I'm in north Orange County.

Last August I got two for $1.99 at Bed Bath & Beyond. I don't know if they still have them. They are about 18" square and 13" high.

It was VERY helpful for my 14 year old dd, and we watched all of it. Even my husband sat down to watch it with us. We're going to do a refresher viewing over the summer especially the part about time management and taking notes. Perhaps Mr. McGee's style is not what speaks to you. Everybody is different. When I look at The Teaching Company offerings I'm interested in, I always read the low ratings first and try to get an understanding about where the reviewer is coming from.

I so do have to declutter. It gives me hope to at least get rid of one thing per day.

This is my first post. Dd is 14, and we started home schooling since she was born. From K-3 it was unstructured with me reading aloud to her from library books, using manipulatives mostly for math concepts, spending time in the backyard garden for science. We did use Horizons and Singapore Math from 1-5. From 4-6 we started using grammar workbooks which was hit and miss. Now she is using two textbooks and doing tests (science and math) in addition to reading books for history and literature. Mostly she reads. We still do the read aloud every night. We plan to do the same through high school home school which she'll start in August although it will be more structured because she'll do tests in all subjects, and more writing.