Monday, January 12, 2009

Confessions of a Sporadic Blogger

Well, it's true, I have been outted as a digital immigrant. Could you just google that phrase on your own? It does tire this old lady so to insert all those links...It's always nice to have a name for your condition. ;)

Here I go again w/ Sonlight vs.... It is my most popular topic, so I just keep churnin' em out.

Cost is such a huge factor. My Father's World prices look so much cheaper. That can be deceiving, however. Well if you have one child, that is all you need. But for me, I have my 4 kids, plus one more student so when I look at a mfw program, if there are any consummables needed for each student, that raises my price considerably. $2 here, $5 there multiplied by 4 adds up quickly. Then the fact that w/ Sonlight, I can buy all of the readers w/ a simple click. Some who use and love mfw will quickly object here. Because mfw curriculum comes w/ a very extensive list of readers and go along books that can be purchased(you would have to find them on your own) or borrowed from the library.

Check the SL forums for the true confessions of those who used mfw, checked out books, and accrued a huge library fine!(I will just admit right here that if I ever did mfw, I would definitely not borrow books too often,I would go to the library and just have the kids read them in the library. In fact, I do that right now.) ;)

It's nice to have all of the SL books in the house. And when a reader gets misplaced, I just go on to the next one, no fines, no late notices, no book replacement fee.That is so nice.

But if I had a smaller homeschool budget, I wouldn't mind trying mfw(if it actually did turn out to be cheaper, that is), it seems like a wonderful company.It would be hard to leave SL definitely!

If my budget needs to be smaller, perhaps I will just have to take Rosetta Stone out of my SL cart! lol

4 comments:

Mrs. Darling said...

Here we can renew at home online and we get notices in our email when the time is up. You can have the same book out for five months if you renew it monthly. It actually works great for curriculum use.

So tell us whats been happening around there. You sure are scarce! :)

Luke Holzmann said...

[laughing!] You crack me up. It's true: links are hard [smile].

I love the rest of the post as well. And, yes, Rosetta Stone is pricey (but it's good too). I became a Club member just by purchasing three years of Russian [smile].

~Luke

Tara B. said...

I am enjoying these SL vs. MFW posts as this is a decision I have been struggling with.

We have used SL for the past six years of our twelve years of homeschooling and have been nothing but pleased. But, to save some money next year I have given serious consideration to MFW. But, now especially knowing about needing to utilize the library, we wont be doing that!

This year was the first I didn't buy a complete core. I bought the IG and have been buying some here and there and trying to use my library. NEVER AGAIN!! Even with the online access for the library it has been a pain to say the least, books haven't arrived on time, etc... SL is worth every penny and then some!! What other curriculum has the kids begging to do school on days off?

Jennifer Sr. said...

Thanks Tara for the wonderful comment! Now that the neighbor we homeschool will not be joining us next year, I might be able to incorporate more of my SL materials. For now, I am using FIAR again. :)