Homeschool eStore:
On Demand Curriculum for Everyone
I only recently stumbled across Homeschool eStore, through a post on one of the email lists I belong to. At the time, they were offering a free set of printable Thanksgiving-themed notebooking pages in PDF format. I downloaded the file, and looked around the site to see what else they have to offer and was fairly impressed. I've watched the site for a couple of weeks now to see what else they had to offer, because they actually offer a free file each week. I've recently downloaded a HUGE (50+ pages) file that has all of the necessary printables and instructions for a 3-folder lap book folder about spiders. Shortly before that, I decided to take the plunge and order a piece of curriculum from them in order to evaluate the full process.
If you've never visited Homeschool eStore, then you need to know that they do not sell physical curricula. All of their items are electronic, and you simply download everything you buy. So you never have to pay for shipping, and you never have to wait impatiently for the UPS man to arrive. Everything is ready to roll as soon as your payment is processed.
The site is arranged well so that you can easily find just about anything you're looking for. You can browse by age ranges, subject, or by publisher name. There are hundreds of titles available for all ages, and in all sorts of varieties. There are lap book folder printables (they call them "Learn 'N Folders"), regular textbook-style books, unit studies, fun items and more. Some curricula include audio files. All of the subjects are covered, and the prices seem to be mostly reasonable.
After choosing your purchases, checkout is pretty easy. They accept credit cards or PayPal. PayPal was the only problem that I happened to have with my order. I used an existing balance in my PayPal account to pay for my purchase, and while I did receive my PayPal confirmation immediately as I should have, I did not hear from the company for quite a while. According the the site FAQ's, I should have been able to download immediately, but I never could get a download link. About 48 hours after my order, I contacted the company to ask what was going on, and to their credit, I received a reply the next morning apologizing for the delay and an explanation that using a PayPal balance doesn't always show up correctly on their end. The customer service rep pushed my store confirmation through so that I was then able to download my purchase. Of course, having dial-up meant that I was downloading for a while! (The site does tell you how large most of the files are so that you can decide if you want something that size or not.)
Overall, I am pleased with my experience with Homeschool eStore. I love the idea of being able to receive my purchase in such a short time, and now I own my purchases and can print them as many times as I want — a bonus with more than one child in a family! While having to print the books yourself can be a drawback (luckily, my husband can print them for me at work), you're not going to end up spending much more on the first book than you would at a bookstore, and if you need to print more than one copy over time, you are definitely going to save money because you're not buying the book from scratch each time. In addition, if a page gets messed up, or needs to be reworked, you can just print that one page. While I wasn't as pleased with the delay in processing, the quick and personal response I received from them mitigated any irritation over the problem. I wish they had a little more information in their item details, but overall I can definitely recommend Homeschool eStore for easy, convenient purchases.
