I, too, was at the MACHE conference and sat in Dianne Craft's "Smart Kids Who Hate Writing" seminar. It was outstanding!! It completely confirmed my suspicoun of my daugher's dysgraphia. It made me realize the things I was doing wrong with her and the tools to help her, not frustrate her. I highly recommend her information.

For the most part, we liked the readers for POE. I think you could adapt the books with other substitutes if you preferred and you certainly could omit some of them if needed. We did in POS. Another frustration for us was only reading part of a chapter or even just a few pages a day. I completely agree about the Native American study. This curriculum includes/encourages it and I liked that. One other note: unit 6 in both POE and POS is basically a reveiw unit. I was expecting a Westward Expansion unit but it didn't really cover much more than Johnny Appleseed, so I made my own unit study and skipped POE. POS is the same, so we're just squeezing the readers in to the end of the year. We are traveling the last couple weeks of school and I'm skipping all the review stuff. You can expect 5 units, not 6.

We have used TGTL the past 3 years. We spent 2 years on POE becuase we had so many other things going as well. We are finishing POS this year. After 3 years, my reviews are mixed and we are switching to Sonlight. I had to tweak the curriculum A LOT and would often rewrite the 6 week unit into 4 weeks. It was simply too much time on a topic and we were bored. Another factor is our involvement in other things: a co-op where the girls take art, wrting and science classes. I ended up cutting these sections all together from POS. This series is very notebooking heavy - more than I initially realized. For my dyslexic/dysgraphic child, this simply is too frustrating. The spelling did not work for her either. Spelling is just a list of words from the current reader, not a real program, so we had to find different spelling. I found a lot of the suggested assignments to be "busy work", not educationally beneficial. But, there were many parts that we liked: POS copywork is important American documents and lyrics Most of the readers (we skipped the Sower series on G. Washington - boring! and also Samuel Smith, simply due to shortage of time) LOVED the state study/mapping - we love to travel really enjoyed the period music selections throughout the year great history lessons enjoyed the Presidential studies the cooking wasn't for us, but a lot of families would like it We purchased the middle school supplement and really disliked it. I didn't like having to go back and forth from this document to the disc for some of work - it seemed very disjointed. The assigments were too easy and a lot of busy work as well. Total bust for us. Overall, I would recommened TGTL for elemementary kids only, up to 6th grade. It would be a better fit for families that choose not to participate in other classes, co-op classes, etc. It has been challenging to make the program flex with our schedule, which is why I needed to rewrite so much of it. I've also said it would be better for families that live in an area where there aren't many opportunities for homeschoolers. It is a comprehensive program, which is what drew me to it in the first place. It does cover a lot of information but we found things we liked much better.

My 9yo DD has a subscription with Little Passports. She initally received a suitcase with a map and passport booklet. Each month she receives a package with puzzles, an activity/craft, informative story, and code to "unlock" the games for that particular county on their website. She loves it! It works for us because my other child is too old to be interested. We are on our second years' subscription. This could be hard for families with several interested children because each kit only contains one set of everything.

tracymirko - what a wonderfu book list! I printed it off. Thank you for posting. Our family has loved the 10 Days in... games. There is 10 Days in Asia, Europe, the Americas and Africa. We've found people of all ages like to play. Its a simple and fun way to learn world geography. They're available on Amazon for around $20.

Thank you so much for your thoughts. I've been eyeing this for some time, leave it but always come back to it. I think you've given me the "go-ahead" in my mind to plan on this for next year. DH thinks it sounds great too. I liked the comment "menu of options". It is hard sometimes to let go of everyting and not feel guilty about it, but its easier for me to do this with the younger DD. It just looks too good and too interesting to walk away from it. :)

We are currently doing TGTL POS and are not happy with it. Hence, I am looking for something different next year. My 2 kids will be in 8th and 5th next year. Sonlight Eastern Hem. seems perfect for the 8th grader. No concerns there. The younger is an avid reader but (we are learning) has dyslexia/dysgraphia when it comes to spelling/writing. Its important to me to school them together for one more year before the older starts high school. Of course, their work levels/demands are different but I want us following the same general curriculum - no interest in doing different cores. We've never used SL before but it looks like something we'd like. I also love the idea of learning about the EH - so much we've never studied before including myself and DH. I'm not too concerned about her reading at this point, but the writing/spelling abilities are lacking. Can this core be adjusted for a dyslexic 5th grader? Any tips would be appreciated. Thanks!

I just found this board yesterday and can't step away! We've used TGTL the past 2 years (did POE over 2 years because we had so many other things going on) and are now using POS. I bought the MSS but its not what I was expecting. Is anyone else as frustrated with it as me? The back and forth to the text book for 4th grader and computer for the middle schooler drives me crazy. There also seems to be a lot of busy work that we just end up cutting out. I'm spending so much time adjusting it. We're looking for something else next year. Kids will be in 5th/8th. Considering Sonlight. Any thoughts or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.