Thanks for sharing your experience Shannon! :) I got the DVDs today and it's not marked overnight, it's 2nd day air. Which is still fast but not the same as overnight and it took me calling twice to get these DVDs to me. Terminology usage is important IMO. I also got a check for the shipping cost and the rep told me it would go through my account directly. Again wrong use of words. I know it's probably minor stuff and I'm super hormonal right now (35w pregnant)....thanks for listening ladies!

My 5th grader finished FLL4 last year and we tried R&S 5 and we both couldn't even stomach the layout! We switched to EG5 and we love it! I feel like it's plenty because of the amazing foundation she got from FLL1-4! Grammar comes easy for her. I however switched my 3rd grade dd to R&S 3 and it was horrible! So I moved her to EG 3 and the transition wasn't as smoothly so I wish I would've stuck to FLL 3 with her before attempting EG. Sorry not trying to confuse you...just mentioning our experience when we were done with FLL4.

Thank you both!! :) I will go up the chain. I just want to let them know that the reps need to use different terminology when dealing with shipping issues. Expediting and overnighting didn't happen here yet was promised. Makes me wonder if the reps understand what expedite and overnight actual entail? I didn't even ask for that so was pleased when they promised this form of shipping. Also I didn't appreciate the way the first rep blew me off. :/ I also agree...no matter what a person spends the CS needs to be good. I was just upset the gal made it sound like refunding me my original shipping charge would suffice the excise to wait an additional 7 days for my DVDs that weren't shipped with the original order. I appreciate it, although most wouldn't be able to tell with my hormonal pregnant self..but I am! :) Thanks again ladies. I plan on having a long relationship with IEW so I was rather upset and taken back a bit because all I've ever heard about IEW is good customer service and much more!

Anyone have a negative experience? I just spent $432 on getting my kids IEW curriculum for this coming fall year. I get my package on the 15th and it's missing the teacher and student DVDs?! I call them to find out if it's normal to ship separately and they reassured it was a mistake and they don't. So I was told that they would expedite them to me....this was on Monday. I call yesterday to find out where the DVDs were? The customer service gal said it wasn't "clear on her end" where it was. She kept me on hold and went to shipping to check. She comes back to tell me it was JUST sent that morning regular mail!! I was so upset! I let her know that I've avoided this curriculum due to cost and when I finally spend the money this is my experience, I wasn't pleased. She assured me it wasn't normal and she apologized. I get off the phone and call my dh to tell him. I get a call from IEW within a few minutes if hanging up with them to tell me that they've resent me the DVDs OVERNIGHT and to just return to sender on the other package I will get on Monday. So here I am today with no DVDs! I'm sooooo unhappy! Grrrrrrrr! Anyone else have a similar experience? I'm unsure where to go from here. I want to email Andrew directly and tell him my experience but would it be pointless? They said they'd refund me the $9.75 shipping I originally paid for shipping. It was a nice gesture but that's really nothing compared to the headache this has been. I was hoping for the ENTIRE package on Monday and spend this week watching the DVDs and implement it with my kids now. That's why it's been such a big deal to get it altogether. For the price I paid I'm unhappy with the customer service. Any suggestions? I want the curriculum, but I don't want a long term customer service headache with them either!

How old are your kids? 5, 9, 11 When do you get up? 6-7 When do the kids get up? 7-8:30 When does school start? Between 9-10 Any tips on starting school on time? Be realistic with a routine that would work for your family. Don't go starting school earlier than they normally wake, don't expect school before they've had breakfast, & don't start until they've had some "wake up" time. This is what I did. Now we are a routine that works for us. My dh has made comments for a couple years about making the kids wake sooner and getting on a more "normal" schedule. I refuse to adjust to a schedule that isn't comfortable for us all. For starters..I'm not a morning person! LOL

You're not alone!! My 2 nieces are SOOOO LOUD compared to my 3 kids! My kids even have to go put on headphones and zone out because they overwhelm my kids. I've noticed this in many other kids too though. We keep a pretty mellow home as nobody in our home handles too much noise and we do school here. My kids have grown up in a quieter home than I did and I prefer it!! I've also noticed that my nieces are SOOOO dependent upon someone else for their entertainment. My kids are able to go play alone without any fuss, go watch a movie by themselves, read a book alone in their bed, or interact together and if nobody wants to play with them they find something else to do. My nieces come to me the ENTIRE time whining they have nobody to play with or it's not fair they can't play this or that with my child because my child wants to do it alone. My kids aren't antisocial and interact well with my nieces for the first 3-4 hours and after that they've had ENOUGH. I do get very annoyed and I'm usually very patient around kids of all ages. I've come to realize I like our routine, our structure, our mannerisms, and would prefer it just be us! LOL!! BUT the occasional weekend overnights with my nieces is fun but after day 1 it's enough for our family.

We used FLL1-4 and although we were dragging through FLL4 I was eager to make a switch for something new. I'm not aware of AG, but as far as R&S English....we disliked it VERY much!! I switched to R&S Spelling as well and it was a GREAT move from AAS. It's less teacher intensive. The English seemed too "classroom formal" if that makes sense. My kids begged to NOT do it anymore. We switched to Easy Grammer and since we've done FLL 1-4 it's given them a great foundation and my girls do fabulous with EG daily. We begin IEW next year and will continue with EG as well. Many feel IEW is just writing curriculum but it's so much more than that IMO!! :) Sorry if I didn't help you and only confuse you more. :(

I agree with others..start at Apples and take it at your child's comfortable pace. My 3rd grader this year started with LOF Apples and with breaks this year she's almost done with Edgewood. We'll be starting Farming next. I did notice that once we started Edgewood it slowed down. We were doing 1-3 chapters a day, now we are down to 1 chapter a day, 4x/week.

I use Miquon and MEP! All my kids have thrived with these! :)

The last of everything has arrived! Yay!! This is exactly what I need in Februrary of every school year to get me motivated to continue through after the dreary winter!! Love looking through all of next years curriculum!

We enjoyed this PreK year with light schooling. Nothing real formal and lots of fun review activities. I've planned and already purchased anything that needed to be purchased for my ds5. What will you be using? My K-er will be doing.... Math: Miquon L.A./Writing/Reading: IEW PAL - Reading & Writing Science: Elemental Science: Exploring Science History: SOTW 1 Audio only. (We will begin formal SOTW 1 in 1st grade) Grammar: First Language Lessons 1 Art: Home Art Studio

Yes, I don't even print everything anymore either! We also have appletv so I use my iPad as my blackboard and mirror it to our living room tv! It's made our homeschooling journey a more pleasant & relaxed one.

I just wanted to chime in and say we finished FLL last year and moved into R&S 3 & 5 and it was horrendous for us! My girls and I were dragging on the first set of lessons and I pulled the plug! I spoke to a good friend who has homeschooled her girls from day one and they are both high schoolers now and she said Easy Grammar and then slowly work into IEW! We started EG and my girls LOVED the simple "review" page a day. I have a rule...If they do half of the page without a fuss they can stop! They've done so well! :) Next year we will continue with EG and we will begin IEW. :)

Phew!! So glad I'm definitely not crazy. I knew several did purchase around this time too but I've never been more certain on what we're using that everything has been purchased before Spring. This afternoon I bought the last of everything. Of all years...this upcoming year was the most expensive one. I've ditched the used physical books for curriculum and purchased ebooks/PDF. It's just more economical for us to print from our laser for the student work texts instead of using our ink hog HP to make copies of work text pages to make use of the books for more than one child! I'm going to be listing up all our physical books of student work texts for certain curriculum and simply replace them with eBook/PDF format! Having an iPad has changed my need for teacher manuals in physical form.

Am I the only crazy homeschool mama who's purchase almost ALL of next years curriculum already?? We use a good portion of our tax refund to purchase school related items. Curriculum, toner for printer, and the such.. I'm almost completely done purchasing next years curriculum!!

My focus is herbs, tomatoes, sugar snap peas, green beans, greens, cukes, peppers, & I'll fill in with items my kids want to grow. Last year our tomatoes did terrible. First year since we started gardening that it was a bad season for us with tomatoes. This year I'll be canning my tomatoes instead of freezing them. I found that freezing them...they get stuck at the bottom of the freezer and don't get used!!

We alternate between History & Science through-out the week. We all enjoy it this way. We read 1 section each day that we do history, sometimes 2 depending on how many sections are in a chapter. My goal is a chapter a week with the coloring pages and map work. Occasionally we do an activity from the guide.

Yes, this!! We're using SOTW3 now & have loved it from volume 1! I purchased SOTW4 for next year and decided to get the paperback used, activity guide & coloring pages PDF...plus I have invested in the audiobooks because my kids go to bed with an audiobook each school night. If I hadn't gotten the paperback used earlier this year I would've purchased the text in PDF as well and read from my iPad.

I start my kids with FLL1 in 1st. By the time they were in 2nd it was FLL2 & WWE1...beautiful together! :)

I used this with all my babies... http://www.walmart.com/ip/Safety-1st-Space-Saver-Fold-Up-Infant-Tub/19800380 Nothing fancy or expensive. It's a space saver which is a factor for us! I always bathed my children on the kitchen table or counter with a heavy towel underneath for spashes to be caught on. Once my babies got too big they showered/bathed with me! I did get them a toddler bathseat for them to sit in while bathing with me once they were able to sit up and not slide everywhere lol

Id say a full size van would be the safest bet with all the requirements you need. I have a Honda Odyssey and I love it. It seats 8. It's much bigger than most minivans and looks nice too! I've only owned in for 6 months. I've had 3 car seats in my van at once and everyone fit just fine. Older kids in the far back and the younger ones in the first row of seats. This made it easily accessible to get the littles in and out of car seats and the olders could climb over. Before that we were a 1-car family for 12 years driving around in a little Kia Rio for our family of 5! Now that I'm expecting our little Grand Finale we had to get another vehicle.

I just wanted to say that we do the same thing with some of our tax money. We allot about $1,000 each year for schooling related purchases. I still bargain hunt for used materials when it's necessary and warranties or return policies aren't a concern. I also wanted to note that since I buy so far in advance I have switched out things only a few weeks after we get started because it was something new we were trying. ALSO.....I've purchased only weeks before our schooling was set to start and ended up switching as well. I think if you do the research you need it's not going to matter how far out you purchase. That's my personal opinion though. I was trying to fix what wasn't broken in the curriculum world of our journey and it back-fired. The other negative was we moved from FLL4 and right into the suggested Rod & Staff English and we all can't STAND it!! BLEH!!! I too don't like ordering all the curriculum in the summer as we school part-time during the summer and I like to do any prep or planning about 2 weeks before our new school year is to begin. We also do take 2-3 weeks off for summer break and I want that break too! ;) The oldest grade I'm planning for this upcoming year will be 6th so I'm not of much help! :)

My dh is getting the PS4. He currently has a PS3. Here is his comparison on the consoles. PS3 is older version obviously by 7 years. The graphics won't be as good, the processor, the speed....ect. It has a single core processor running at 3.2GHz. Graphics Processor 550MHz. There will be lots of games for this system as it's been out for several years (Nov. 2006). Cost is $250. PS4 is new version. The controller has a touchpad on it. The controller has a share button on it making it easier for making videos and walk-throughs to be linked. It has an 8 core processor running at 2.75GHz. PS4 is 800MHz. Making it sharper with graphics and more detail. Comes with 500Gig hard-drive and it's upgradable. Games will be slimmer in the pickens at first, but realize it's a brand new console and you need games that can be customized for this system. Cost is $399. In my opinion the price difference is NOT worth having a system that is about 7 years old!

Wow that a great price!! I just purchased IEW and my total was about $450! Yes you are able to purchase the student handouts separately either the binder and the handouts for $19 or the no binder and just the PDF download of all the student handouts for $10! :)

Yes, this exactly! Teeeheee!