Kolbe review?

I was asked about whether or not, and if so when, I would be posting a review of Kolbe's first grade. Even though we're not quite done, I suppose I could put it up. It has been a while since I posted about school.

Easy ones first.
Rachel likes school. She has some supermarket workbooks that involve counting or letter recognition that she likes. Or she uses some of our laminated placemats for tracing her letters or just scribbling. She's happy, we're able to work. It's all good.

Dale has finished the MCP kindergarten math workbook. [Brag bit: he'll be five in a few weeks.] We got the first grade one some time back and he paraded around the house with it, just tickled. He's decided though that he likes phonics (still in kindergarten) better now. I don't understand why; the concepts haven't gotten very tough at all. It's been counting and writing the numbers so far.
And he admits he's reading, too. Finally.

Madeleine is almost done with first grade. She's not really fazed that Dale is in the same math book as she is; she knows she's got a couple hundred pages on him. I've put most of her second grade subjects on the back burner since I want to finish the first grade ones by May. Math is the one I see as the only potential problem to that; science and grammar will not be a problem.
We're almost done with the first grade grammar book and I haven't needed the teacher's manual at all.
I love, love, love the new science series (Harcourt). Since you use it for two years it's worth every penny. The science experiments really aren't that tough to manage, either. The most recent involved colored water, three containers, a marker, and a measuring cup. We can do that. Kolbe's course plans don't involve the workbook at all even though they sell it. I like to have it for those times when we haven't been able to do the experiments due to time constraints.

Does that help?