What is the worst educational/HS item you've ever bought?

[MamaHappy]

Just curious. :)

 

I can't say I've purchased anything *really* terrible, but I was pretty let down by MFW K.

 

What about you?

[GWOB]

Horizons math. Tears were produced by both dd and me. It was painful.

 

Apologia Zoology 1 bored everyone to tears. I wouldn't even sell the book. I gave it away and still felt guilty about inflicting someone else with that book.

 

Those were my two biggest bombs.

[laurad1125]

Jr. Analytical Grammar.

 

It started out confusing and just got worse from there. My textbook-adverse child was begging to go back to Rod & Staff.

[Embassy]

Rosetta Stone

[Kates]

Saxon 5/4...found out that my son does *not* work well with the spiral approach. Wow...

 

Prima Latina and Latina Christiana. The first produced tears of boredom, the second I found myself having to rewrite in order to teach.

 

Anything from SOS...ds12 still gets twitchy when he sees these on a table at convention lol.

Edited October 14, 2010 by Kates

[bluemongoose]

LLATL too easy and bored my kid to tears! I did follow the rec and bought a year up, it still was not enough:001_huh:

[rootsnwings]

Rod & Staff science was sooooooo boring!

[Lori D.]

Not so much a problem with the items, but just a poor fit for our student... Two items that leap to mind:

 

- Math wrap-ups; DS quickly learned the *pattern* for wrapping the string around it, but not the math facts.

- Math Shark electronic math facts drill -- DS melted down with any type of timed drills.

[Guest TheBugsMom]

Saxon math, Apologia General Science and Apologia Biology. I think the biggest disappointment was that everyone seems to like these. My son still talks about how much he hated the Biology book.

[susankenny]

for our family, it was:

 

 

 

• teach your child to read in 100 easy lessons
  
• math-u-see
  

 

 

i've learned to do a lot of research now before jumping on the bandwagon. i've learned that just because it's popular, doesn't mean it will work for my kids. in fact, we're usually most pleased with things that seem less popular (but i don't know why? they are true gems for us!)

[....]

100 EZ (the learn to read book)

 

Abeka K4

 

Horizons Math 2

[Closeacademy]

Oak Meadow preschool. It is very expensive for what little you get. But after diverting off to other curriculum, I came back to Oak Meadow and really wish I would have used it all along. The other levels are great but there are better programs out there for preschool.:001_smile:

[fastforward]

WP The American Story. I tried so hard to make this work, but I found it to be disjointed (and I wasn't secure enough in my HSing journey to 'tweak' it), the broken websites were frustrating, and it seemed rather expensive for what I received. I remember thinking, they could have at least thrown in a binder with this! :tongue_smilie:

 

I ended up giving it away to a woman who happened to want this curriculum quite badly but couldn't justify the price. I even threw in a free binder. :D

[Paisley Hedgehog]

..

[Mom0012]

Just curious. :)

 

I can't say I've purchased anything *really* terrible, but I was pretty let down by MFW K.

 

What about you?

 

That's funny because I think that's one of the nicest K programs out there.

 

I've thought about it but I really can't think of anything I've bought that was really bad except for some books on medieval times, which I ordered through one of the mainstream public school suppliers, that were $20 each but, to my surprise, only about 10 pages long with about 3 words per page.

 

Lisa

[Mama2two]

Teach your child to read in 100EZ lessons

[Jilly6]

SOS Math. I can't even figure out how to use the darn thing and i wasted 80 bucks on it!

[Quiver0f10]

CLP Applications of grammar.

[Momma H]

A program that hardly anyone in the world even knows exists called The Self Taught Reading Program. I liked the cards that came with it but the video is a lady in her living room talking with a REALLY annoying bell she rings. It was BAD.

The other is the Madsen Method English, some of you may know it. The Old Schoolhouse had it on thier TOS Homeschool Crew thing and it did not do well. You spend the first 3 weeks or more learning how to hold a pencil. :tongue_smilie:

Oh, yeah, the reading program was $150 and the Madsen English was $200.........sigh..............

I still have both of these for sale, anyone? haha.

[hscherger]

Analytical Grammar - the sentences had no literary quality at all.

[mytwomonkeys]

100 EZ lessons. hated it.

[1Togo]

All the math we used before sticking with Saxon for our youngest. Our oldest children, who are on opposite ends of the spectrum with math ability/interests, had excellent results with Saxon, and we now see that abandoning Saxon was a mistake.

[Dinsfamily]

LHTH...definitely not a good fit for my family. Way too easy and we didn't like many of the activities.

 

100 EZL

[AmyinMD]

WP American Story 1

 

I wanted so badly to make this work but I just struggled with it. The bazillion paper crafts just made it worse. It was my most frustrating year ever and I just about enrolled the kids in school. I had it pulled out to sell but I just decided to keep it. I actually like most of the books and will just read them to the kids. It was mainly the IG I couldn't stand.

 

 

100 EZ Lessons

 

Never could figure out why this was so well liked. At least this one was inexpensive.

[G5052]

The biggie was TOG. I tried to make it work for two years, and then called it quits and never looked back. I was too much to choose from, too much work, just too much all together. At least it was given to us, so I wasn't out any $.

 

We went back to Sonlight and ended up doing six cores with them total. Worked muc better for us...

[delaney]

SOS science-snoozer

MUS is a real hit and miss. DD "gets" 50% of the lessons but is sometimes very confused by them

FLL-sooooo redundant so we use WWE

IEW-I am on the fence about this one. I really see the merits of it but it teaches you to breakdown and then puke back what the quthor said but in your own words. Not sure how that is going to help with an creative assignment:confused:

RSO space-not a fan of experiments and have adapted ES for the girls and it seems to be working

Biblioplan-just like SOTW and HO better

[MamaHappy]

That's funny because I think that's one of the nicest K programs out there.

 

I've thought about it but I really can't think of anything I've bought that was really bad except for some books on medieval times, which I ordered through one of the mainstream public school suppliers, that were $20 each but, to my surprise, only about 10 pages long with about 3 words per page.

 

Lisa

 

I think it was just that my expectations were too high. The program itself is fine. I'm actually doing the phonics portion of it again this year with my youngest and it's going much better. :)

[Mommyfaithe]

Just curious. :)

 

I can't say I've purchased anything *really* terrible, but I was pretty let down by MFW K.

 

What about you?

 

The ENTIRE Weaver set including the 7-12 supplement....I had no idea how to organize and schedule it, so I resold it. Thank God I bought it used....

 

Faithe

[MissKNG]

I didn't care for Moving Beyond the Page.

[Mom0012]

I think it was just that my expectations were too high. The program itself is fine. I'm actually doing the phonics portion of it again this year with my youngest and it's going much better. :)

 

One man's trash is another's treasure. Or something like that.:001_smile:

 

Lisa

[Love2Smile]

LLATL

[Hedgehogs4]

Saxon K was like death by a thousand cuts for me.

 

Spelling Workout was misery for my son.

[Dmmetler]

Private school K tuition! All we learned in DD's year in private school was that we needed to homeschool.

[Hedgehogs4]

 

Apologia Zoology 1 bored everyone to tears. I wouldn't even sell the book. I gave it away and still felt guilty about inflicting someone else with that book.

 

 

 

That's so funny! We have loved Apologia Zoology 1 and even still talk about all the stuff we learned from it!! I guess it's all about interest and learning styles...

[*Jessica*]

Teach Your Child to Read in 100EZ Lessons and Explode the Code.

[NanceXToo]

Saxon Math. We never even used it. I just had to look at it to know.

[wanderer109]

Teach your child to read in 100 Easy lessons. What a waste of money!

 

A&O lifepacs.

[silliness7]

Not so much a problem with the items, but just a poor fit for our student... Two items that leap to mind:

 

- Math wrap-ups; DS quickly learned the *pattern* for wrapping the string around it, but not the math facts.

- Math Shark electronic math facts drill -- DS melted down with any type of timed drills.

 

 

I vote math wrap-ups too for a different reason. I had the addition set and my boys did not have the manual dexterity to keep the string taut while looking for the answer to the next problem. Then they would lose the previous answer...talk about melt-downs. We shelved that fast!

[my2boysteacher]

Explode the Code here, also. It brought my oldest son to tears quite frequently until I tossed it out.

[silliness7]

IEW-I am on the fence about this one. I really see the merits of it but it teaches you to breakdown and then puke back what the quthor said but in your own words. Not sure how that is going to help with an creative assignment:confused:

 

 

Mini-Hijack...my boys are doing Unit 7 right now, the creative writing unit. IEW teaches a whole 'nother method of outlining when writing from your brain as opposed to writing from a source.

[Paintedlady]

Latina Christiana--hated it!

[UnsinkableKristen]

Math-U-See Primer/Alpha - completely confused my daughter even though we LOVED the videos.

 

OPGTR - I'm sure it's a bad thing to say here, but it made DD cry every time I brought it out. We have had MUCH better luck with Phonics Pathways.

[lamamaloca]

100 Easy Lessons, definitely. My kids haven't liked in, and it didn't work for the one who was willing to do it.

[Caitilin]

Heresy, I know, but I wish I had never spent any $ on the SOTW AGs. Too much busy work that we couldn't get done.

[tinkhs]

 

Apologia elementary science

 

I cannot get my head around why this curriculum is so popular. :confused:

 

I agree. We didn't like it at all. My friend loves it and still uses it with all her children, so we tried several of them. It was a bust.

[GWOB]

That's so funny! We have loved Apologia Zoology 1 and even still talk about all the stuff we learned from it!! I guess it's all about interest and learning styles...

 

I wanted to like it. Really, I did, but after the fifth chapter I never wanted to hear anything about birds ever again. I like the idea of sticking to one topic for the school year, but Zoology 1 was for the birds (har har).

[MIch elle]

SOS Spanish - YUCK!

Chalkdust algebra 1 - dvd lessons TOO long winded - NOT homeschool friendly

LLATL - not challenging enough

[BatmansWife]

We've tried a lot of klunkers through the years. Here's just a sampling:

 

Fast Track Action Reading ~ oh my goodness......worst thing in the history of learning to read!! They teach almost all of the letters with the "uh" sound at the end (tuh, zuh, etc). I'll still never forget when the lady on the cassette tape read off some letter sounds and then said, "these letters don't really have the uh sound at the end, but you can't hear me if I don't say them that way, right?" So to sound out "cat" she would say, ""Cuh........ah........tuh. Cuh....ah.....tuh. Cuh..ah..tuh. Cat!!! That's right!" :ack2:

 

Phonetic Zoo ~ hated it.

 

Writing Strands ~ day one: write "the pencil in on the table". Day two: write "the yellow pencil is on the table". Day three: write "the yellow pencil is on the big table." :tongue_smilie:

 

Professor B Math ~ too strict about not moving on until the child could instantly say the answer....my kid never could.

 

Right Brain Phonics ~ I still don't understand this at all. :confused:

 

Queens Language Lessons for Little Ones ~ some lessons literally took 10 seconds (plus I *hate* it when a publisher says the book is X amount of pages long but the backside of every page is blank yet still numbered. Pet peeve!). :glare:

 

Times Tables the Fun Way ~ changes what the numbers represent from story to story which leads to confusion.

 

Times Tales ~ stories are too confusing.

 

ETC Online ~ too many frustrating glitches......by the time we could get it working right the subscription ran out.

[Sun]

AAS, levels 1 and 2 - Based on what the website says, I bought levels one and two. They were a complete waste of time because my son already knew all those rules. The only thing that was new to him was the concept of open and closed syllables, but I could have explained that. I do like the sequential nature of it, and I'm ordering the next couple of levels because I think somewhere in 3 or 4 we'll get to the right level, but I wish I'd realized that levels 1 and 2 were as basic as they are!

[Crimson Wife]

1962 edition of Voyages in English (way too dry)

Digi-Block Teacher's Guide (designed for classroom use and assumes that the teacher has access to the pricey full kit & caboodle rather than just a set of the blocks)

Bring History Alive! A Sourcebook for Teaching World History (too politically correct, designed for classroom use, and I felt the discussion questions were too advanced for the suggested grade ranges)