Thursday, June 25, 2009

Books!



And I've done it. All the books for AO Year 2 are in my possession. I'm still waiting for D'Aulaire's Abraham Lincoln, which should be here in a few days. The workbooks on the bottom of the picture are from "The Complete Book of..." series, which ds loves and we'll use to supplement. The last thing I'm buying the the TT Math 5 which ds is dying for. We did a bunch of sample lessons online and he's so into it. That costs about $120. The AO books came to a total (after tax and shipping) of $144. So W's total for the AO books, math program, and supplemental workbooks comes to about $265. Woohoo! The only other stuff I buy is the sale stuff from the Target and Staples back-to-school weeks in August. That comes to another $50 or so - for both W and J. (10 notebooks for $1, $.25 glue and crayons, packs of pens and pencils for $.50 - love that).

So, even though J enjoyed Teaching Textbooks, I realized that she's way more drawn to actual books, not the computer, when it comes to learning. I just purchased the first 4 Life of Fred books for her. Those are right up her alley and she's excited about them. J did extremely well on her CAT (standardized test) but more review of the basics will only help her in high school. The books are "Fractions", "Decimals & Percents", "Beginning Algebra", and "Advanced Algebra". All 4 of these came out to about $100 less than the TT program. J decided she wants to listen in on W's Year 2readings - she loved what she caught of the Year 1 stuff - and wants to try doing written narrations based on the readings. She'll have her own booklist of classics to read throughout the year as well. J's total cost for the year's academic stuff will be about $150. Maybe I'll splurge and get the kids nice nature notebooks this year, too.

2 comments:

Marlene said...

I've been looking into the AO program, and do like most of the books they recommend. It seems that the kids are really enjoying it. Maybe I'll jump into it for next year.

As for the Complete Book of...series, I love them! Have all 3 that you show in the pic, and C, enjoys them and has learned a lot. I think many people underestimate these books, I use them as core texts and just build on each topic through literature, internet etc... If you don't have it, W may enjoy the Complete... U.S. History book. We've been using it this past year, and aren't even half way through it because we just keep getting deeper into the topics. You can take a look at mine if you'd like.

NYCitymomx3 said...

Thanks Marlene! I agree the books can actually stand on their own. I'd love to see the history one.

If you have any questions about AO, feel free to ask me. :)