I bought the complete set for DS. Here is my "review:"
I give it an "A" for the format and a "C" for content. What AOP did was take its LifePac worktext sets and put them on CD ROM with interactive questions/ quizzes. The lessons and problems can be printed out so you could also use the discs as a resource to print out worktexts. The way the software is structured is *excellent,* however, the content is clunky and at worst a real snoozefest.
For example, in History/ Geography there is a unit on farming, with several lessons about corn, corn, and more corn, different insects that attack corn crops, different diseases that afflict corn, the best time to plant corn crops, and on and on and on. It's very dull. The math subject is very weak and I would not recommend it at all. Singapore Math is a hundred times better.
The curriculum is VERY Christian and Creationist. We are Jewish so I had to pick and choose among the Bible subject lessons, and some of it was over the top. For example, there are video clips during Bible lessons of elderly professors looking very studious, poitning to complex diagrams on a blackboard to show that the walls of Jericho really did fall at the blast of the trumpet, and this is indisuptable fact due to the trajectory of the slopes found by archaeologists, etc etc. I found it endearing but others might not.
Except for the math, though, the content of the subjects is very traditional and thorough, if dull. My suggestion is that you order the demo CD (it's free), and look at the overview of the units in the grade you might buy. There is a Yahoo SOS group you could join, too.
My DS burned out on it after a few months (but he used it every day during those months), but I hope he'll go back to it, except for the math, for which I'm going to use Singapore hopefully through high school. When you're ordering the whole set, you're getting five discs for the price of four, so if you're planning on not using the math, you won't save money, unless you plan on reselling the set. I don't regret buying the whole set, especially since I have more children who can try it out later on.
They really need to do something about the math, though.
