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Do I need the Home instruction guides?

It depends on how comfortable you are with math and the Singapore method of teaching thing,s especially bar graphs. I made it through all of Singapore Primary without the HIG but I am a mathy person and there was at least one instance in every book from 4A on that I had to scratch my head and ponder a while to figure out how to explain something to my dc without using algebra. There were a few instances where I just couldn't wrap my mind around the bar graph model and used algebra to explain a problem. Fortunately my dd grasped the algebra well and my ds grasped the bar graph method better than I did so often he could explain the bar graph method to me. I would say if you feel the least bit unsure that the HIG could be very helpful especially beginning around 4B or so.

I agree, there were times moving through the examples in the textbook that I was trying to figure out how they did that while ds was waiting to learn how to do the problems. While we could figure it out most times which was a good learning experience for both of us because sometimes ds was teaching me but other times it just had to wait until dad the math whiz got home. Once we got the home instruction guides math went much more smoothly and quickly. The answers section often explained how you get to the answer which was also a big teaching help. I began to learn more and understand how Singapore teaches. They make it simple and easily retainable as long as it was explained. We found their approach was different from math whiz dad's sometimes. I found the guide a big help. Blessings.