I truly feel that this is a company that places a lot of love and care into developing their materials. Each course is carefully designed and put together with a true understanding of the nature of children in mind. The love of children and teaching them well shines through without a doubt.
There is a lot of wonderful guidance for the parents/teachers in the teacher's guides, the Homeschool Handbook, and their seminar offerings and correspondence courses. I have no doubt you could call this company and ask for any help or guidance in teaching their programs and you would not be disappointed. Everything is so well put together I have never needed to consult them!
The programs are very comprehensive and it is difficult to imagine anyone completing them and not attaining a very good level of mastery on the subject studied. They offer so many fantastic subjects and electives for all grade levels that I have found myself buying a few courses for myself to learn and explore. I must add that they are engaging, challenging, and very useful for everyday life. This might surprise some people because the materials are not fancy by any means but rather they are plain and practical and too many people find themselves won over by packaging rather than content.
The programs are very enjoyable for myself as well as my children. Most subjects have little workbooks called lightunits that are stand alone work-texts or workbooks to accompany a textbook. My children love the joy of completing a light unit and progressing to another throughout the year. It is quite motivating. The workbooks are also divided into lessons of very reasonable lengths for the age/stage of child it is intended for.
There is no prattle or useless items to be found. Everything is as concise as possible, in the most child-friendly way, and to the point. Every part of the content has a good purpose in preparing the student for life as well as the next level of courses. For children who need more practice the teacher's guide is always a good resource for ideas on how to achieve this. For a faster and highly motivated student it is easy to combine lessons and work through things a little faster.
Up until High School all the math lightunits are write in workbooks. It has taken the burden of having to copy tons of problems out for each lesson and put more emphasis on actually learning and understanding the process behind the math. Learning to copy problems neatly is something that provided little by little each grade level. I have learned a lot from these math courses and many times I have encountered a very unique perspective on a concept that I had never seen before but which is far superior to anything I learned in my schooling. I am looking forward to the updates they are making for the High School math programs.
I use the readers to read aloud as character building family story time but not as a complete reading program.
I love the new Kindergarten materials as well as the learning to read set. My children love the letter rhymes and the number rhymes and still go around saying them for fun. They have a nice way of teaching the concept of blending and it really helped with my child who was struggling with every other program.
The Home Economics courses are fabulous and I loved learning from them. I will certainly be using them with my daughters and I am looking forward to the next installments of level II.
I highly recommend this company! read more
