The teacher book is pretty small but I found it helpful. Most of the program cost is for the consumable workbooks. I tried it with my 10 yo son and he hated it. You do the same passage for a week. I am thinking of trying it with my dyslexic 10 yo dd but she uses a different spelling program with her tutor. She has a hard time with writing though and she might have a hard time due to the amount of copywork. I really liked a lot about it with the marking of the vowel and consonant combinations. That is the part my son really hated and asked constantly if we could switch programs. He wasn't really improving that much on the passages from the first day to the last day and since he disliked it so much I shelved it. He likes dictation fine but the marking he just didn't like and I had a hard time because some things were marked differently than what I was used to. He's doing Apples Spelling right now and likes that a lot better.

Most of the books from the Island series are falling apart here. I did buy them used but we've been pretty gentle with them and both Grammar Island and Sentence Island are in numerous pieces. Building Language is in the best shape but I think it's seen the least use and the cover has come off. If I buy any more of the books I think I'm going to pay to have the bindings cut off and spiral bound.

It doesn't really sound like CC especially Foundations is really what you are looking for. We have been part of CC for three years and while I do like Foundations as a supplement I would never recommend someone do it who may have difficulty paying for it. It is expensive for what it is. Had we used CC when we were first starting out homeschooling when money was extremely tight I think it would have been a bad experience for us. At this point paying for it isn't an issue and I treat it as a nice supplement. My children do not really spend time out of Foundations working on the material though unless they want to on their own. My 10 yo son was a Memory Master this year and it was because he really wanted to do it and worked on the memorization on his own. I definitely did spend time quizzing him as he got close to proofing but he did the work on his own. My 10 yo dd is dyslexic and has a hard time memorizing things. She will never be a Memory Master and I don't care. There are always a range of kids in each class where some really get into the memory work and some don't. We have never done Essentials but my 10 yo twins are signed up for it next year. I think it will be a very good experience for them and I am extremely happy with the tutor that has been hired for the fall. We have found with CC that so much depends on the tutor. Neither of my twins are great writers and would likely considered to be "behind" at this point. Both my high school dd's had trouble with writing at that age too and both are great writers now. At age 9 I wouldn't stress out too much. My dyslexic 10 yo still needs a lot of help with writing. She works on 10-12 word sentences with her tutor and writing those can be a challenge for her. Part of the reason I'm so excited about the Essentials tutor for next year is because it is a homeschool dad whose 10 yo dd has a learning disability. She did Essentials this year and he adapted it for her so she wouldn't have to write as much. I know she did a lot of it orally and he would write it down. He said the grammar was a little too much for her but they treated it as a first exposure and didn't care if she didn't get it all. His 2 older girls have both done Essentials so he has a lot of experience with the class.

We are at maybe 50% although it really depends on the subject. We mostly school year round although we are taking the entire month of July off this summer. My girls are going to do 4 weeks of theater camps but we'll probably still do math in July. Science (will finish in a couple weeks but I have plans for more stuff to add until we break at the end of June) History (about half done with VP online but didn't start until Jan- the kids will likely finish sometime this summer) Math (we are ahead of what I'd hoped for- all the younger kids have completed more than 1 level of MUS this year but I always do math year round or the kids seem to forget stuff) Language Arts (this is where we are way behind- I will not say how bad it is but we will be doing a lot the next 2 months) Both my high schoolers are totally done aside from their math textbooks.

We've done Foundations for 3 years and I do like it but I don't love it. I have signed the kids up for next year but I have still not decided for sure. I keep telling myself I'm only out the registration fee if I change my mind. The kids would be upset if we didn't do it but the thought of sitting through Cycle 1 again is not exciting me. I do think it is expensive and yes I hear all the time at CC how it is cheaper than private school. That is true but CC is only 24 weeks for 3 hours at a time and I have to sit and watch. There are so many other homeschool co-ops out there that don't cost near as much as CC. We are part of another group and while I have to teach a class each term it is very low cost. Most of the cost is for the building (around $100 a family per year) and supply fees for classes. I don't think I've ever paid more than $50-60 per child for the whole year in supply fees for that co-op. For Foundations I figure it is $500 a child by the time I pay the tuition, registration, supply fee, and building fee. I like a lot that Foundations does especially the presentations. I've watched my very timid dyslexic dd go from having a hard time speaking to her class at all to her organizing her notes herself and planning her own presentations. She no longer has any trouble doing presentations. I like the memory work but we could do it at home.

I have 3 kids doing the Middle Ages one right now and they love it. They aren't all on the same lesson but I think they are close to half done and they started in January. I am really amazed how much they have picked up. I do buy the VP cards and also the supplemental literature. I'm also reading SOTW 2 and just talking about it and not really doing the activities. I have added some mapping because I do think VP online is weak on that. Our schedule is pretty busy I don't have a ton of time for history and VP online has really helped with getting it done. I may do it next year if I can find it on sale. I got it during their 40% off just before Christmas. I don't think I'd pay $400 for 3 kids which is regular price for it.

There isn't a whole lot of learning Latin in Foundations but it is stuff that will be helpful later on. Cycle 3 is really the only year they learn any words at all. Both of my high schoolers take Latin as part of the Challenge program and both have said they wished they knew some of the stuff taught in Foundations before hand (neither did Foundations). Cycle 1 is just doing the declension tables which will be helpful later on if you continue Latin. If I recall from the last time we did Cycle 1 the tables are repeated over 4 weeks to help the children remember them. We've added Song School Latin and Latin's not so Tough at various times to the Latin at Foundations. I really like SSL. I know many say it is light (it is meant for earlier elementary though) but my kids have learned and retained many words from SSL. Even my high schoolers who have done 3-4 years of Henle Latin each have been surprised at some of the Latin the younger kids have known.

Three of my kids are doing VP self paced history and there is really plenty of time to add extra geography. We are also reading SOTW 2 and doing some Project Passport projects. My kids just started VP online in January and I think they are about halfway through the Middle Ages course right now. For Legends and Leagues they have the books South, North, East, and West. They can be done in any order. You need the story book which I think is around $10 and I got that as a hard copy so the kids could look at it easier. The workbook is available as a hard copy or an e-book. I got the e-book which is $5 less and I am able to print copies for multiple kids. You also need Geography Songs cd but is available as a mp3 free on Amazon (maybe just to prime members- I'm not sure).

12th grader AP British Literature (outside class) MUS Pre-Calculus Chemistry (online but haven't signed up for anything yet) Health- not sure on this but she needs the credit Community College classes- likely Sociology and Psychology (one in the fall and one in the spring) My 12th grader really doesn't need much in the way of credits. I think she will have 23-24 credits at the end of the year and only needs 25 to graduate. We are mostly trying to get the last necessary classes in like a 4th year of English and Math. She hasn't had Chemistry yet so needs that but does have 3 science credits with lab already. I think she may do Health over the summer. She is also wanting to add a Music Theory class in there somewhere. She is really tired of Latin and has done it the past 4 years so we aren't going to do a foreign language. She is really good at it I'm a little sad she doesn't want to continue but I don't think it was something she was going to continue in college anyway. 10th grader Classical Conversations Challenge 2 MUS Algebra 1

On the class page it does have a link to the course syllabus. It doesn't really break down how the Singapore IP books are going to be used though. http://www.wtmacademy.com/courses/2015-2016-full-year/pre-algebra-aops-singapore-methods/ My son is signed up for Session 2- Tues/Thurs. He is turning 11 this summer. We have never done an online class before for any of my kids so I have no idea what to expect. We did watch the WTM Academy sample class to get an idea of how it will work. I am expecting it will take considerably more time than we are currently spending on math. My son just does not seem challenged by what we've been doing and I'm wanting to challenge him. I'm hoping he isn't overwhelmed by it though.

My son is also signed up for theWTM AoPS Pre-Algebra class for fall. We don't use MM though so I'm not much help on that. My son has done through Singapore 5 and also done MUS Epsilon and Zeta (both were very easy for him but he needed more fraction work). My son did fine on the AoPS Pre-Algebra placement test however the book does look very challenging. The placement test seems almost too easy compared to a lot of the material in the book. I have been back and forth on having him do the class but my dh thinks he is up for the challenge. He is very good at math and I'm hoping he will do fine with it. I think this is a new offering this year so it is hard to know how demanding a class it will be and it is the very first year any of my kids are taking a class online so I'm not sure what to expect.

You do not have to use Saxon if you do the Challenge program. I've had children in Challenge for 4 years and the first year we tried to use Saxon with the class but the kids in the classes are all over the place with math. Almost no one is following the CC guide for it. We use MUS and my kids just use the little class time devoted to math as practice. I don't even buy the Saxon books. It really isn't needed. My oldest did Alpha, Beta, Gamma, and Delta. Then I started to feel MUS wasn't covering enough. She used TT and Saxon and attended PS for awhile. We wound up going back to MUS because it really made the most sense to her. She is a pretty average student who does not really love math. My son did Singapore through 5 and he is really into math and very good at it. I kind of burned out on Singapore and having to buy all sorts of books and run different math programs so had him do Epsilon and Zeta because he needed extra practice with fractions in particular. He's going to take Pre-Algebra through WTM Academy in the fall. For him I don't think MUS challenges him enough and he can get through a book in 4-5 months. MUS is a solid program and I think it tends to get a bad reputation for not covering enough. It works really well for my 2 dyslexic daughters and while they are definitely not going to become mathematicians they definitely understand math with the way it is done in MUS. My dh is a scientist and loves MUS and thinks it provides a great foundation. He does a lot of the math work with the kids. I don't like the way MUS does the 2-3 digit multiplication either (or how they do long division).

I add Daily 5 Math from a seller on Teachers Pay Teachers. It takes about 5 minutes a day to do and adds some of the types of problems MUS doesn't seem to have much of. We don't do it every month but I try to do 3-4 of them a year. https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/In-The-Math-Lab

I wouldn't buy TOG either. Aside from MUS I find I wind up using different things with my younger kids than I did with my older kids. There is always new curriculum coming out or being updated. Sometimes I don't want to go through the exact same program again or what worked well for one child doesn't work as well for another.

My twins have a summer birthday and were born 2 months early. They are 10 now but my son would say he's in 5th grade and my dd would say she's in 4th grade. I'm not really sure what I'd do if I had to enroll them in school today. My son really wants to be 5th grade because most of his ps friends are in 5th grade. He is very into soccer and that uses an Aug 1st cut off for bdays. He should have been born after Aug 1st but since he came early he gets bumped into the higher age group. I don't tend to care what grade my kids call themselves but it sometimes creates confusion as to why twins would say they are in different grades. There are times they need to have a grade level for Sunday School or certain summer camps. I pick curriculum that is at their level and don't worry too much if it is exactly at the grade level. My dd is dyslexic and doing mostly 2nd grade Language Arts material this year but is doing MUS Epsilon which is 5th grade. My son is doing MUS Zeta and mostly 5th grade Language Arts. My son at 5 was very immature and had I sent him to school I likely would have kept him back at that point in time. He was super wiggly and not at all interested in seat work. Kindy is all full day here so doing a half day isn't an option. Now that he is older and matured I think he's fine with being in 5th grade. He also really wants to be in 5th grade and academically he is at that level. If I'd redshirted him he'd be in 4th grade. I do think if he had gone to school he'd likely be fine with that too because he'd have friends in that grade. My cousin has a son born a week after my son and he's in 4th grade at school this year. He is very strong academically but because he started Kindy at 6 he's moved along with his classmates and is just fine being one of the older kids in his class.

Teaching Textbooks- I loved the concept but both of my kids that used it didn't seem to retain what they had done. Saxon- I have tried it 3 times and just not a good fit for our family TOG- It was way too much. I like the concept but it was too much for me to pull together. MFW- I've used 4 different programs from them. I like some of it but overall realized it wasn't for us. FIAR- I like so much about this program but could never really implement it. I finally realized I just prefer to read the kids the books. LLATL- I've owned 4 different levels of this and not completed a single one. I really hated it but obviously it took me awhile to give up on it.

I just did a co-op class with Ellen McHenry's book The Elements. She has others besides that one but I think most of them would be ideal for a co-op setting. I just wish I'd had a longer time with my class since we there was quite a bit of material and came no where close to finishing it. Many of the activities in The Elements were well suited to a small group. I've taught a lot of co-op classes through the years (12 years homeschooling) and my favorite type of class to teach is STEM related or some type of engineering. The co-op we are part of right now has primarily fun type classes but I feel the kids learn a lot from building things. When at home I'm not as likely to do projects like that. For a class I'm going to teach next session I am using projects I found online. http://www.instructables.com/id/Project-Based-Engineering-for-Kids/ I have an engineering degree so I tend to prefer to teach classes in the sciences. Other moms feel more comfortable doing art or writing. I have done both of those type of classes though. It was fun to get out of my comfort zone a little bit.

My 17 yo had an evaluation by a developmental optometrist when she was 7 years old. She had issues with tracking and did a year of vision therapy. It made a big difference in her reading. She is one of my dyslexics. She has never had much trouble with math though aside from a little bit of number reversal. That was when we lived on the west coast though I would need to find someone in MD. I know a developmental optometrist looks at different things than a regular optometrist but my dd's eyes are 20/200. She really can't see a thing without her contacts/glasses. She had an eye exam maybe 4-5 years ago and they were 20/20. Then about 2.5 years ago she kept saying she couldn't see the board at Challenge so we had them checked again and both were 20/200. That's interesting about the white space on MUS. Saxon was the absolute worst program with her and I never could understand what about it she disliked so much but maybe it was related to lack of white space. TT so many kids love and she hated it. She did one level of it and I had to sit with her for most of the lessons. I never really noticed any issues with math until she got to long division. I've noticed lately the younger kids have their MUS books out and she will say she has forgotten how to do certain things they are working on. Our insurance doesn't cover educational evaluations. I'm assuming neuropsych would fall under that. My 7 yo son has had neuropsych evals done through our school district but he is enrolled in school.

My 9th grader is really moving slowly through math and I'm not really sure what to do. She is a strong student in everything besides math and really wants to attend a 4 year university. Math is a huge struggle though mainly with getting her to understand concepts. She is currently doing MUS Pre-Algebra but is only on Lesson 8 and she will be 15 in May. We have tried other math programs with her (Saxon and TT) and those were worse than MUS. She asked to go back to MUS because she said it made more sense to her. We already do math year round and it will easily take at least year to finish Pre-Algebra because she has such a hard time getting concepts. We spent over a year each on Epsilon and Zeta even going through the summers. If we take anything more than a 2 day break she seems to forget everything she has been doing. I'm a little worried we may not manage to get through Algebra 2 by the time she graduates. I found a local class for Algebra starting in September so I am considering that if it fits our schedule. She thinks taking an outside class would help a lot and they are planning to use MUS. I have been looking at online options but I think she would have a hard time with the pace (could also be an issue with an in person class). I am considering a tutor but I am running out of time in our schedule to do outside classes. Are there any other options to consider? Two of my girls are dyslexic (my 17 and 10 yo girls) and my dh is also dyslexic. My 14 yo never had any trouble with reading and she is a very strong student in all other areas aside from math. I'm sure she will not pick any sort of career that uses much math but she seems to not understand even relatively simple math concepts.

There is supposed to be a level 5 coming out. I'm not sure when but I got a postcard about it a few months ago. We are currently doing level 3 but I'm not really sold on the program. It is very expensive for what it is but I like it enough to finish it. The main reason I went with it was because everything was supposed to be included. However there have been times I've had to put off a lesson because we were missing something. They assume you have the balance scale from Level 2 which we didn't do for example and there have been a few other common household items that we just didn't have on the day we needed them. We will probably do Elemental Science next year. I already own the Physics program and costs would be minimal. Then go into ES Logic books. I'm trying to keep 3 kids together so it can be hard with varying abilities. My son is so bored with NLS but my 8 and 10 yo girls like it. I have added some extra reading for my son but the program is so scripted it is hard to handle different ability children using it.

My son did the first 5 weeks of book D and absolutely hated the program. The copywork and dictation part of the program he liked okay. He had been using AAS and was used to dictation. Going through Spelling You See you highlight different blends and digraphs. He hated that part of it along with doing the same passage 5 times. After five weeks he was still having the same number of errors on the last day of a passage as he was on the first day of the passage. I think it was because he just didn't like the program and wasn't trying. I loved the idea of it and we have used MUS in our house for 12 years but the spelling program was not a hit at all.

There are around 160 timeline cards and for the 3 cycles combined there are only 72 history sentences so they don't really match up. If doing at home I would skip the manual. The app has pretty much all the memory work aside from the timeline song which you could buy on CD separately. You may miss a little not having the manual but I don't think I'd spend $75 if we weren't doing the class. The tutors assume you have the manual and will refer to stuff so I find it useful and I was very glad they didn't update it for next year which I almost expected since they did last time for Cycle 1. My youngest daughter's tutor told me that most long time members will not purchase new guides but will modify their old guides with any changes. If not getting the manual I might also buy the wipe off Geography sheets. We do use those frequently but I only buy 1 and I have three kids in the program. The first year I bought one for each child which was a waste of money. I like the Half a Hundred Acre Wood blog for ideas too. She sometimes tends to reference CC online a lot which which is a subscription service. I'm not paying another $6.99 a month for it on top of what I already spend.

They really increased the price of the manual!!! I bought mine 3 years ago and it was less. The manual is still the same so you may be able to find the manual used. Having the manual is definitely a key component to the program. Are you doing it at home or are you joining a community? Cycle 1 starts again next year so that is what I would get for materials. You can start with any cycle though. I like the audio CDs and we listen to them in the car but they are cycle specific. All of them include the timeline song which is the same every year. There is also an app for tablets with the memory work. My kids like it but CC really needs to add the timeline song to the app. There have been lots of complaints about that the past couple years but they still haven't added it. The app is visual which is nice and there are extra pictures to go with the history sentences for example. I don't buy the resource CDs. The flashcards are nice but I found I didn't use them enough to justify the cost and I find it better for the kids to make their own flashcards for things they want to work on. Our director put together a group order for the manuals and timeline cards the year we started. I got a little bit of a discount that way but I don't remember how much it was. After that first year the only thing I buy is the audio CDs and the I-pad app. We like the Wisdom and Righteousness lapbooks. My kids usually have a very nice memory book by the end when we make them. They are very tedious to cut everything out (I usually do it while sitting at Foundations). http://www.wisdomandrighteousness.com/resources/my-memory-work-lapbooks-for-cycle-3/

We really like Song School Latin at our house for my younger kids. Both of my teens take Latin as part of Classical Conversations Challenge program and my younger kids have actually known some words and phrases that my older girls didn't know. It may seem light but by the end the kids really do learn a lot of words. I took the coloring pages available online to go with the program and printed them 4 per sheet and my kids made a really nice flashcard book for the program and I think they are retaining many of the words they learned. They seem to be remembering those better than the ones they are learning for Foundations this year. For SSL you could easily get by with just purchasing the book with the CD. The extras are nice but not really necessary. I have the TM but don't really need it. It does contain additional worksheets which is nice but you could easily do without them.

I finally got it to work. I paid $238.20 for 3 kids. They responded to my e-mail pretty quickly and said to call but I just tried their site later and they seemed to have fixed the code. I had looked at the courses before but couldn't afford their regular prices with multiple kids. I got the Middle Ages one and will have the kids start after Christmas. I'm having my 2nd grader try it. She is probably a stronger reader than my 10 yo dd who has dyslexia though.