Yes, it prints fine in smaller batches.

I hear you! We use it but lots of the supplies at Jerry's are for packages... Jerry's has a package of brushes so you'd only need one package for the kids to share since there are 10 brushes included or something like that. Same with the markers/art kit. It's large enough for all my kids to share together so we just bought one. And they all use the same paper, I just tear them out of the pad. For the individual brushes, you could probably find the same styles at JoAnns or Michaels for a bit less. I think I only purchased one set of the individual brushes and my kids can figure out how to share them. :) And I'd suggest only buying for one learning level at a time. There is overlap in the supplies and you don't necessarily need to double up on EVERYTHING to be able to use it with two kiddos. Have fun with the lessons! My kids have really enjoyed doing it this year.

We're using 2nd edition with my 2nd grader, straight out of LOE Foundations D. I'm not in love with it. She tested into level C for everything except spelling, so I'm keeping her at the B level to try to reinforce the spelling rules and such. But it DOES move fast with not a ton of review, as another person stated. I'm trying to decide whether or not to stick with it for next year. It frustrates me but I feel like we should finish it. I've been looking at W&R Fable as well as Well Ordered Language. I feel like I REALLY need to supplement writing, as the writing in LOE is minimal. I'm also considering doing something gentle like Fix it Grammar The Nose Tree next year... I'm all over the place. To answer your questions, 1. I don't think Essentials is enough grammar for the 4th grader. It's basic and not what I would want to do with my 4th grader. 2. I don't think I'd do both programs, as that could be a LOT of work on certain days. 3. The spelling in Essentials is good - with a LOT of added practice. My daughter really struggles with spelling so we camp out on the spelling quite a bit. But it's frustrating because it doesn't feel like she's retaining any of the rules once we move on to another lesson. Sigh. 4. Don't know anything about Kolbe. I hope this helps a little bit~

Thank you so much!! The ideas are wonderful and I appreciate the advice. I love reading with her and she enjoys reading with me too. She's just been not so interested in reading so now that she's actually interested, I want to capitalize on that. You know? :) Yes, she does like the Rainbow Magic books and up until recently, she'd prefer someone to read them to her. I'm not a huge fan but if they'll get her reading, I'm all for it! :) She LOVED the Princess in Black series. The Wrenly books look right up her alley. Thanks!!!!

My daughter has been a reluctant reader thus far. But she's really taking off. I've been having her read aloud to me every day (ish) for about 15 minutes and this has really improved her skills. We've finished the reading list we were using (HOD Emerging Readers appendix) and she's really gained confidence. The other evening she was having trouble falling asleep and I told her she could read a little in bed and just to turn off her light when she got sleepy. 90 minutes later (or so) she emerged from her room, wide awake and proud that she had just read an entire Magic Treehouse book (for her this is a big deal!)!! I asked her a few questions to see if she had in fact really read the entire thing and she had!! All that said, she's been reading in bed every evening and she's really enjoying it. What I came here to ask all you wise women is what to do with her now? Should I continue to have her read aloud to me daily or should I just check up on what she's been reading on her own? And if I should have her read aloud to me, do you have any books you'd recommend? She definitely prefers fairy and magic-type books but I liked that with the HOD Emerging Readers list she got a very varied list of reading materials, thus broadening her skills and knowledge. She actually very much liked the Christian Liberty Nature Reader and has asked to read more of those which we will definitely be doing. But I'm looking for other ideas and any opinions on the reading aloud vs to herself debate. Thanks!!!!

Never mind. I found it. :)

Wait! Where's the 2nd coupon?!

I did Horizons Preschool with my daughter when she was 4. I really had no idea what I was doing or what to even try to work on with her and this provided that for me. It was Christian, which was a priority and I wanted/needed something to tell me what to do. Having done that I learned a TON about how I work best and about how she works best. It gave me the confidence to create my own K, 1 and 2 program for her and she's doing great. I wouldn't do it again - schedules and me don't play well - but it really helped teach me how to do this thing called homeschooling. :) I needed that confidence booster.

I just have a comment on forgetting the word because they're so focused on how to form the letters in cursive that it's hard to remember the phonograms. I found that by the time my daughter got into C and D, we hadn't done NEARLY enough review of the phonograms. The games in Foundations are fun and all, but they really didn't reinforce the phonograms the way my daughter needed. And the review lessons weren't challenging enough so it looked like she was going a great job since she did great on the reviews, but she needed more reinforcement. I started each lesson with an oral review (her reading of the phonograms to me) and then I'd dictate the sounds to her and she'd have to come up with the phonograms by memory. This was definitely the more challenging of the two. At that point in time, that was a LOT of phonograms that she didn't have mastery of - so we'd spend maybe 10 minutes doing this. I'd take notes on which ones we were practicing, circle the ones she was struggling with and make a point to hit those more often. We just did a little bit at at time and by the time we were done with D, she really had them all down by encode (writing) and by decoding (reading). This really improved her recall and helped her be able to spell the words. Like in the example with chowder, she'd break the word apart into /ch/ /ow/ (I'd indicate to use /ow/ /o/) /d/ /er/ (/er/ as in her). She can't spell it wrong if she knows those phonograms and uses my hints. I read somewhere to not let them spell it wrong as the wrong spelling will imprint on their memory and they'll struggle to spell it correctly. I go back and forth on this. My daughter has no completed all A-D and with this additional review that I did daily, she rarely spells anything incorrectly - IF she listens to my hints. :) By no means is she a good speller, she's a terrible speller when left to her own devices, but when we're doing the spelling analysis, she gets it right every time. This is a great program, but for us, I found that I needed to do more practice with the kids than what is in the book. So now with my K'er, he's in B and I automatically do this every day so we don't have to stop the program altogether (like we did with sister) just to reinforce what I thought he had already learned. :) I'm learning to make it my own.

You all almost have me convinced to move my rising 3rd grader back to RightStart B alongside my rising 1st grader!! My dd does okay with math but still struggles with recall of basic math facts and uses her fingers (or merely counts in her head) WAAAAYY more than I'd prefer. I'm thinking that spending some time with the games will help...

Ooh, these do look great! They remind me of ELTL (which I forgot on my original list of options). Thanks for sharing!!!

Hmmm, I'll have to check that out! And I think you hit the nail on the head - I really don't know what my priorities are or how I want to approach writing. I always hated it, I pretty much hated anything to do with English... and now teaching it, my own attitudes definitely impact my decisions. I don't want her to hate it, I want her to like it and be good at it. As to how to approach it, we only stumbled on LOE and it got rave reviews from people I admired and respected so I thought I'd try it and it was perfect for what it was and for where we were~ I love this!! And it sounds very appealing to me. :) But what do I do in the mean time? Just skip it altogether, work on some writing concepts and then hit the grammar harder when she's older? Just do some fun writing for 3rd grade?

We've completed Logic of English Foundations and I moved on to Essentials for this 2nd grade year. I'm not loving Essentials the way I loved Foundations and I'm struggling to find the motivation to continue with it for 3rd grade. We're using the 2nd edition, have completed A-D of Foundations and am now using level B in Essentials. The grammar for level C is way too complex for my daughter but the spelling for level B is a bit simple, as we're just reviewing many of the rules we already learned in Foundations. At any rate, I just don't love it and I'm looking to change for next year but don't really know what to switch to. Right now I'm looking at Writing and Rhetoric Fable for writing and Well-Ordered Language everything else. Or there's Treasured Conversations. Or Bravewriter, or WWE/FLL, etc... There are so many choices and I really don't have any strong feelings about any of them. My daughter doesn't love to write but that could also be because we've never really done any significant writing and/or haven't written anything fun (to her). I feel like you're supposed to wait until 4th grade to hit grammar hard, but with LOE she's already dabbled with some very light grammar and I'm a bit at a loss as to what to do for 3rd grade.

Just following up, did you decide to try it? How did it go/is it going?

This is basically what we're doing with Noeo Chem this year. It's worked well!

Slache, what did you decide to do? I purchased and used Primer a couple of years ago. It was okay. The material was wonderful and the program was great, I just struggle with consistency, especially at the younger ages. I was so wrapped up in getting Math and English done that by the time we finished those, I was wiped and didn't even want to consider pulling out Primer. Maybe I'm just lazy. :) I am also wondering about the digital version. I have the digital version of the Primer and for me, not having it in paper made it that much easier to forget about. :) I agree, it saves shelf space and the LockLizard thing can get a bit frustrating (you can't use OneNote at the same time). But overall it's okay. I am much more of a paper girl and am contemplating what to do for next year. I was planning to do do Y3 and now I'm just trying to decide if I want to do the DE or paper. I DO use OneNote and I really don't like having to shut it down every time I want/need to open TOG. As for Primer and the books for any of the plan years, you can buy the books used at abebooks.com for a fraction of the cost. I don't purchase any of the books through Bookshelf Central. They'er super pricey and the shipping is outrageous!!! I search my library and whatever isn't available I search for ILL or try to find a good supplement (that's easier with the LG and UG books). I will purchase a book that's used for more than 3ish weeks and that may not be available through our library system. This keeps the cost down considerably.

I'm hoping/planning to do Tapestry of Grace. I love it and love how we can all be learning the same period of history at the same time, just at everyone's own levels. Now, if only it were more widely used on the west coast we'd be able to have a community of sorts to have the dialectic discussions and such... but we'll just have to see how that works itself out once we get there. we have a couple of years. ;)

It looks like you're on the right path to getting started and you've received lots of great advice! The only thing I'd consider adding is buying or borrowing the book, "102 Top Picks for Homeschool Curriculum" by Cathy Duffy. It helps you identify your bent as well as helping to determine what kind of learner your children may be. Now, at this age, in my opinion, almost all kids are "Wiggy Willies" but you may see that you have one that falls into another category. I feel that this book is a resource that you can revisit in future years as your kids grow and change and you can readjust your curriculum choices around them. I really feel that at this point as well, really, you'll want to just pick whatever programs you like best. There will be programs that you just don't like and you can simply weed them out early. Also, I have learned through this process that while I chose one math program when I started out (simply because I didn't get the other programs and due to my inexperience homeschooling) that now I would and am choosing differently. Go with what works for you and what you will use. If you don't like it, you likely won't use it simply because you're not excited about it. Does that make sense? And like others have said, just buy for one year at a time. You will likely make mistakes and buy things that you end up not liking or your child ends up not liking and that's okay. Learn from it, resell it here or on homeschoolclassifieds.com and move on. And you don't have to finish a book you don't like - just saying. :) I'm not sure where in MT you are, but I would imagine there is a homeschool convention in Spokane, or if not, definitely in Seattle (if you're in Western MT such as Kalispell, Polson, Missoula, etc. There may even be one in Coeur d'Alene or minimally, Boise. It may be worth taking a weekend and heading to one of these during the summer. Enjoy your search!!

I'm not familiar with the phonics so I can't advise there but with the math, I'd say it depends on how far you are in the K books. You'd just want to make sure you've introduced anything new in the K books before moving on so that it's not so tough. The first grade book makes the assumptions you're following their guidance in the teacher's manual and practicing flash cards, skip counting and such. So when you get to that work, if you haven't been doing it, it will be much more difficult than if you've already been teaching it. I hope this helps at least a little bit! :)

We've used Horizons for K and 1 so far. For K I just did the next lesson and sometimes doubled up since they seemed to go so quickly with my eldest. For 1st I started off not using it but then one day I decided to take a peek inside and it had a few additional exercises to do with her daily to really improve those addition skills and skip counting. I didn't do everything it said in it, usually just used the first couple of problems in the section to 'teach' the concepts if they were new instead of teaching them on a white board or something prior to her doing her own work, but I did really like the additional items it recommended. She was better able to complete the assignment since she had been working on her skip counting and her math facts using flash cards. So, while I don't think the teacher manual is required at all, using it did supplement the program nicely. You could probably find the TM used at homeschoolclassifieds.com for a fraction of the cost...

You can absolutely do CC at home, without a group. I would imagine it would be a bit more complicated and unclear if you haven't experienced a group, but I know people who do CC at home and do great with it. I would just say, since you already use the app for the weekly memory work, you might want to get the guide (which contains all the memory work and some other useful details.) You could also sign up for a CC Connected account (for a nominal monthly fee) to flesh out the weekly work with things other moms and tutors have downloaded for use either in their classrooms or at home. Absolutely you can do it at home. Or, if you're wanting a group, you could consider starting one? I'm sure there's some contact information on line for someone in your area to help you figure out that part. Best of luck!!!

Are you going through the spelling analysis with every spelling word you do together? And finger spelling it for him? I know this is something they stress very heavily on their site (and their forum is a great place to ask questions and get great suggestions!!). I agree that spelling lags behind the reading. Do you know if he has mastery of the phonograms? My daughter can read me all the phonograms with no troubles, but if I try to quiz her on, say 10 phonograms, where she has to write them without any prompting other than the prompts on the cards (three letter /i/ (igh)) it's more challenging for her. So I add this quiz to her English lesson every day. We start by having her read all the phonograms to me, then we do 5-10 minutes of me quizzing her on the phonograms as she writes them on her whiteboard (I do not show her these). There are many that she has absolutely mastered but there are some trouble ones - I make sure to add the trouble ones to a list or to the top of the pile and go over them every day. This has really improved her mastery so that when I finger spell a word using the spelling analysis I can just say "use a-e-i" and she knows that's /ei/. In Foundations they also provide a number of fun ways to reinforce the spelling lists provided each day. I let her do these on her own time, as she doesn't need me to practice using stamps to write the words or something. I do feel like she needs more practice on the words before we get to the 5-lesson review (not sure if Essentials has these reviews every 5 lessons like Foundations?) and I may just assign 'homework' daily by continuing to add to her spelling list so that by the time she gets to the review, she's reviewing all 50 or so words that have been practiced before the review 'test'. On these review days, I don't finger spell or do the analysis for her - I'm not sure if I'm supposed to do it or if by then she's supposed to know it, but without finger spelling it for her, it's a good way for me to test if she can sound the word out or recall it from her prior spelling practice activities. If you're having a lot of trouble I'd recommend you post a question on LOE's homeschool forum page and one of their staff folks will reply with some really great ideas of how to switch things up and perhaps help your son with his spelling. It's a good place to start, at least. :)

If you get a subscription to Classical Conversations Connected online there are all sorts of resources that various moms and tutors have put together either to teach the material to their classes or to flesh out the materials at home. There are lots of great ideas there!!

And remember it's just Kindergarten. I'd stick with option A but change it up a bit when Baby comes - I'd make sure to continue to do AAR and Math but everything else can go. You could do read-alouds when nursing but otherwise, don't put the pressure on yourself to follow anyone's 'schedule'. That's what I had a very hard time with with Sonlight and would probably also struggle with with MFW. I love the "just do the next lesson" approach. And then I use the Sonlight booklist for suggestions of what to read aloud and there you have Kindergarten!!! I'll have a new baby in June as well as starting K and 2nd in Fall with the two oldest with a 4 year old sandwiched inside there. I'm concerned about how things will go, but then I remind myself that teaching my K'er how to read and doing math consistently are all I need to do with him, and then I feel a tad bit better. :) It's a difficult time with littles underfoot but absolutely doable. Just don't set your expectations too high and roll with it. Best wishes!!

I'd just call Prodigy.