I think it depends on how long you plan on using it. We are using it for kindergarten and I see it as great bang for my buck. Of course things can change, but I have fallen even more in love with it, which I didn't think was possible. We will have four children who will cycle through it, and if we truly use it for all the levels, nothing else is really comparable price-wise. I was planning on Sonlight in the early grade, but I figured that once we got into TOG later, I would have all my kids doing that work. I mean, that is a big plus to me -- everyone working on the same topic. I couldn't justify buying Sonlight when I would later shelve it. The high school program looks very solid, and HS materials are expensive anyway. Might as well start making the investment now, so it is one less thing to buy later. I have to say we are having a great time with it and learning a lot!

I can't answer this too well, but my guess is the size of the company? The place I order from has some of the lowest prices, yet still maintains high quality standards. I have a couple of friends that directly know the family who owns it. I think it might be more of a mom and pop type of business. No multi-level marketing, not a huge advertising push, fewer employees on payroll. I don't think they are in it to make the big bucks. I was in shock when I looked at the prices of a competitive company. After understanding their company more, I can see how they have to have higher prices to cover all their costs.

Oh, I LOVE this book. I am adding it to my list!

Thank you! I agree with the similarities. Like I said before, she fully understands the thought behind addition and can do it quickly with manipulatives, etc. She took off reading and this is the first thing she has really had to try to do. It has really only been 3 weeks, which isn't long, at all, so I will just give it more time. If English is turning out to be her strong point, maybe math will always take a little more time. I just need to be patient!

Hmmm, when I look at the sample they provide, all the of books match up. (I'm looking in the Ancient Egypt sample.) Can you give an example? Also, Bookshelf Central only lists the primary resources, so it you are looking at the page entitled "Alternate or Extra Resources," you will not find those listed. There is no difference between the print and DE version. Some people, like me, just want to have a hard copy. I like being able to sit down without the computer and tab through the pages, flip back and forth, highlight and make notes, etc. It comes printed in color, and I only have a black and white laser printer, so I opted for the pretty printout + DE. You won't get anything printed, though, that is ordered extra -- map aids, for example. Did you see that TOG is offering a free FULL unit to all new customers throughout the month of October. I would definitely take advantage of this. Even if oyu don't use it, it would give you an option to look through the WHOLE unit and make more sense of it all. You can pick whichever unit you want!

We have just ventured into essential oils. It all is a little stretch for me, but so many people around me have been talking about them, so I bought five from another company to get us started for cold and flu season. The day they arrived, my youngest was coming down with something. I started applying them diligently. He was so sick on Thursday -- just about as bad as my kids ever get. He had the croup, a fever. and was just so pathetic. I would have called the doctor immediately, and I know all she would have prescribed me. I just treated at home, made him comfortable, and used the oils. He woke up the next day a different child. He still is getting over what plagued him, but he is pretty much taking the same route he does with doctor prescribed medication. Also, he caught what my husband had a little over a week ago and he was sick for a week even while taking drugs. So, I know this couldn't have ended any sooner with the doctor meds. Really, I think my 20 month old is faring better than my husband did. So far, nobody else had gotten sick, as I have been applying oils to everyone else in the house to keep their immune system up.

I wouldn't say it is a new obsession. I remember doing "mad minutes" for addition problems in early elementary school. It was a sheet with math facts, we would be timed for a minute, and you raced to complete them all. It was one of my FAVORITE math activities. We were taught the addition concept, then were just drilled after that. I never struggled with math all the way through college, so I have a hard time seeing why there is anything wrong with this.

We have been counting real objects FOREVER it feels like. We have already played with c-rods, beans, mini pumpkins, and every other manipulative I have picked up for the past year. She full and well understands addition. She is very quick at the number line. It's not a problem with understanding, as much as quickness. You can give her any number under 100, and tell her to add 1, and within half a second, she can tell you the answer is one more. When I give her +2, it takes her two seconds to figure that one out. She can figure out the problems easily. I just thought she should have them memorized, without having to figure them out. Like anytime she sees 2+2, within half a second she says 4. She has that one down. She doesn't need to count two more from 2. She just knows that 2+2=4. I keep trying focusing on the "quickness" factor. Should I not be?

Okay, I just need to set some expectations for myself here. My poor first child. She is always the guinea pig on teaching me what to expect. Math facts. What do I expect as far as memorization? I know this topic is posted a lot, and I read that they don't need to have them solid until the end of 1st or 2nd grade. But what does the progression look like during the year? We are a couple of week into the Horizons 1 math book. We are doing flash cards for math facts, and although they recommend doing all the cards that add to 18 right now, I only have her on the +2 cards. I'm thinking I want these solid, then I will add the +3's, etc. Good idea, or no? She cannot remember these to save her life. It has been 3 weeks now that she has been thumbing through them. Everyday there is addition review with a number line to use, which is does great, so it hasn't really hurt her work in the book and she is sailing through everything else. When your kids started learning addition facts, did they memorize some right away and add to that? Or does it take a while to memorize some, even the basic facts? What should her progression look like through the year? Do I know worry about her lack of memorization and just let her play with the cards over and over and over, and play with her c-rods over and over and over, and at some point they will stick?

I thought I read this somewhere on here. Anybody familiar with it and can you send me the link? Thanks!

You know, it's crazy... In the age of the Internet and everyone having an opinion about something, you cannot find one bad thing written about them. There are no bad reviews, or complaints.

Creekland, thank you so much. I think half of the problem right now is that the most expensive things would be doctor appointments. My kids are so young we haven't ventured into breaking bones, er visits, having to diagnose anything serious. I know it is only a matter of time. Medical issues will start getting more complicated and more expensive. I see it being way more beneficial very soon in the future! I'm passing this info all on to my husband. He likes numbers and is the only hesistant one at this point. It's nice seeing how it works out for a family!

I have some questions about Samaritan Ministries, if anyone is a member and wouldn't mind answering. We love the idea and what they believe in. We would switch in a heartbeat, but it seems expensive to us, as we currently have pretty good insurance. It looks like it would cost us $400 a month, which isn't bad, but doctor appointments are not covered. With lots of young kids, I'm worried about this adding up. I have seen the bill to insurance, and the doctor charges us about $300 for annual check-ups (or the 7-8 in the first year for a newborn) and for whenever we make a sick appointment. Is this cost off? So, if we count up all the doctor's appointments for my whole family in the next year, including the babe in my tummy who will be out visiting the doctor soon, that would be 12 apppointments. At $300 an appointment, that would be $3600 that is not even touched by Samaritan Ministries. I know people are on it, happy, with lots of children. How do they make it work? And I looking at it wrong?

Lisa, we should be friends! We are in week 7 of Ancients, and I have a K and a 3 year old. Out of all the curriculums that I was convinced I would use, this is the only one that I fall more and more in love with. I think everything else has been switched since my original planning stage, and some things multiple times. I feel good that we are making the investment now, and using as many library books as we can. This way, next time around, I can be purchasing books instead of books and the year plans! Here are my plans for a 4 day week, although a lot of times we don't do it all 4 days. I don't really worry about what we miss because I know she (plus the others) will cycle through it two more times. I'm pulling this off of my lessons plans, so I don't have which books are core reading, or not. I try to have at least 4 books on hand on the weeks topic -- one a day. Sometimes I fall short of that. At least if I have one, I feel the point gets across. The only books I buy, if the library doesn't have them, are the books that have an associated worksheet. My daughter has loved the worksheets. Other than those, I try to find a book, or a similar title from our library. (This is all just for the first time through. I figure my investment this round will be mainly the actual program.) Monday: Read TOG book #1, Read Bible story (worldview assignment), vocabulary assignment part 1, God's names activity Tuesday: Read TOG book #2, Bible story, vocabulary part 2, God's name activity Wednesday: Read TOG book #3, Bible story, Mapwork, God's name activity Thursday: TOG book #4, Bible story, SAP or notebooking, God's name activity Bible story: I don't know how the other units work, but right now worldview is heavy on the Bible stories. I printed off an associated coloring page which I give her and my 3 year old to keep their hands busy while I read. These go in her binder, which I will bind at the end for memories sake. Vocabulary: I printed off these cool pages somewhere (I can pass along when I find out where) that is a box for a picture with handwriting guidelines underneath. This summer, I saved pictures online for each word, put them in one word document for each week. The first day, she reads the word and the definition and practices her handwriting. The second day (part 2) she cuts out the image and glues it in the box above the word. This goes in her binder. God's Name: Obviously this doesn't run throughout the whole year, but I printed bubble letters of the name for her to color in while I read. These are going on our wall. I will try to include pictures on here if I can figure it out. Mapwork: We did Beginning Geography last year, which my daughter loved, so she is jumping right into the geography. I basically just let her copy the teacher maps onto her map, but anytime we are out, she walks up to the Middle East and knows where everything is. This activity takes about 5 minutes. We also have a large map on the wall, so she goes and finds the area up there. The maps go in her binder, as well. We either do the SAP, if there is one, or notebooking. I bought this pack. You can't beat the price. I printed off a whole lot, and I let her pick which book she wants to notebook about. Sometimes she gives a short overview, or sometimes I let her pick a page (or sentence) and copy. I either do a SAP or a notebooking activity. These go in her binder. That is it in a nutshell. I feel like this is a good overview of all the activities. We get history read alouds, worldview, geography, worksheets, etc. I was planning on doing activities, but that hasn't happened. She has loved the program and doesn't even realize that hands-on activities are missing. I feel like this is a learning year. We touch on everything briefly, and then next time, I will be so much more comfortable with the material and how it works for our family. It's like I am in training and my children are just along for the ride right now. The only way we stretch it out into more than one week is if I know we only have two days one week to work on it. Plus, we take some weeks off here and there. We homeschool year round, so I am hoping I will still finish everything in a year's time. Ahhh! Those pictures are so small. If you want to see them up close, I can email them to you.

This was very helpful. Thank you. So I don't know why I feel I should be encouraging other book selections. I just know she can read at a higher level and when she reads those books at a higher level, she LOVES them and talks about them non-stop. I feel like it is dwaddling to just let her read basic readers all the time, when it is way below her level. I mean, we are seriously dealing with such a small percentage of books actually read on her level. I wouldn't even care it 75% was basic readers. I will never forget when she was reading through Magic Tree House when she was 4. It was during quiet time and she was finishing book #4. There had been character development of the mystery librarian at the time building through all of the books. She ran into my room FREAKING out! She could not believe that Morgan had been "hiding" in the previous 3 books. She wrote up a diagram to explain it to me and seriously walked around the house all day saying, "I can't believe it. I just can't believe it." It's all she told everyone about for the next week. It blew her mind. Then she reads her readers and walks away unchanged. It is just more words. The same words. She checks out 15 readers at the library and within 30 minutes of being home, they are all read. I just sort of feel like it is fluff to her. Someone here mentioned (while advising me to wait because she was too young) that it took a teacher to bump her into chapter books and after that point she could not get enough. I feel like we are on the cusp of that. She got burnt out on Magic Tree House. I haven't had any assigned reading, but the two real books she has read this year, Stuart Little and Charlotte's Web, she loved. I mean, do I label her with a grade, or by her ability? I just feel like I should meet her where she is, versus saying "You are labeled in society as a Kindergartener, so I will let your reading ability stall out and you can pick whatever you want to read, always. That is, until a couple of years from now, I will have expectations because at that point society has deemed it appropriate." While this is all going on, there are so many articles on here talking about how the reading level of society has dramatically dropped. I just feel weird giving her a full year of reading 4 grades below her reading level.

This was beyond helpful. I need to start a book basket!

Oh, this is embarassing. Do I not know what literature is? I just thought literature meant books, in general. Does it only regard analyzing books? Am I completely off? I never meant analysis. And this is different than asking comprehension questions, if anything, right? I feel like I keep trying to get that across to everyone because everyone seems to be adding information that doesn't address my question, or need. MY PROBLEM: My daughter is reading at a 4th grade level. Because of her age, I have been hesitant to have any kind of required reading. Without required reading, though, 99% of the books she picks out to read are basic readers. OUR CURRENT SETUP: Right now, we do handwriting, math, and then add in our history program with a picture book read aloud each day and maybe an associated activity. We also have an occasional science picture book that we read. That it is. No literature. And what I mean by this is "no assigned reading." When did you add in require reading and how did this look in your homeschool? I'm trying to figure out once you are past reading lessons, at what age you add in reading lists.

But I think my child is already at this level. I mean, it is possible, right? She doesn't NEED readers. I can't remember the last time she sounded out any word. She reads to me at least once a day, and it might not be long, but it is long enough to know she has no problem reading. She seems to comprehend, as well. I mean, she uses no effort at all When she was 4, she was plowing through the Magic Tree House books without a hitch. No effort needed. Even then, she didn't struggle, did it with ease as if I was reading it to her, and was quick at it. This year, she read both Stuart Little (920L) with no problems and Charlotte's Web (810L). Stuart Little was read in 3 days, and that was just reading in spare time. I very occasionally had to assist with a word. And we always check out about 15 picture books from the library a week (outside of readers) and she reads all of these on her own, including all of the books I check out for our science selection. I guess that is where I am right now. I don't know how to keep up with her.

So going back to the original question, when do you add it into the mix. Let's even say outside of asking questions. Again, getting her out of reading beginning readers when she can read full-on chapter books with ease. I was just reading the thread "How much literature does your homeschool read." Whoa, those are some large numbers people were posting. They were blowing me away. I never read that much growing up. And it wasn't even including read alouds. Someone commented, "Ds9 will read 15-20 lit. books. None will be super easy for him. Some will be a challenge. He will read 20-40 other books for school. He will read other books at bedtime." Almost all of the responses were comparable to this amount. So 6 year olds shouldn't necessarily be reading by themselves, but 9 year olds are blowing through 40+ books by themselves. People are telling me not to worry about any literature at this age, but I'm completely overwhelmed by how many books some 8-10 year olds are reading. When is this transition?

It was required reading freshman year of high school for me. It was the first book we read of the year, and all classes did a huge literature unit in it.

I actually have Honey for a Child's Heart. I need to pull it off the shelf! Thanks for the reminder. I really wasn't wondering about story elements as much as comprehension. I just need to follow a guide for that. Does that sound too ridiculous? My brain has completely shut off with having two toddlers and being pregnant. I'm tired of asking, "What happened next? And then what happened?" I guess I'm looking more for a program that will recommend a good selection of books to read at the different ages and provide better comprehension questions than I am currently asking. I just wasn't sure from the beginning of the post when to even start assigned reading.

I actually have Honey for a Child's Heart. I need to pull it off the shelf! Thanks for the reminder. I really wasn't wondering about story elements as much as comprehension. I just need to follow a guide for that. Does that sound too ridiculous? My brain has completely shut off with having two toddlers and being pregnant. I'm tired of asking, "What happened next? And then what happened?" I guess I'm looking more for a program that will recommend a good selection of books to read at the different ages and provide better comprehension questions than I am currently asking. I just wasn't sure from the beginning of the post when to even start assigned reading.

Right, I agree. I was just referencing people who said that they read it in college, or older, and it terrified them. Some said they would never let their children read it, or wait until late high school. There is also a difference between 9th grade and 12th grade...

I just find it so odd that we read this book in 9th grade. With all the warning in this thread, why did we read it so early? I don't remember too much, but I know I enjoyed it. I think I found it laughable in how unrealistic it was. It makes me wonder if we are worse off reading it at an older age. Plenty of books have freaked me out over the years, but not this one. Maybe, as I matured, and realized I am not invincible, books became more "real" to me? I'm fully aware of the evil in humans' hearts now, and I'm sure that greatly affects what I read now.

Thank you, ladies. I have never heard of Hewitt. I will check into it for next year.