Very cool curriculum

I have never written a curriculum review before so who knows if what I have to say will be relevant to what situation you are in...  here goes
In preschool with my oldest I didn't want to fork out the money to buy curriculum when there were so many free ones available on line.  We choose a letter of the week curriculum and I painstakingly copied everything I would need for every day onto a spreadsheet and then organized it accordingly.  It never occurred to me that this method would not work for my son who is not a visual or auditory learner.  It was frustrating to attempt this method also because it required weekly trips to the library to stock up on books to emphasize the subject of letters and their corresponding sounds, but our library didn't have most of the listed books.  The "cool" part about that is I was supposed to be able to switch one book out for something else on the subject but library shelves in the children's section are very hard to find certain books by subject matter since they are all grouped together under the subject 'children' and then organized by author.
Eventually I strayed from my well thought out format on the advice of several other homeschooling moms and began only loosely following the plan. The major breakthrough was when studying the letter T I took Caeden and his sister outside for a walk. We pointed out everything that was or looked like a T.  The t on a stop sign (I lifted him high in the air and let him trace it with his finger those signs are really high!), the shape of the telephone poles, a tree branch we saw.. anything that looked like a T. Then we pointed out things that made the t sound or started with a t. Truck, tire, tie, tick.... When we came to a pile of branches a neighbor had left by the road we carried a few into the field right next door and I let Caeden make his own T. 
The next day he remembered what we had done and could say,  write, and sound out a T for his daddy!
Finally he understood what I was telling him!  And due to not going through the alphabet in order (so I could match holidays with letters) we were only a few months in and still had plenty of time to get him to understand the rest.
The following year I decided that I could do this without anyone else's curriculum.  The only thing I needed was to understand the way my child learned (hands on and lots of science) and a general understanding of what was expected at his age. I choose to use the core curriculum as a loose fitting guide and made my own curriculum.
In this I discovered that Caeden hated coloring. I thought hands on would mean he would do things with his hands...  I was wrong to some extent. .. but I believed that he needed some exposure to sitting still and continued on with the coloring though it was painful for us both. Every thing about kindergarten was fun except the coloring.
The other problem I encountered was that my so. Was significantly more advanced in science than the core curriculum was asking of him, we started a 3rd grade science book half way through the year when I realized this and found a free one at a garage sale.
Because I started Caeden early I was unsure if he was ready for each grade as we approach it, but he would pull through about 9 weeks in and show me he was indeed ready for the challenge.  
When we started first grade I had a few extra challenges to face, his sister would be starting preschool in a loose and general fashion, and I would no longer have Internet access except through my phone. This would make creating my own curriculum nearly impossible and I really liked the idea of finding people who could homeschool along side me, always my original intention.  I talked to people from my church who told me about curriculum based on subjects like science or history and following topics that pertained to the thing that needed to be taught but allowing all subjects, math, history, science, literature, etc. To be taught inside of the topic. ... I believe it is called topical curriculum. 
I loved the idea!  I told the lady I had never heard of that before and she introduced me to one based on  history.  I studied it thoroughly and liked the method but hated that it involved a lot of bookwork and sitting still which I knew Caeden could not adjust to.
I figured there had to be more options and went on the hunt to find one that suited us and our needs. I found one that quoted one of our former first ladies in  saying children need to wiggle and we shouldn't make them stop.  The curriculum was called konos, and it focused it's topics on building godly character traits in our kids through activities that did not require sitting.  The downfall for me was that it required supplemental teaching to cover all bases thoroughly.   Such as math, and learning to read, once the children know how to read there are plenty of assignments with both fictional and non fictional books to read but the makers don't teach you how to teach your kids to read.
I decided to go with konos... The biggest thrill was that it was chock full of crafts and science and history that allows for movement and activity. 
I had to then research math curriculum but that is for another day.
Konos is designed for K-8th grade, and made with the intention that all ages could follow the same topic at different levels of understanding.  I can use the same curriculum on all my kids at once, and you only have to buy it once so when your oldest is out of 8th grade and your youngest is still doing the curriculum you just circle back to a book you did before that child started school.
The are two schools of thought about this book from what I found in online reviews.  One is that it is super flexible and can easily be used by anyone with minimal preparation or cost, the other is that it takes a lot of forethought and preparation and minimal to moderate cost .  Why such different ideas about it?
The authors themselves designed this curriculum for their children and answer the question pretty easily.  If you intend to do every project that is listed on every subject in every day, you will need to spend some money and you will have to be an organized person, the intention that they had though was to spark ideas in your mommy brain.  If you don't have the time to do a craft, don't do it, instead make up a game for riding in the car that will help drive home the idea behind the subject.  If you don't have the book listed or don't want to go to the library find something you have that matches... don't have a book about bears? Read goldilocks and the three bears.  Don't have the supplies needed for that craft? Make up your own craft or just skip it, that's OK too.
Caeden is now starting 2nd grade and this is our second year with konos.
Our first year we ended up moving several times and being overly prepared was not an option so I would lessen plan sunday night for the whole week writing out what we would be doing so I wouldn't have to rely on the bulky book every day and flipping through the pages to locate the crafts we were supposed to do.  If I didn't have supplies I had no time to go get them and we would either substitute something, or completely skip the activity.
This year I had all summer to prepare and didn't like having my week on a single page (or two) and made spread sheets on my computer,  one for each day... This took weeks and I don't really recommend it if you don't have the time or desire to be overly prepared. .. but I had a goal to do 'every' craft and activity possible. .. so I needed to be very ready.  After laying out my daily plans I bought all of my supplies.  The curriculum comes in several books and one book lasts about two years so I had no curriculum cost this year and spent $200 buying craft supplies and activities along with paper,  pencils, scissors, glue and crayons for each child. Not bad for anyone homeschool or not. If I were sending my kids to public school they would probably cost me close to the same after backpacks, new shoes,  school supplies,  and new clothes (I am sure you can thrift shop for less but really this isn't a bad cost for home or public school).
I also didn't want to visit the library at all this year (I don't enjoy the children's section) and cataloged all our books at home to see if I had something to fill every space... I did (which should tell you we have a bunch of books) I only have to borrow one book from a friend this year.
We are one week into our school year and I have to say all my time and energy putting all I need for a day (the writers combined it into a page per week but you have to look up the references for crafts on other pages) has really been making the day run more smoothly and I feel more prepared to deal with the individual levels of understanding my children have as well as personality traits already at work in them.
I also really like that since I laid out the curriculum and projects so throughly I am actually doing them with the kids instead of chickening out when we have to sew something together or do something outside that I might otherwise just skip because I didn't feel like it.  The lay out sort of keeps me accountable.

So here is what I think summed up... Konos is an amazingly freestyle program that should work for anyone as long as they understand their strengths and weaknesses and use it accordingly.   The character traits actually have to be explained to the children which is easily skipped and is vital to teaching about them.  Being diligent to do as many activities as possible and having the talk about why things are they way they are is also vital... If you don't do any of that you will still end up reading to them and going over bible verses but you will have pretty much wasted your money because the whole program is made for the activities.
I hope this review is helpful.  I absolutely love the program, though I am not fond of page turning while trying to teach a lesson, you also have the freedom to find different listed activities to substitute for those you cannot or don't want to do pretty easily.
Thanks for reading!  Good luck with your school year!