world really did revolve around the kids and homeschooling. This year I have made friends and rejoined the adult world. I totally agree with the poster that said we can easily lose ourselves in the homeschooling journey.

We switched to online school last year with our then 7th grader and it did help our relationship. Co-op helped as well. She loved drama and was in numerous plays. She was really independent and couldn't blame school frustrations on me any more. She seemed to thrive on succeeding on her own. The hormones were still there and we did still have our moments.

Printer paper is what we run out of constantly. It is also good to have a backup set of ink for your printer on hand that way mid-printing you don't have to go to the store. I always put a new ink cartridge set on my shopping list when I have to use the backup set. These are Mommy supplies, but they have stopped me in my tracks during a good school day. For the kiddos, if it is your first year...don't buy too much bulk of things b/c you may discover that they hate using certain things. We always had to buy spiral comp. books for school b/c it was on the list and I thought it was a great way for the kiddos to keep subjects separate. They hate them. Biggest waste of money ever, I still have a stash from the first year we homeschooled and we are going into our 5th. I wind up using them during planning time. My kids prefer binders with dividers and loose paper. Go figure. Pencils are always a must here, but my kiddos like mechanical pencils over regular. Again these are things I found out after we came home. We always stock up on markers (big and small), art supplies, erasers and paper. Glue is a big one since my youngest has started school b/c he loses the lids to the glue sticks and they dry out. We always spring for crayola and elmer's glue. The cheap kind just doesn't last. We bought some Rose Art last year and I swear the crayons would break the first time you tried to use them. We had to use the crayon sharpener all year long. Another Mommy supply that I run out of for my planning changes is white out. I like the kind that is like a tape dispenser and you roll it over your writing. I like to buy the packs that have 3 or 4 in them on sale at back to school time. We bought bulk pens a few years ago at like 10 cent a pack and I just check every year and see if we need to add blue, black, or red. Paper clips, push pins, dry erase markers, chalk....all on my list for mommy supplies. I find that buying bulk the first year of kid supplies and replenishing has sustained us through the years. I just do an inventory before school shopping and go from there.

I did this one year but went with a file folder for the weeks for each kid which with 4 kids created 144 file folders. I religiously cut spines, tore out pages, and assembled the file folders. It was supposed to simplify our life and make it easier for me to know where we were at and if we had fallen behind in work. Instead, it complicated schooling b/c of backside pages that didn't fit directly into this or that folder and then of course with 4 kids and all those folders....well pages would turn up missing never to be found. It also made me feel really, really off track b/c it was all numbered and we did get behind so it discouraged me more than encouraging me. I will never again break up books at the beginning of the year for a whole year. I wish that I would have done it instead for say the first 6 weeks and seen how it would work for us b/c once you tear them apart they are not going back together. I also found that once I had placed them all in their pretty weekly folders all torn out that I lost track more easily as the teacher of what we were doing b/c I wasn't weekly going and setting up their work and skimming over everything the weekend prior. That caused me to be a poor teacher that year. It may work for you, but I found it was a lot of work and then it didn't work for us. We do much better with a weekly to go binder that has only that weeks work put into it and I pull it together at the beginning of the week on like Sunday evening. It keeps it manageable for me and I stay in tune with what the kids are learning each week.

We are not in Texas so I can't speak for their virtual school program. We use k12 virtual school and so far have been very satisfied. Yes, you are considered a public school student in virtual school. We have not used high school, but used their 4th grade materials last year with my son who has dysgraphia/dyslexia. I found it to be a really great year. It was our 4th year homeschooling and yes I do consider us still homeschoolers. You can make it what you need. It is a buffet and as long as your child retains the material and makes an 80% on the unit assessments, you really can teach it any way you see fit and use as much or as little as you need. The free material has been great and the teacher help was what I needed when I had become burnt out schooling 4 kids. I did find that a lot of homeschoolers couldn't see it as having flexibility and complained of not being able to adjust for their kids, but we were adjusting and no one was knocking on my door telling me we couldn't. I think a lot of it is perception though. We started at the same time as a few other homeschoolers we know and some really liked it and are still in the school and some felt trapped by the school since they were no longer in total control over certain decisions in their schooling such as testing or introducing writing early. We just adjusted and did things orally some times. As long as we had the work samples in writing, no one questioned every assignment. I do feel you can still very much make it your own with the virtual school in the elementary years. Middle school was more structured and led by the teachers. I have no clue about high school as we have not made it there yet.

The notebook pages are scripted in Bigger as in they are not your child's thoughts. It pretty much tells your child to draw this or that and copy a Bible verse or sentence on the notebooking in Bigger. I think it begins teaching guided written narration in Preparing with a starter sentence. But for Bigger, it tells you exactly what to write. Bigger does work on oral narrations more but the written notebooking is scripted. You can go to HOD's forum and go through the weekly reviews and look at kids doing Bigger....all their work will be exactly the same on the notebooking as they are told what to write and draw. I do agree that the extensions are just more books not necessarily delving deeper into the topics. If you are looking for more in-depth questions and discussions as your child progresses upward....I am not sure HOD really lends itself well to that in the long run as history progressively becomes independent. I would think about that when looking at what you wish to do for the future.

I am going to reply a bit differently and ask do you plan to continue HOD on up or do you just want this time period right now and Sonlight doesn't offer for her age/range? If you are not planning to continue on through HOD and she already has all the skills for Preparing, then I would go with Preparing. Bigger does not have a lot of free writing or writing from your own thoughts. The notebooking pages are very scripted in Bigger. So if you are just using bits and pieces of it and felt Beyond was really basic, then I don't think Bigger will give you a lot more plus it is another year of American History and I see you are adding in Australian history this year. I would probably suggest doing Preparing unless you plan to stick out HOD all the way through.

There are sections that you will read and sections that she will read and answer. I remember still reading a lot for the 1st grade test, but it has been a few years as the last child I did it for is going into 5th this year.

I actually like the teacher's manuals. The instruction is pretty much all the same for the 1st and 2nd grade book, but pre-k and k have a lot of fun things to do that aren't book and paper work to work on dexterity. The dictation for magic letter c starts in K, where they form magic letter c and wait for you to give them the letter they are going to turn it into and it is a big hit in our house. I also liked having the slate chalkboard for pre-k and k. I plan to get the double line chalkboard when we get to cursive. There are a lot of teacher's helps in the teachers guide and it helps you to notice when they are picking up bad habits. I had 2 that had learned bad habits in school and needed remediated hand writing. My oldest actually had been taught by a k teacher who had been around back in the days when handwriting counted. :) So her handwriting was really good coming home. My youngest is in k12 and they use HWOT and send the whole deal so he is my first one to have all of it from the get go. I really like the extras and he went through the pre-k, k, and 1st grade handwriting book last year and now writes print really well. We moved to copywork from HWOT after he finished the 1st grade book. When I didn't have all the bells and whistles, I didn't miss them. But, once I had used them...I can see how helpful they are truly.