Schoolhouse Crew Review: Golden Prairie Press

Amy Puetz, owner of Golden Prairie Press is a homeschool graduate with a passion for history.  The iems she publishes brings history to life for it's readers. As a member of the Schoolhouse Review Crew, I recently had an opportunity to use and review Digital Heroes & Heroines of the Past: American History Curriculum  from Golden Prairie Press. Digital Heroes and Heroines of the Past ($98.99) is a thirty week history curriculum designed for students in grades 1-6, starting with The People of North America and going through the Administrations of Bush, Clinton, Bush, and Obama. The readings in the text are split into 2 different sections.  A short basic over section for 1st-2nd graders and a more in depth section for 3rd-6th graders.  In addition to the readings there are: weekly memory verses, hands on activity suggestions such as examining historical art, games of the past, cook up some history, sing some history, listen to some history, crafts, and experiments, and also writing topics, review questions, and geography questions. There are also additional recommended resources at the end of each unit. The curriculum includes:
Digital Heroes and Heroines of the Past American History Part 1 ebook-lessons for the first half of the year. View a sample.
Digital Heroes and Heroines of the Past American History Part 2 ebook-lessons for the second half of the year.
Additional Materials Downloads-Printable timelines, instructions, videos, color artwork, coloring pages, and more.
Historical Skits ebook-19 skits from Columbus to World War II. See a sample.
Sing Some History CD-20 different songs from periods of American history.
Listen to Some US History mP3 CD-an audio collection of 20 different speeches, poems, sermons, and documents mentioned in the lessons. 
There is also a printed copy of the curriculum available for purchase as well as an optional literature pack and coloring book. 

I have been using Digital Heroes and Heroines of the Past mostly with my 1st and 2nd graders, but my 3 and 5 year olds have joined in on some of the activities as well.  I downloaded the text to use in iBooks on my iPad and downloaded the other files to my laptop computer.  The only pages I have had to print out are the timeline and some coloring pages. We started with lesson one, The People of North America,  and have been spending around 30 minutes 3 times per week reading lessons, answering the questions orally, and completing the activities.  The only advanced preparation I had to do to use this curriculum is to read through the How to Use This Curriculum section and to give a quick glance at the supplies needed for the activities for the week.  Additional supplies will depend on the activities you choose to do and you will need regular supplies normally found in a homeschool such as crayons, paper, pencils, and a notebook to store your timeline and papers in.

One of the things I liked right away was the separate reading sections for 1st-2nd and 3rd-6th grades.  So often in our homeschool I am reading aloud to the older children and it is just too long and too much over the heads of the younger children for them to continue to pay any attention.  I thought that the readings gave just enough information and were just long enough for the boys ages.  The review questions were questions that they could understand and answer orally after listening to the readings.  
The children really liked the activities. Some of the things we did included: making viking ships out of playdough, coloring Columbus's coat of arms, building a hammock for a teddy bear, and making a cocoa drink.

Another thing that I really liked was the different types of timelines you could print out.  You could choose from a blank timeline, a timeline with the years printed and the child could write in the event and the explorers, or you could print one that has the years and the explorers filled in and the child fills in the event, or one in which the year and event are already filled in and the child fills in the explorer.  I thought all of the different options were wonderful.  I also think that the Sing Some History CD and Listen to Some US History mP3 are great resources to use with this curriculum.
What really surprised me though was that the boys' favorite part was the historical art.  They loved looking at the paintings and answering the questions.  The really nice thing about the iPad was that we could make the pictures bigger and get a really good look at the paintings.

this is how it looks at normal size on the iPad

here it is made larger

One thing that I wish was different was that instead of having the maps included in with the readings, I wish they had been on the Additional Materials CD and a larger size so that they could be printed out and colored or labeled.  There is also an additional coloring book to go along with the Heroes and Heroines of the Past, but it is not available as a digital product.  I would like to see that as a digital product as well to go along with the rest of the digital products.

To see what my Crew Mates had to say, click on the banner below.

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Homeschool Wrap Up Week 35

We are finished!  Our "regular" school year has come to an end.  This week we finished up Math, History, Science, and Nick finished Visual Latin 1.  Alex finished reading aloud The Cabin Faced West. We set aside Spelling You See, All About Spelling, Essentials, and Artistic Pursuits until next year.  Chelsea has a couple of little things to finish up this week and she graduates on Saturday!

We will do some school over the summer.  Our summer school will be whatever items we are reviewing.  Right now we are finishing up with Progeny Press and Apologia What On Earth Can I Do?  We just started reviews on We Choose Virtues and Learning Wrap Ups.  We will be starting new reviews from Moving Beyond the Page, Veritas Press, and Visual Latin 2 soon.  But, our summer school is much more laid back then our regular school year.  I try to make sure that the work load is spread out pretty evenly so that one child is not doing more work than the others.  I also try and make sure we have some fun and interesting things to do that are different than our regular school year.  In the summer we also tend to do our work in the afternoons when it is hotter outside giving the children the morning to play.

I have not made final decisions on all the curricula we will be using next year.  I have some plans finalized but am still thinking on some other things.  After we get all of our curriculum purchased, there are some fun educational items I have been looking at that I would like to add to our homeschool as well.  For now they are on my wish list.  It is kind of strange not to be planning anything for Chelsea.  Next year I will have Pre-K, K, 2,3,5, and 7th grades.  No more high school for a few years.

Every year I take a picture on our first and last days of school.  Here are our pictures from this year.

Emelia 8-1-13 

Emelia 5-11-14

  

Lillian 8-1-13

Lillian 5-11-14

Christian 8-1-13

Christian 5-11-14

Anthony 8-1-13

5-11-14

Alexander 8-1-13

Alexander 5-11-14

Nicholas 8-1-13

Nicholas 5-11-14

Chelsea 8-1-13

Chelsea 5-11-14

I will still be posting plenty of things on the blog this summer, including our activities, homeschool stuff, and reviews and a few great giveaways, but this is my last weekly wrap post until August.

Happy Homeschooling!

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Schoolhouse Crew Review: Logic of English

Last year, I was introduced to Logic of English for the first time when we had an opportunity to review Foundations, Level  A.  We loved it and I was more than excited to have an opportunity this year to review another one of their wonderful products, Essentials: Logic of English Complete Set.
Essentials: Logic of English complete set is for ages 7 to adult.  This program teaches how to spell, read, and write by providing phonics instruction that makes sense and is logical :), fluency practice, vocabulary, grammar, and composition.  
The Essentials: Logic of English Complete Set costs $243 and contains:
Essentials Teacher's Manual- Hardcover 612 page book containing step by step instructions for the instructor to teach each lesson.
Essentials Student Workbook (available in cursive or manuscript)-Paperback 484 book with perforated pagers for easy removal.  This book contains discovery based learning activities, phonogram games, editing practice, fluency activities, spelling games, word sums, and worksheets for the student to complete their lessons.  The workbook is available in cursive or manuscript but it does not teach cursive so you would only want to choose cursive if your child already writes in cursive. 
Spelling Journal-Paperback 64 page book designed to be a place where your child can record commonly misspelled words categorizing by correct spelling or phonogram rule.
Basic Phonogram Flash Cards-4.5x6 inch cards containing 74 single and multi leter phonograms with sample words and spelling aids for quick teacher reference. 
Spelling Rule Flash Cards-4.5x6 inch cards containing 30 spelling rules.
Grammar Rule Flash Cards-4.5x6 inch cards to review parts of speech and grammar rules.  There are 83 cards in this set.
Advanced Phonogram Flash Cards-4.5x6 in cards containing 35 advanced phonograms
Game Book-96 page paperback book containing 40 phonogram games, 37 spelling games, 11 game templates, 18 phonogram bingo cards, and 10 phonogram tic-tac-toe cards plus instructions for playing the games.
Game Cards Deck-2.25x3.5 inch cards that has 74 phonogram cards and 15 game playing cards.  These cards are available in green cursive, red manuscript, and blue bookface.  2 decks are recommended.
Phonogram and Spelling Rule Quick Reference Chart-a fold out chart that gives quick reference to 30 spelling rules, all the phonograms, sounds, sample words,suffix flow chart, and a sound to spelling reference chart.
You do have an option to customize the curriculum and buy the components separately if you would rather. 
You can view all of the individual prices on this page.
Sample pages are available for the Teacher's Manual and Student Workbooks in cursive or manuscript.

Essentials can be used with anyone ages 7 to adult who wants to improve their reading, spelling, and writing abilities.  Before beginning the program students should have developed phonemic awareness, learned all the sounds for A-Z phonograms, and learned to write the A-Z phonograms.  The program will teach how and why English words are spelled the way they are and how to build them into sentences and phrases, showing students how to decode, spell, and write.  There are suggested lesson plans in the Teacher's Manual for working with a variety of ages and abilities including struggling readers and spellers, struggling spellers, emerging readers and spellers, young emerging readers, and ESL students.  Essentials has 40 lessons and a variety of multi sensory activities to suit different types of learners.

I used Essentials with my 7 and 8 year old boys.  I modified the suggested schedule for emerging readers and spellers to fit into our 4 day a week school schedule and spent around 30-40 minutes per day on our lessons.  I purchased an extra student workbook as each student needs to have their own.
I have to admit that when I saw the size of the Teacher's Manual it was a bit overwhelming.  But, after reading through the introductory materials I decided to just dive in the next day.  Teaching  the lessons was very easy.  A quick glance at the needed materials and a few minutes to gather them was the only advanced prep I needed to do.  The Teacher's Manual tells you step by step what to do and is very easy to follow along with. The lessons are split into 3 parts.  The first part has three components: Phonograms, Exploring Sounds, and Spelling Rules.  The second part is the introduction of words through spelling dictation and analysis.  The third part has four components: Grammar, Dictation, Composition, and Vocabulary Development.  We did one part per day adding in some review and a game and reviewing on day 4.For the phonogram dictation, I used the Phonics With Phonograms app that I had an opportunity to review last year. This app says the sounds very clearly and just the way the students are taught in the program and the boys liked hearing the sounds on the app.  It also is great reinforcement for them to play the game on the app.
Essentials breaks everything down for the student (and the teacher) and helps make logical sense of the English language by teaching all of the phonogram sounds and spelling rules. I really like all of the visual components.  The flash cards are great tools to allow the children to see and remember the different rules and phonograms.  I do need to come up with a better system for keeping them organized though.  We really liked the variety of activities.  The different games were the boys most favorite part of using this curriculum. In addition to the games in the phonogram game book there are also games and activities in the student workbook as well.
I really like how easy it is to customize the program to suit your needs or your children's needs.  You decide how much or how little to complete every day.  If your child is struggling with a certain concept you can slow down and spend more time on review.  If your child understands and is ready to move on you can move on. There is also plenty of review throughout the lessons and every five lessons there is an assessment and review lesson.
This is not a curriculum you can hand to your child and let them do on their own.  You will need to sit and work with them everyday.  But, as I mentioned before the amount of time spent per day will vary depending on the age of your child and how quickly you want to get through it.
The only part of the program that I thought was lacking was that I wished there was a reading component.  I wanted something that the boys could read aloud to go along with what they were learning in their lessons.  I see though that Logic of English has an early release version of an Essentials Reader to go with the Essentials program.  
You can also read my review of Foundations A.

My Crew Mates reviewed a variety of products from Logic of English.  Hop on over to the Crew Blog to see what they had to say by clicking on the banner below.

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Schoolhouse Crew Review: Maestro Classics

Need a fun and easy way to add classical music to your homeschool day?  Maestro Classics  has wonderful music CDs to choose from for children and families.  We recently had an opportunity to review two of their titles, The Sorcerer's Apprentice and Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel. The Sorcerer's Apprentice is a story of a lazy apprentice who tries to perform a magic spell to do his chores and ends up falling asleep while the water continues to rise.  The apprentice does not know how to stop the spell and the master comes back to discover what he has done.  The music was written by Paul Dukas, performed by the London Philharmonic Orchestra, and narrated by Yadu.
There are seven tracks on the CD: 1. The Sorcerer's Apprentice 2. About the Story 3. The March of the Brooms 4. About the Music 5. The Sorcerer's Apprentice (original version) 6. Prepare to perform 7. Play-Along Kitchen Percussion
The total playing time for the entire CD is 41:24.  Included with the CD is a 24 page activity guide containing: the history of The Sorcerer's Apprentice instruments of the orchestra, a biography of Paul Dukas, music for March of the Brooms, information on mallet instruments and drum and bugle corps,biographies of the conductor, producer, and narrator, and activities such as a crossword mystery word game and dot to dot. The Sorcerer's Apprenctice is recommended for ages 6 and up and can be purchased for $16.98.  There is also an mP3 version available for $9.98 which comes with a PDF copy of the activity book. Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel brings to life Virginia Lee Burton's famous children's book about Mike Mulligan who did not want to give up his steam shovel Mary Anne when newer and faster equipment becomes available.  They travel together to do one more job and to show that Mary Anne is still worth something.  The music to go along with the story was written by Stephen Simon, performed by the London Philharmonic Orchestra, and narrated by Yadu.  There are 7 tracks on the CD:
1. Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel 2. About the Author 3. Mike Mulligan Song 4. About the Music 5. Now That You Know A Little More 6. Want to Have Some Fun? Prepare to Perform 7. Mike Mulligan Song-Sing Along
The total playing time for the CD is 51:14.  Included with the CD is a 24 page containing biographies, words to the sing along song, information on the uilleann pipes, and activities such as a crossword puzzle, code to crack, word search, and maze.  Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel is recommended for ages 4 and up and can be purchased for $16.98.  There is an mP3 download available that can be purchased for $9.98 and includes a downloadable PDF activity guide.
Maestro Classics has a link to free curriculum guides for homeschoolers to use to integrate their CDs into other areas of their children's curriculum.
I reviewed Maestro Classics with my 3,5,7,8,10,12, and 16 year olds.  We listened to the CDs while traveling in the car and a rainy day that we did not have anything special planned.  We listened to the full CD's in one sitting (or car trip.)  
I chose the Sorcerer's Apprentice because my children have seen the part of it in a movie and I wanted them to learn more about the music itself.  Maestro Classics has a beautiful arrangement of this music both with and without the narration.  It also gives listeners information about the music and the composer and how the story eveolved over the years.  It also teaches the listener to listen a little deeper to the music.
I chose Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel because we adore the book.  We absolutely loved listening to the Maestro Classics CD!  My younger children were so cute too because they kept saying "I remember when this happened in the book."  Then we had to get the book and listen again while following along with the book.  The CD gives a lot of good background information about the author and the music.  
Maestro Classics CDs are something we like to listen to over and over again.  We love the little activity books that come with the CDs, although the children have a tendency to argue over who gets to do what activities.  We have loved every CD we have received from Maestro Classics and look forward to adding more to our collection.
To see what my Crew Mates had to say, click on the banner below.

  

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Review: Dave Raymond's American History Part 2

Last year I had an opportunity to do a review of Dave Raymond's American History Part 1 from the Compass Classroom.  You can read my review of it here. When Part 2 came out several weeks ago, I was delighted to have an opportunity to review it as well.

Dave Raymond's American History is designed for students in middle and lower high school starting at around age 12.  Upper high school and older could enjoy it as well (I know I do!)  The course consists of daily video lectures, readings, projects, weekly exams, and a year long portfolio.  Through the lens of a Christian worldview, Dave Raymond gives a history of the United States starting with Meso-America to the Constitution in Part One and continuing with George Washington to Teddy Roosevelt in Part 2.  Each part contains 13 lessons with each lesson containing 5 lectures, and is designed to take a semester to complete.  Lessons in Part 2 include:

14. Federal Headship: George Washington
 15. How Good and Pleasant It Is: Adams and Jefferson
 16. Manifest Destiny: Settlers, Explorers, and War
 17. Word and Deed: John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson
 18. The Original United Nations: The Expansion of the Early US
 19. Idols of Mercy: Revival, Counterfeits, and Art
 20. A House Divided I: The Age of Compromise and Divided Cultures
 21. A House Divided II: Abraham Lincoln and Secession
 22. The Second War of Independence: The War Between the States
 23. Brother Against Brother: The War Between the States II
 24. The Lost Cause: Reconstruction
 25. A New Normal: The West, Immigration, and Robber Barons
 26. Theology as Biography: Theodore Roosevelt and Booker T. Washington

There are 2 projects that your student is assigned during the course of the semester.  The first project is a research and thesis paper based on a topic of interest on something during the studied time period.  The second project is a craft project (30-40 hours is recommended)  in a medium of their choice (song, model, cooking, other craft ideas, covering a topic of interest studied. In addition to those, there are portfolio assignments to complete for each lesson.  The portfolio is like a scrapbook of what the students have studied and learned.  Each portfolio page should have 3 items on it along with titles and captions.  Portfolio entries should be completed on quality paper and stored in an album, scrapbook, or sketch book dedicated to their American History class.

You can purchase Part 1 and Part 2 of Dave Raymond's American History together, or you can buy each part separately.  You have the option to choose between physical DVDs or downloads.  Each of these also comes with a student reader and teacher's guide.  With the physical DVDs these are found on the first DVD in the package and come in PDF, EPUB, and MOBI formats.  The cost of purchasing Part 1 and 2 together in a physical copy or download is $90.  To buy each part separately is $50.


You can download the first 5 lessons for free.  Check them out!

Dave Raymond's American History brings the instructor into your home with interesting video lectures.  It is a Christian curriculum and one that takes the time to teach the importance of the founding of this nation and not just the names and dates but also the character behind the people who founded and shaped it.  As i said in my review of Part 1, I love, love, love, the portfolio.  What an awesome, visual way to show what you have learned in a way that you can keep it forever rather than memorizing a few names and dates to pass the test and move on.  The readings included in the student reader are challenging, but are quality, original works that are worthwhile for your child to read and everything they need to read is included.  The Teacher's Guide gives specifics on grading and contains the answers to the weekly exams.  The course can be completed by your students independently (aside from the grading of course.)

When I reviewed Part 1, I received a download version.  I like the portability of downloadable videos, but we have super slow internet speed and the files were very large.  This time I received a physical copy.  The DVDs are not as easy to transport as downloadable files, but I didn't have to waste hours downloading the videos and could just pop them in and watch them.  The student reader and Teacher's Guide are included in 3 different formats on the first DVD so I put that into my computer and emailed those files to the iPad so we would not have to print anything out.

If you are looking for a middle-high school, Christian, self directed American History course that is much more than memorizing facts and dates, I suggest you download the free lessons for Dave Raymond's American History.

Disclaimer:  I received a complimentary copy of this product for the purpose of writing a fair and honest review.  I received no other compensation and opinions are my own.  I am disclosing this in accordance to FTC Regulations.

*links used in this post are my affiliate links.  I only form affiliate relationships with companies whose products I actually use and can recommend.

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Homeschool Wrap Up Week 34

We had a very busy week this week!

In America the Beautiful we finished up the 80's and started the 90's.  I am hoping to finish up the rest of the book this week if everything goes as planned.  The younger children learned about the search for the city of Cibola and Aztec picture writing. In Apologia Land Animals we are reading the final chapter on Gastropods and Worms.  We will finish the book this week.

We will continue plugging along with Logic of English Essentials, All About Spelling, and Math for the rest of this week.  Then we will take a break from all of that as well.

We will continue on with Apologia's What On Earth Can I Do? for the next couple of weeks.  Nick and Alex are going to work on their Progeny Press Study Guides until they complete them.  Then we will be done with our regular school work until August and only work on some fun stuff and review items over the summer!

Monday we had Rocket Club.  It was too windy to launch rockets, but we had a great time at our potluck picnic!

Tuesday the puppy had to go to the vet for some shots.  I loaded all the children up to go with me.  The younger ones thought it was a great adventure.  Our puppy has gained 7 lbs in 3 weeks!  She is getting really big.

Wednesday I had to take Nick to his confirmation class.  Our church has 8 weeks of classes for those who are getting ready to join the church.  So far he has completed 5 weeks of classes.

Thursday was our long awaited field trip to the zoo!  My children have been asking and asking when we could go again.  I thought it would be a great way to finish up our Land Animal Study so I set up a field trip with some homeschool friends.  The group rate is half of what it costs for regular admission and it's always more fun with friends!  The zoo was pretty crowded as there were a lot of school groups that day, but the only time it really affected us was when we were getting snacks at the cafe.  The weather was beautiful and the children had a great day!  We did have a bit of a scary moment or two when Christian lost his buddy and ended up staying back at the penguins while the rest of the group had moved on, but we found him again after only a few minutes (thank you Lord) and although he was a little scared he was ok.  I felt terrible and so did his buddy but we were just glad to have him back and hope it never happens again!

I did not take very many pictures of animals since Alex took pictures of all of them.  Last time we took all of his pictures and created a photo book out of them.  We will probably do that again this time.

Snacking in the cafe

Snacking in the cafe

Lily

Savannah, Emmie, Lily, Christian

Savannah, Christian, Zia

Anthony

Christian

this bear had OCD he kept doing the same thing the same way over and over

This monkey could've entertained them for hours!  He kept doing tricks.

Group shot

naked mole rat the kids thought these were really cool

We usually miss the eagles when we are there but we saw them this time

the penguins are everyone's favorite

Friday we had to do some grocery shopping.  Then Chelsea took her road test.  We had to run home to get her homeschool paperwork because she needed it to go and get her license.  She is very excited to be driving on her own!  She started a part time job at Sonic last week and I am glad too that she can drive herself back and forth to work now.  Only 2 weeks til graduation!

I hope you had a great week in your homeschool!

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Curriculum Favorites: Institute For Excellence In Writing

When I first started hearing people talk about IEW, I thought that it was all an exaggeration.  It seemed like every time a homeschooler asked a question about a writing curriculum everyone was going on and on about how great IEW was.  I remember thinking, "It can't be that great.  There are several good writing programs out there and everyone acts."  What I didn't know at that time was yes there are a lot of good writing programs out there and we have used many in our homeschool.  But, IEW is truly a great writing program.

The first program I had an opportunity to try from IEW was PAL Reading and Writing.  This program was designed for Pre-K- 2nd grade. I was more than impressed!  I wrote a complete review on the program that  you can read here.  One of the great things about the writing portion of PAL is that even though it is geared for younger student, it teaches them the techniques they will need not only for the older IEW programs but for future writing in their lives as well.

The next course I had an opportunity to review from IEW was the Teaching Writing With Structure and Style Seminar along with the Student Writing Intensive Level C.  Here is my review.  The TWSS Seminar is a fantastic course to teach teachers (and homeschool parents of course!) how to teach their students how to write.  Mr. Pudewa is a very interesting and engaging speaker and everything he teaches is in a clear and concise manner.  The model that is taught will work for a variety of age levels and for every subject your child has to write in.  I cannot say enough good things about this seminar.  Everyone should watch it!

The Student Writing Intensive Courses come in 3 levels A (grades 3-5), B (6-8) and C (9-12.)  Students do not have to go through and complete all three of these.  These courses are based on the TWSS seminar and contains exercises for students to practice key word outlines and using the stylistic techniques and dress ups.  Again, one of the best things about this program is that students can use these techniques in anything they will have to write in the future.  I was so impressed with SWI C that I purchased SWI A to use with my 4 and 6th graders this year.  They did fantastic with the program.  One of the biggest problems my 6th grader has had in the past with writing was that he could never figure out what to say.  IEW solved that problem for him and he did a great job learning the stylistic techniques.  He put the free app on his iPod so he refer back if he got stuck.  My 4th grader did very well too.  He is dyslexic and has a hard time getting things down on paper, but by dictating to me what he wanted to say he came up with some amazing papers.  I was so proud of them both!  Next year we will be using one of IEW's themed writing courses but I haven't decided which one yet.

So, how teacher intensive is IEW?  The TWSS DVDs I watched over the course of two weeks in the summer.  You can also watch them as you go along if you want to.  The other courses are going to require you to spend time teaching your children.  It is not something you can hand to them and have them do on their own especially in the beginning , unless they are in the upper high school grades (in my opinion.)  I watched the DVDs with my boys and made sure they understood what they needed to do.  The first few key word outlines we all did together.  As the year progressed my 6th grader did much of the writing on his own and I just looked it over when he was finished.  I worked with my 4th grader pretty much every step of the way the entire year.  PAL is something you have to sit down and do with your child every step of the way. How long depends on you and your child.  We spent 45 min to an hour and a half every day on PAL, depending on what we were doing and how his attention span was holding up.

What about cost?  Cost is something that we all have to consider and IEW is one of the more expensive writing programs I have seen.  TWSS costs $169.  This includes all of the DVDs and a seminar notebook.  This would be a great class for a homeschool group to take together and then you could divide the cost and just purchase the extra notebooks.  The Student Writing Intensive Courses are $109 for the DVDs, TWSS overview, student 3 ring notebook with dividers and the student pack.  You can choose to purchase the student pack as an ebook which comes with permission to copy within families.  For me this helps to offset some of the cost as I have already had 2 children use SWI A and 4 more that can use it.  The themed writing courses are $49 for teacher and student books.  PAL Reading is $69 and the writing is $89 which also includes All About Spelling Level One.  You have to decide if it fits into your budget or not as each family is different.  Many of these courses have been used in co-ops as well which helps lower the cost. I know the majority of my homeschool budget goes to reading, writing, and math.

If you are looking for a great writing program for your homeschool, take a look and see what IEW has to offer.

Happy Homeschooling!

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