I was thrilled to buy our first Noeo kit and dive in this year. I've discovered a couple things:
What I love: my 5 and 6 year olds love the read alouds and are engaged in the experiments. It really is not boring at all; yay!
What I don't love:
1) Juggling three workbooks. That is not, in my opinion, "open and go." Would love to see these consolidated!
2) Not all of the experiment items are included in the kits, and most of the "common household items" I actually don't have in my house, and needed to go out and purchase, which was just one more organizational obstacle for me. Again, not "open and go." We are currently stonewalled and can't complete an experiment because I don't have anything styrofoam on hand, and refuse to buy a whole package of styrofoam plates just for one experiment. Kinda annoying.
3) I wish there was a coloring page/activity page for each lesson for younger grades instead of note-taking. For now, I have them answer the questions orally because the lab journal has just too much writing required for kindergarten and first grade. I am also printing off various activity pages for each lesson wherever I can find them online, which my kids love but it is a lot of extra work for me.
4) What would really be the icing on the cake for me, would be an extended book list of titles I can check out from the library to really bulk up the read-aloud portion. We rely heavily on reading time with our younger kids and the included books are great, but I've had to do additional research to find enough on-topic reading. Overall, for my family, this is currently a 3 out of 5 stars because of the above issues, and I'm not sure if we will try again next year with another Noeo kit based on the amount of additional prep and supplementation I've had to do to make it work for us. Perhaps for older grades it would be more successful!
