Wednesday, June 2, 2010

My Sonlight order has arrived!!

It arrived!! I ordered on Friday last week and it arrived today Wednesday (6 days) is impressive in my book for a curriculum to come all the way from America to Australia. Sometimes it takes up to 2 weeks for post to come from the other side of Australia to us!! I was disappointed when it first came as only one box arrived, only half my Sonlight how can I wait for another day for the rest :( Luckily the other box arrived 3 hours later with a different courier, somehow they had got separated, so we were able to unpack and admire all these new books and resources, for me to do the usual panic why did I buy this, how am I going to use that, how soon can I start it?

My only complaint is that I got caught with customs GST and taxes this time which I have never had to pay before. Importing anything over $1000 attracts a tax (I discovered) my order was translated from approx $900 American into $1000 Australian $$ and so attracted a tax. Next time I will split the order and watch this as it cost me another $190 for my order!!!!

If you are ordering from Australia BEWARE of this import tax. Also if you split your order and process it at the same time and all the packages arrive they will add them together, if total cost is over $1000 you will still be charged the tax. So next time I order it will be in 2 bits, with a few days between them. I already have my next order sitting in my shopping cart waiting to go!!

Consequently instead of finishing our volcano study today the girls spent the morning reading all the new books. I wish I had stopped to get a photo of them. One was curled up on the beanbag with the dog reading, the others were scattered around the room reading.

The MathTacular DVD is great - I only ordered 1 thinking I would see what it was like before I got the rest but, after seeing part of it we will be getting the rest, the girls were prepared to sit through the whole thing in one sitting if I had let them!! We are doing Math-U-See but will be using this to reinforce the concepts when they struggle with something.

So I now have P 3/4 to do with Monkey and Science K and 1, then some bits that I had to replace in 1 (we lost the IG in our move) and somehow lost The Usborne Time Traveller since we have been here. Zebra was so please to see this replaced she loves it and reads it for fun. I also got the Handwriting without tears program, and some LA workbooks.

I have decided that there is not point hoping for a perfect curriculum to fit my children's particular learning needs and so we will make the LA work by altering and modifying it and adding in my own bits as needed. In the words of Sue Patrick "I believe that any good, Christian-based curriculum will work with your children, regardless of their learning style. It may not be the best, but you bought it for a reason" (pg 66 Workbox System).

My reason for buying Sonlight I like the books more and more each year. It comes with the IG which I can use or alter to fit our life. At the moment I only have 3 days for school as the other days are taken with Physio and other activities so we do Sonlight 3 days a week and it still works!! and (big plus) I only have to order from one place.

2 comments:

  1. Happy Box Day!

    Great tip about the GST. I'm sorry you got slammed with it. That's rough.

    ~Luke

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  2. There is no tax on educational materials but there is an import tax on any item over $1000 Australian value!!

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