I haven't used it yet, but I purchased it to use this school year. My older daughter is SO excited! She just turned 11 and has been riding horses since she was 6. We just bought her a horse a few months ago, so she is waaay into horses. ;) I really hope she will enjoy the curriculum. She has already read a few of the books, but she is excited anyway. My 8 year old DD will be joining too.

Pottery Barn, Garnet Hill, and The Company Store

I'm so excited to read this post! We're going on an Alaskan cruise next summer. I can't wait!!

I'm glad I'm not the only one! I'm too embarrassed to say how big my house is. There are only four of us (2 parents, 2 kids) and we have A LOT of square footage per person. The houses are large in our community, so it feels "normal" most of the time, but I realize that it really isn't.

5500+ sq. ft. and 2 children

We have a very large house, and I could easily designate a room as a school room, but I don't want one. I think it would drive all of us crazy to be confined to a room doing school all day. It reminds me too much of a traditional school. ;) We prefer to move around and school in various places.

This was our opinion as well.

I don't have a budget per se, and I really don't track how much I spend. But I do have a general idea of what I'm spending for the vast majority of our actual curriculum for next year (only because I've ordered it all within the past few weeks, so I have the figures handy). I've spent a little over $1300 for my two kids (5th and 3rd next year) for next year. I will most certainly buy more supplemental things during the school year. And this doesn't account for all of the "extras". Our real expenses are the fees for homeschool co-op, art classes, music classes, dance classes, gymnastics classes, and horseback riding lessons and shows. I refuse to even add those things up. :glare:

Oh my goodness! I loved We Help Mommy when I was a little girl. I spent so much time looking at those pictures and reading that story. I loved other Eloise Wilkin stories as well, but that one was my favorite. I was thrilled to run across an Eloise Wilkin treasury when my girls were little. They loved it too!

We use CLE and we LOVE it!

My DD will be doing: CLE Math 500 Math Detective Singapore Challenging Word Problems Life of Fred Fractions CLE LA 500 Editor in Chief Sequential Spelling CLE Reading 500 Reading Detective IEW Theme based writing-- Fables, Myths and Fairy Tales IEW Poetry Memorization Teaching the Classics WP American Story 2 (finish the second half) BF History of the Horse BF Geography program Nancy Larson Science Level 3 Building Thinking Skills Balance Benders Mind Benders Daily Word Ladders Vocabulary Workbook Typing program And, of course, tons of reading! Art will be taken care of externally. I would like to add Rosetta Stone German. We'll see. ;)

My older DD has used it for a couple of years (two levels). We both really like it and it really has helped her reading comprehension. We will continue to use it until we run out of books. We use the books and not the software. The money isn't really an issue for us, so I had not idea that it was expensive compared to other curriculum. I do highly recommend it though.

I just today received our Nancy Larson science kit (level 3) for next year. It looks really good to us, but I doubt that it would appeal to a really sciency kid. For a family like us who never ever seems to get science done, it looks like a wonderful blessing. The lessons seem simple (but "enough"), and I love that the supplies are all included for the experiments. I am thrilled that it looks like science will actually get done next year. :hurray: But for a kid who is really into science, I don't think it will be enough IMO.

I'm getting ready to order the TWSS from IEW, and I'm having trouble deciding what to order along with it. The theme programs look more interesting than the SWI, but I thought I should consider going with the SWI for the first year in order to learn the program. How long are the video portions per lesson? I was looking at the samples and it looks like some are almost an hour long. Is that correct, or am I reading it incorrectly? If the video lessons truly are that long, I might attempt a theme program instead. Any thoughts from experienced IEW users? BTW, my kids will be 8 and 11. Thanks!!

My DH works from home, so no. ;) He does occasionally when he has to give a presentation or have an important meeting at a client's site, but otherwise it is not necessary.

I love to travel and would love my children to experience other cultures. However, I cannot imagine wanting to live permanently anywhere else. Our lives here in the U.S. are so blessed, and I am thrilled with all we have achieved.

I could have posted this exactly word for word. I sat down with them a few months ago to ask them if they might want to try school for the first time. I am fortunate that we could comfortably afford a fabulous private all-girls prep school for both of them. They are adamantly opposed to it. They just really enjoy homeschooling and want no part of "regular" school, so this is what we'll continue to do for now. We have a great time together and we all enjoy it (although sometimes I would love to have an hour or two to myself). If they wanted to go to school, I would certainly listen to their thoughts, but it would ultimately be my decision (along with my husband, of course).

Brilliant post! :hurray:

I'm hoping that some experienced IEW users can give me some advice. :001_smile: I've decided to buy IEW. :hurray: I know that the TWSS is crucial, so I'll be buying that, of course. What I'm having a hard time understanding/deciding is whether I should go with SWI-A (my children will be entering 3rd and 5th grades) or if I should go with a themed package. Is it best to do a level of SWI first (i.e. should I wait to do a themed program the next year) or are they basically equivalent and it is just a personal choice? Any advice would be appreciated. :bigear:

Absolutely. I used to pay that for 30 minutes lessons once a week for my DD (now she takes hour-long lessons twice a week).

I voted "other" for CLE.

We are year-by-year homeschoolers. We are fortunate that we could afford a fabulous private school if we chose to do so. However, at this point, we are all happy homeschooling. I asked my kids a couple of weeks ago if they would like to consider going to school next year, and they gave a resounding, "NO!"

This. Exactly. ;)

I think it is interesting that quite a few people have said that they want to be done having babies by 30. I was married at 24, but didn't want to have babies until after age 30. :D I got pregnant when I was 30 and had my first at 31. I don't really know why I felt that way, but having babies in my 20s just felt so very, very young to me. My mom had her kids at 21 and 24, so I'm not sure why I felt that way. :confused: I just know that I wanted to be "established" before I had children. I had my kids at ages 31 and 34. I think that was really perfect for me. I considered having another one until I was 40, but decided not to. I'm 42 now, and I definitely feel like I would be an "older" mom if I got pregnant now (not that I'm planning to!), but I think it is totally do-able. My limit would be 45, I think. In my area, ages 30-40 are the "normal" range for having children.

100EZ Lessons-- Worked great!! ETC Stuck with MUS for several years and then switched to CLE Math (and LA as well). I wish we had known about CLE from the beginning. I don't plan to switch Math or LA again, at least until we run out of Sunrise Editions. Sequential Spelling-- I don't plan to use any other spelling program.