Talk to me about WinterPromise's Animal Worlds program....do you use it in conjunction with other language arts programs or in place of? Would it be appropriate for a 1st grader? (We've done K this year and he's doing some very,very easy reading, but not quite whole books yet).

Animal Worlds is more a science/geography program and you would need to add a language arts program to it for it to be complete. We are using it this year with a pre k and 1st grader and it is great. They both love the books involved.

We are using it (ok, getting ready to) with my 5 yo dd and 6 yo ds. DS is doing second grade work in grammar (just moved into 2nd grade materials this week!) and also in math - so I consider him 2nd grade now. AW looks like it's going to be a lot of fun for all of us. The read aloud books look interesting and the activity books look like things he will especially enjoy.

In addition to AW we are adding in our own LA and math. For LA we are using the Explode the Code books (he's starting 3 as of today), Rod and Staff English 2 (which he is so excited about since it's like his big brothers' books), and a variety of reading material. He's working his way through his huge Curious George collection right now - he'll probably move on to the 2nd grade readers from Sonlight Intermediate 2 program that Nate used. They are all fun to read books that I know he will enjoy.

I feel like we have everything covered with that.