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Hi Everyone!!

I'm strongly considering purchasing Little Hearts and Bigger Hearts. I'm thinking of using them both this August. Is anyone doing this??? What does your schedule look like?? Any advice on teaching using two different packages?

Thanks so much!!

Welcome! I'm only using one program right now, but I love Bigger! I'm done in about 2 to 3 hours a day with my 3rd and 4th graders.
There were some threads on here about scheduling multiple programs-I'm not swift enough to find you the links, but you'll find that the consensus is that Heart of Dakota programs are easy to teach more than one at a time

I don't have a lot of advice for how this works..I've only used Beyond... so far. However, I will be using Bigger and Little Hearts in the fall. I will begin Little Hearts next week, going slowly to extend it for at least a year and a half; and Bigger with my older ones when they finish the curriculum we already have. So, we would be in the same boat if you decide to do this. My older ones are 8 and 10, so I will be using the extension pack to make it 'beefier' for my 10 year old. Good luck in your quest-hope to 'see' you around.

We are using Bigger and Little together and it works great. It is very easy to run both. I do the read alouds with the little kids while the bigger kids to LA and Math. They go together well too as far as what they cover.

I am probably not the best one to give you an example of what we do that will work for everyone just because I have a few variables that others may not have. But there are several of us on the board that use both together very well. I know Mary is actually using these two plus LHTH and it is working very well for her.

But however you do it they are very easy to run in the same family. Most people say Bigger takes about 3 hours and Little takes about 1 1/2 hours. So very doable.

Hoping some other moms will tell how they are doing it so you can get a better idea.

hugsathome,

Welcome! I am actually teaching both "Little Hearts..." and "Bigger.." this year, along with having my 6th grader in his own program (and our just turned 2 year old running around). So, you can actually do it quite easily.

Here's a link to a recent thread on this same topic:
http://www.heartofdakota.com/board/viewtopic.php?t=542

Here's also a scheduling thread that has some helpful hints in it:
http://www.heartofdakota.com/board/viewtopic.php?t=95

Also, there's more moms that do this that may chime in here too!

Blessings,
Carrie

Wow. Great advice.

I may end up doing Beyond and Bigger instead of Little and Bigger.

Can anyone tell me the "hours" for each level????

Little Hands - hours?
Little Hearts - hours??
Beyond - hours?
Bigger - hours?
Preparing- hours??

If a level can be done in say 3 hours....is that including LA and Math (with Rod and Staff or whatever) ...or is that in addition???

Just trying to understand.

Thanks a ton.

When I say Bigger takes me and my girls 2 to 3 hours, I mean as written in the guide, and including math language arts and Drawn into the Heart of Reading level 2/3 for my older girl and emerging readers for my younger girl. I am using the Rod and Staff Grammar 2 for both and Singapore Primary Math 3A and 3B for the 4th grader and Singapore Primary Math 2A and 2B for my 2rd grader, and a different cursive.
With all that, yes, we are done in 2 to 3 hours. I don't remember the times for all the other programs, but I think Little Hands is 30 minutes a day and Little Hearts is and hour and a half-Beyond must be about one and a half to 2. Someone will correct me if I'm wrong!

Hi! We're doing LHFHG and Bigger... right now, and I second what has already been said that it is easy to run several programs at once - and also still FUN! I've done all the HOD programs so far, and this is about how long they've taken us:
LHTH: 20-30 min.
LHFHG: 1 1/2 hours.
BLHFHG: 2 to 2 1/2 hours
Bigger: 3 to 3 1/2 hours
If you go off on "bunny trails" more, it will take longer, but otherwise, these times fit the average day!

I think that it is most important to place your children where they fall on the placement chart, unless you have different circumstances that make it wise to choose differently. Teaching 2 or even 3 HOD programs is honestly easy and enjoyable to do, so I'd go with whatever you found out on the placement chart if you can. You can always stretch programs out over several years by going half-speed. We've done this before, and that worked well too.

It's so nice to see you here, and hope to hear more from you!!!

In Christ,
Julie

I just have a quick question here to clarify...
When you're teaching more than one HOD program with your kiddos (which I haven't done yet...but will get to soon), some of the time overlaps, right? Like...when the one doing Bigger is doing handwriting and English or math, you could use 20-30 min to do LHTH with a younger one. And, maybe they're listening to the same read-alouds.
So, if you're doing more than one program, you don't have to add up 3 hrs and 2 hrs and 30 min... Am I right?

Kathleen

I think you'd be right-I have an older child not using HOD, and that's how I fit her in-if the youngers are doing something independently, I can work with her if she needs me, or at least look over what she's done. I imagine doing more than 1 HOD program would overlap, too.

Welcome Hugsathome, (((Waving from Florida)))

It is so nice to meet you. I know Carrie linked a post where I shared how we use 3 different programs, so I won't go into details. I just wanted to tell you that personally I found splitting the programs and doing them separately felt more "normal" and "easier" to do then when I tried to start by combining them.

I can't tell you why? Other programs I've used there was NO WAY I could have combined them, but with HOD not only is it easy, it's EASIER!

Thanks for all of the advice. I am beginning to understand HOD and I am so excited about ordering it.

Sometimes, it's hard to imagine how HOD works (with multiple children) when I've had no experience with it. Thank you, thank you for helping me to understand. Sometimes I feel like I've got rocks in my head.

Thanks!!
((waving from Florida, too!!))

Kathleen wrote:I just have a quick question here to clarify...
When you're teaching more than one HOD program with your kiddos (which I haven't done yet...but will get to soon), some of the time overlaps, right? Like...when the one doing Bigger is doing handwriting and English or math, you could use 20-30 min to do LHTH with a younger one. And, maybe they're listening to the same read-alouds.
So, if you're doing more than one program, you don't have to add up 3 hrs and 2 hrs and 30 min... Am I right?

Kathleen

You are totally right! We're done in about 3 1/2 hours, doing Bigger and LHFHG. When one is independent, the other is with me. We're together on Hymns, storytime, etc. It really goes very smoothly!

In Christ,
Julie