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My 8 yo does martial arts, and my 6 yo does ballet. I also have speech therapy for the 8 yo, which keeps us busy.

We start with prayer, the bible readings from the daily Mass, and a reading about the saint of the day. The whole day always goes better when we put God first.

My two younger DDs (8 and 6) are doing Beyond together starting next week. We always start the first Monday in August, but I am sure it is coming sooner this year! Summer went by so fast! But we are looking forward to finally starting HOD!

If I don't get too excited to wait that long, I am actually planning to wait until February to start DITHR. I have a DD who is doing speech therapy intensively and still needs to finish phonics. When we finish the phonics, I will start DITHR. Until then, she will just be reading DITHR books of the s...

I am finding HOD to be much richer than it looks at first glance or on the sample pages, so I would stay with Bigger, if I were you. I found out the hard way with my oldest that it is a lot easier to enrich something that is not enough than to back down from something that is too hard. I doubt Bigge...

I am the person who asked the question in the other email. I got my order for Beyond, and I don't see anything in it that would be a problem. I am finding HOD to be pretty adaptable, but there are some very minor places I might add in something or swap out something to better fit the Catholic faith....

We will start the first week of August, doing school four days a week. After Labor Day, we will move to five days a week for the first time since we started homeschooling. That is going to be an adjustment! But I am fitting in speech therapy twice a week, Tuesday afternoon homeschool PE and several ...

I love the list. I found that I really wanted a list giving me specific examples of which books fall into which genre and which books are at which level. Very helpful!

Shelly

I ordered late on Saturday, and my box came this morning! I decided to try combining and ordered Beyond. I also got the sample reading list, and it is very impressive. I am already making a pile from my bookshelves, even though I won't be starting DITHR right away. Very exciting day!

Shelly

Thanks for answering, Krysta! It is reassuring to know I am not the only Catholic using HOD. I really like everything I have seen, and I think it will be a great choice for my two younger girls. I still haven't ordered yet because I am still trying to decide whether to combine them or separate them,...

Thanks so much, Carrie (and everyone else)! This really helps me figure this out. I think what I am going to do for now is to order the Beyond package and the Bigger guide and really look it over to see if combining in Beyond will work the way I want it to. If it doesn't, I can always order the rest...

OK, I think I am going to do separate programs. Looking ahead, I just don't know if my 1st grader will be ready for moving ahead that fast, or if I really want to have to push her at that point either. So I think I will be doing Bigger for my third grader for sure. For my 1st grader, I think my opti...

Thanks for the replies. I have looked at the charts, and I really think my 3rd grader places in Bigger, and I am now thinking I want her to do Bigger. I love the history and science books in it, and I think it would a great mix of fun and challenge for her. So I guess I need to figure out now what t...

My name is Shelly. I have three girls who are 10, 7 and 5, and this is our third year homeschooling. We have bounced around in the areas of history and science trying to find something that would be thorough and fun for the girls but easy for me to follow. We have been consistent in LA and math, and...