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mommyto4QT
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I started out with several books on the P3/4 list that had been mine that my mother had saved. I've bought most of the rest, and even if I pay retail for the few remaining, the total will be $167.

I got several at half.com, and the used area of Amazon. I took the remaining list to the local large used book store, and I had them look them up in the computer. Being new to kids book buying, I didn't know how to find them. I got the collections books pretty cheap there. They were totally worth it. There were some that I just bought new on Amazon. Although, I have since noticed that Rainbow Resource has good prices on individual P4/5 books. So, they probably have good prices on P3/4. They would probably be the place to finish off buying the books. If used only saved me a couple of bucks, I bought new. I am an Engineer. So, I made an excel worksheet and I put the Sonlight price in, and I kept a running tally of what I spent. The big savings are in the expensive books.

We started with P3/4 early. So, we just added the books to her library. It worked out well that they all trickled in. New books are interesting. For some reason, DD dubbed the Harper-Collins book "Mommy book". I thought we never stop reading from that book. One thing nice about the collections is that when the story ends she wants "next one".

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I bought P3/4 full from sonlight because, well, I just wanted to. lol We had the money from a tax refund and I didn't want to piece it together. I had an excel sheet done up with prices from SL, Amazon, and RR and I really wouldn't have saved much splitting it up. For P4/5, I did the same with an excel sheet only I started well ahead of time and checked used as well as new. I did end up piecing it together, but I think I only saved about $60 in the end. Worth it if you're pinching pennies and it makes the difference between getting all the books or not. But even though money is tight for us, I still don't think it was worth it. Especially because you never know quite what you'll get when you buy used online and some of the books we got were pretty beat up. So it's not like saving $60 on equivalent books, they were worth far less.

 

We haven't decided yet if we'll be continuing with Sonlight. If we do, I will probably do price comparisons, but I'm only going to be checking regular stock prices from a few main places like Amazon and RR. I don't think I will scour ebay and amazon marketplace for used again.

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Edit: I can't delete my bottom line or go back to finish it. I wanted to say that at your dcs age lots of great picture books are the key. Great easy math and science books at libraries. Books by Usboure were particularly great with my kids. Hope this all makes sense! Sorry.

 

I will be honest and say that buying the scedule once is handy but the schedule can be 10 years old imo. That is simply so you get a feel for how they coordinate things which is what SL does really well. The spine books with lit selections(how much to read each day). That being said unless you want the books new pk4 is not the year to spend that money. I would wait until the ancient history (core A I think) which is when it all made sense to me. You need to see it happening but that is the first core where it really works.

 

I have bought several cores new when I needed to. Hectic slightly nomadic lifestyle where libraries are a problem at times. When we are in one place I tend to do my own scheduling SL style -- I do use their lists when helpful.

 

If you have easy access to

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Sometimes you have to just luck upon a used core. P3/4 may be a bit harder to find? See how many books your library has for that core. You might be able to do it that way.

 

I did buy P4/5 new, as I just didn't want to bother with piecing it together. I pieced together Cores D and E.

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I've found tons of sonlights books at goodwills and other thrift stores recently. actually found almost all the ones for 2nd grade at one goodwill as if the person had just dropped them off. Now and the next few weeks are the time to go looking, especially.

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One of the complaints I've heard about getting Sonlight books at the library, is that you can't get them when they are on the schedule. But, with P3/4 reading the books in order isn't really important. It isn't like you are reading history books, and you'll mix up your timeline.

I think I remember reading in a thread here that someone made an excel document with the P3/4 then P4/5 stories in it. Then as you read the stories/books, you checked them off, or wrote in the date.

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I mostly buy new, but one year we didn't have the money to buy a whole core upfront. I bought the teachers guide used, and then I bought the books 6 weeks at a time from amazon. It really helped spread out the cost for us that year.

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