Food for thought re: workbooks

[rafiki]

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[G5052]

We use the reading and math, and I am perpetually buying just enough to use up a Paypal balance or about $25 or so if I have that much at the end of the month.

 

And a few times I've been caught not having the next Light Unit or being very, very close to not having it in time. Thankfully I don't live far from them, but still...

[Samiam]

Ahh, I am betting workbook prices are still cheaper than buying the whole set of curriculum from year to year OR worse, paying $5000-$7000 per year per child for private school :). Sometimes ya just gotta chalk it up as the price ya pay for giving yorur children a wonderful education :).

 

Also, sometimes, depending on how BIG (ie # of pages) the workbook is, or how expensive it was, making copies can work out to being cheaper than replacing a workbook...but ya kind do this math before you start writing in the workbook.

[KrissiK]

Well, yes. But, eventually the kids are going to need something to write on. For little ones, it can be tedious copying a math problem out of a non-consumable textbook. When the boys were in pre-K, I wanted to do a little light preschool with them with free stuff I found on the Internet, but it gets expensive printing it all off, so I ended up buying the A Beka K4 curriculum, and it was cheaper than all the "free" stuff I was getting off the Net.

[Jackie in NE]

Yes, this is a good thing to remember.

 

I wish that I could find workbooks that coincide with all the great whole books I have on my shelf. My oldest just devours books. I could hardly stay ahead of her with reading material. Guess what.... the next 2 don't enjoy reading. (jury's still out on my youngest). And so asking them to learn by reading lots of great books just isn't going to happen. I always thought that all those books would work for everybody. Who knew?

[Suzannah]

I'm really loving all the e-workbooks I've found lately, mostly copywork, but still.... We use the downloadable versions of Julie Shields' copybooks, Jeannie Fullbright's notebooking pages for Apologia's elementary science and some downloads from Curriclick.com. But we do still buy workbooks for some subjects.

[skaterbabs]

DD adores the whole workbook thing, which has the added benefit of making it REALLY easy to put together a portfolio at the end of the year. Sometimes you have to weigh that with the expense of workbooks.

[LanaTron]

When I started home schooling, my eldest was in 1st grade, my next in K. I spent almost nothing, and over the next couple of years, I thought I was doing great by getting these cheap workbooks (like singapore wbs). Now that I'm schooling 4, it hurts to replace those all the time, even if I am keeping the main text and just replacing the workbook. i just finished my planning for next year, and ouch. It may not be as much as some spend, but it is a lot for us to spend. But it is the simplest way for me to get schooling done...time is money.

 

Some of them, I now have the dc put a page protector over the page and use wet erase marker. Some of them, I have the dc write on their own paper. Some, I make a copy of the page for a dc (which then costs paper and ink). But some it just is best to let the dc write in the book and just replace it four times. (there's no "coughing" smiley, as in coughing up $$, or I'd put it here)

 

 

Here's what we use, have used, or will use that has workbooks/worktexts:

 

Latin for Children

Song School Latin

Singapore math

Megawords

WWE w/ workbooks

Dandelion Logic

Growing With Grammar

Meet the Great Composers

Stories of the Great Composers

Wordsmith Apprentice

Latin Prep 1 workbooks

 

There are probably others that aren't out on my shelves right now.

 

I do use the rational that bosket2 mentioned: I'm still spending a lot less than hiring a private tutor for four dc would cost.

[Annie Laurie]

I just posted something similar, I got the kids workbooks for fun and then dd did her's in two days, which is expensive. She really likes workbooks, when I got them Beyond the Code because they asked over and over, she did that one in a few days too.

[acbuy]

my kids love the kumon workbooks, especially tracing and mazes, so I've decided to laminate the pages and the kids use dry erase. I've been able to purchase the laminating sheets at ten cents/page, so it works out to $4 (40 pages) extra, but that'll save me from buying each maze book at least 2 times. They're around $8 each.